Mort, El-Kurd and Pollard make Forward Prizes for Poetry shortlists

Poets including Helen Mort, Mohammed El-Kurd and Clare Pollard have been shortlisted for the 2022 Forward Prizes for Poetry.

Mort is up for the £10,000 Forward Prize for Best Collection with The Illustrated Woman (Chatto & Windus) alongside Kaveh Akbar, Anthony Joseph and others, while El-Kurd’s Rifqa (Haymarket) is up for the £5,000 Felix Dennis Prize for Best First Collection with Warsan Shire, Holly Hopkins and more. 

Pollard is in the running for the £2,000 Forward Prize for Best Single Poem for "Pollen" (Bad Lilies) alongside Louisa Campbell, Cecilia Knapp, Nick Laird and Carl Phillips. 

Fatima Bhutto, chair of the judges, said: “To spend the better part of a year thinking about poetry has been an incredible gift. The collections we pored over reminded me of care and the power strangers exert over each other in so many delicate and fragile ways. We have assembled here a collection of debut writers, masters, believers and doubters, all of them innate observers of our intimate lives. Some of them you may already know, others will be a revelation.”

Mónica Parle, co-executive director of the Forward Arts Foundation, the charity which runs the Forward Prizes, added: “We are incredibly proud of this year’s shortlist: it represents such a strong mix of known names and new talent, and perfectly embodies our aims at Forward, to champion the diverse scope of contemporary poetry published in the UK and Ireland. 

“Through the reading and shortlisting process, the judges spoke often about their sense of responsibility toward the incredible selection of books submitted, and how they felt that the wealth of works in contention across all categories was a strong testament to the vitality of poetry in the UK today.” 

The winners of this year’s Forward Prizes for Poetry will be announced on 28th November at a live event in the Contact Theatre in Manchester, marking the start of a new partnership with the venue. 

Lucy Macnab, co-executive director of the Forward Arts Foundation, said: “We view this partnership as a significant step toward our future strategic vision: to move away from the dominance of London in the UK’s creative and cultural life; a drive toward working more inclusively with young people, emerging voices, and diverse audiences, putting them at the centre of our practice; and working with partners that put poetry at the heart of their creative offer.”

The full shortlists

The 2022 Forward Prize for Best Collection

Kaveh Akbar: Pilgrim Bell (Chatto & Windus) 
Anthony Joseph: Sonnets for Albert (Bloomsbury) 
Shane McCrae: Cain Named the Animal (Little Brown) 
Kim Moore: All the Men I Never Married (Seren) 
Helen Mort: The Illustrated Woman (Chatto & Windus) 

The 2022 Felix Dennis Prize for Best First Collection 

Mohammed El-Kurd: Rifqa (Haymarket) 
Holly Hopkins: English Summer (Penned in the Margins) 
Padraig Regan: Some Integrity (Carcanet)
Warsan Shire: Bless the Daughter Raised by a Voice in Her Head (Chatto & Windus) 
Stephanie Sy-Quia: Amnion (Granta) 

The 2022 Forward Prize for Best Single Poem 

Louisa Campbell: "Dog on a British Airways Airbus" (Perverse) 
Cecilia Knapp: "I’m Shouting I LOVED YOUR DAD at my Brother’s Cat" (Perverse) 
Nick Laird: "Up Late" (Granta) 
Carl Phillips: "Scattered Snows, to the North" (PN Review) 
Clare Pollard: "Pollen" (Bad Lilies)