We absolutely loved being at the Forward Prizes last night at Durham Book Festival! The evening opened with Kayo Chingonyi reminding us that “a poem can be a space of refusal… to frame questions and help us imagine a new reality”. This year’s judging panel included poets Jane Clarke, Alycia Pirmohamed, Vanessa Kisuule and Daniel Sluman, as well as the chair of judges, actor, presenter and poet Craig Charles.
All four of the 2024 Forward prizes for poetry have been awarded to women: Victoria Chang won the £10,000 prize for best collection; Marjorie Lotfi was awarded the best first collection; Cindy Juyoung Ok won the prize for the best single poem (written) for her powerful poem about domestic violence 'Ward of One' and Leyla Josephine was awarded the prize for the best single poem (performed) for her hilarious and incisive poem 'Dear John Berger'.
Huge congratulations to the Detroit-born, California-based Victoria Chang whose winning collection With My Back to the World is inspired by the celebrated abstract modern artist Agnes Martin, as well as feminism, depression and grief. Chang's poetry opens up new modes of expression, expanding the scope of what art, poetry, and the human mind can do. Strikingly original and fluidly strange, this is a book that speaks to how we see and are seen. Victoria Chang has written seven books of poetry and previously won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award in Poetry, and the PEN/Voelcker Award for Poetry.
We're delighted that the Felix Dennis Prize for Best First Collection was awarded to The Wrong Person to Ask by Marjorie Lotfi, our recent PBS Special Commendation published by Bloodaxe Books. This prize-winning debut is a book of two halves, each a meditation on the idea of home, the places we start and end up in our lives. Spanning a childhood in Iran dislocated by revolution, through years as a young woman in America, to her current home in Scotland, these poems ask what it means to come from somewhere else, what we carry with us when we leave, and how we finally come to rest. You can read her stunning poem Hebridean Crab Apple on the Forward website.
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