The Illustrated Woman (SHORTLISTED, FORWARD PRIZE FOR BEST COLLECTION)

I picked up this title initially because I still blanche whenever my daughter shows me her new tattoos; but I also heard Helen Mort’s very interesting exchange with Lou Hopper about ‘getting inked’ on Radio 4’s One to One in February last year. Mort is, of course, an award-winning poet that is based in Sheffield and whose interests take in an astonishing range–mountain climbing, trail running, northern cites, conflict and motherhood—all handled with a sure and delicate lyricism, and a poet’s ear for the cadence and fall of the line. So The Illustrated Woman promised much.

Cain Named the Animal (Shortlisted, Forward Prize for Best Collection)

There are cracks running visibly through the poems in Cain Named the Animal. From reading reviews of American poet Shane McCrae’s earlier collections, National Book Award Finalist In the Language of My Captor and T S Eliot prize shortlisted Sometimes I Never Suffered,         cracks persist             throughout them too       as well as        no              punctuation           with space instead                  serving as a kind of                 punc-                           tuation     coupled with    stumbling repetitions               stumbling and the odd / line break             depicted odd          as you would write it in an essay or review.                    it is      an arresting device        and one that             initially to me, initially was       a         distraction                    seeming to get i              n the way    of me               hearing the poems                               in my head.

Sonnets for Albert (Shortlisted, Forward Prize for Best Collection)

The sonnet is a design classic; it retains its formal appeal, with contemporary giants such as Don Paterson and Imtiaz Dharker regularly inspired by its elegance and infinite variety. Trinidadian poet Anthony Joseph has used the form to explore his relationship with his father and with himself across a sequence of more than 50 poems.

Amnion (SHORTLISTED FOR THE FELIX DENNIX PRIZE FOR FIRST COLLECTION)

Stephanie Sy-Quia (Granta Poetry, 2021); pbk; £10.99 Amnion is the membrane which protects an embryo during pregnancy. Amnion by Stephanie Sy-Quia thrums with potential energy. Although shortlisted for the Forward Poetry Award, it is fluid in form, moving between poetry, essay and autofiction. Biography serves as a throughline, as Sy-Quia traces back her lineage, across Read More

Bless the Daughter Raised By a Voice In Her Head (Shortlisted for the Felix Dennix Prize for First Collection)

Somali-British poet, Warsan Shire draws us into the complexities of the transition from girl to woman, immigrant to citizen, in this, her much awaited and first full collection. With an array of accolades which include her much circulated and highly influential poem ‘Home’, and her work with Beyoncè Knowles-Carter on the Album Lemonade, this much awaited collection is written with sensitivity and without pretence. 

Rifqa (SHORTLISTED, 2022 FORWARD POETRY PRIZES FOR BEST FIRST COLLECTION)

In this collection, Mohammed El-Kurd celebrates the life of his grandmother, the eponymous Rifqa, whom El-Kurd describes as ‘older than Israel’ and through his poetry, shows how Rifqa inspired him to bring the World’s attention to the plight of the Palestinian people. It is a challenging read, a lucid and angry voice against an unjust situation to which there seems no hope of resolution.

The English Summer (Shortlisted, 2022 Forward Poetry Prizes for Best First Collection)

Dead fridges, dragon-slaying horses and zombies welcome you to Holly Hopkins’ The English Summer, a wonderfully imaginative debut. Whilst remaining fantastical and playful, this collection dissects the roots of humanity and its relationship to our planet at large. Reimagining historical myths and traditions with an urbane sense of familiarity, Hopkins’ collection deracinates contemporary Englanders amidst a growing climate crisis. Reading these poems is like looking into an essential truth. Through both humour and accusation, storytelling from unique and unthinkable angles, Hopkins underscores the impending tragedy that is modern life.

All the Men I Never Married (Shortlisted, 2022 Forward Prize for Best Collection)

None of the poems in this, Kim Moore’s more recent collection, have formal titles. Numbers, yes, and the contents’ list identifies them by their opening words. The acknowledgements credit sources as diverse as Hélène Cixous, Thomas Hardy, Adrienne Rich and Rainer Maria Rilke, but in the opening poem, ‘We are coming’, it’s impossible not to see a baton already being passed from Sylvia Plath; soon after it’s hard to avoid shades of Carol Ann Duffy’s Red Riding Hood, or to hear Hilaire Belloc’s ‘waterfall of doom’ building its inevitable force. The tributaries are indeed wide-ranging, which seems entirely in keeping with the complex and very painful issues Moore has the bravery to explore. Rarely has it been more important to read a poetry collection in the sequence the poet has ordered; there are no lines to be skimmed.

Forty Names

In her first collection, Forty Names, Fayyaz names these women over and over again and often women from her family, whose stories she grew up being told even if, at the time, she didn’t fully understand them. Names are echoed, written first in Persian and then translated into English – an act which revels in the ‘emotional and imaginative’ aspects of translation, as Fayyaz discusses in a Youtube video for Carcanet. The effect is such that the names become almost internalised mini-poems in and of themselves…

Notes on the Sonnets (Winner, Forward Prize for Best Collection)

In this most innovative of collections, Notes on the Sonnets, epigraphs taken from the first lines of Shakespeare’s sonnets are conjoined, non-sequentially, with lines of prose poetry. These convey thoughts as digressive, associative and reflexive as any creative prose essay ­– in the Paul Klee sense of ideas being taken for a walk – lines that contain vestiges of the original tropes only recustomised for the 21st Century.