Forward Prize shortlisted Articles
Momtaza Mehri – How I Did It ‘A Few Facts We Hesitantly Know to Be Somewhat True’
Welcome to our Forward Prizes 2023 ‘How I Did It’ series. This year we asked the poets shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection to write about the inspiration behind their collection. Here’s Momtaza Mehri on what inspired her to write Bad Diaspora Poems. This was one of a series of poems I…
Momtaza Mehri
HOW I DID IT – Zena Edwards ‘HUMAN: THIS EMBODIED KNOWLEDGE’
Welcome to our Forward Prizes 2023 ‘How I Did It’ series. This year we asked the poets shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best Single Poem (Performed) to write about the inspiration behind their poem. Here’s Zena Edwards on what inspired her to write ‘Human : This Embodied Knowledge’. This piece has always wanted to…
Zena Edwards
Eric Yip – How I Did It ‘Fricatives’
Welcome to our Forward Prizes 2023 ‘How I Did It’ series. This year we asked the poets shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best Single Poem (Written) to write about the inspiration behind their poem. Here’s Eric Yip on what inspired him to write ‘Frictatives.’ Thinking about a poem after having written it feels like…
Eric Yip
Kandace Siobhan Walker – How I Did It ‘Cowboy’
Welcome to our Forward Prizes 2023 ‘How I Did It’ series. This year we asked the poets shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection to write about the inspiration behind the poems in their collection. Here’s Kandace Siobhan Walker on what inspired her to write Cowboy. When I was editing Cowboy, I was…
Kandace Siobhan Walker
Kathryn Bevis – How I Did It ‘My body tells me that she’s filing for divorce’
Welcome to our Forward Prizes 2023 ‘How I Did It’ series. This year we asked the poets shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best Single Poem (Written) to write about the inspiration behind their chosen poem. Here’s Kathryn Bevis on what inspired her to write ‘My body tells me that she’s filing for divorce.’ On…
Kathryn Bevis
Michael Pedersen – How I Did It ‘The Cat Prince’
Welcome to our Forward Prizes 2023 ‘How I Did It’ series. This year we asked the poets shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best Single Poem (Performed) to write about the inspiration behind some of their poems from the chosen collection. Here’s Michael Pedersen on what inspired him to write ‘The Cat Prince‘. ‘The Cat…
Michael Pedersen
Jane Clarke – How I Did It ‘Pit Ponies of Glendasan’
Welcome to our Forward Prizes 2023 ‘How I Did It’ series. This year we asked the poets shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best Collection to write about the inspiration behind some of their poems from the chosen collection. Here’s Jane Clarke on what inspired her to write A Change in the Air. On a…
Jane Clarke
Kit Fan – How I Did It ‘2047: A Hong Kong Space Odyssey’
Welcome to our Forward Prizes 2023 ‘How I Did It’ series. This year we asked the poets shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best Collection to write about the inspiration behind some of their poems from the chosen collection. Here’s Kit on what inspired him to write The Ink Cloud Reader. My Hong Kong childhood…
Kit Fan
How I Did It: Forward Prizes – Elisabeth Sennitt Clough on ‘My Name is Abilene’
Welcome to our Forward Prizes 2023 ‘How I Did It’ series. This year we asked the poets shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best Collection to write about the inspiration behind some of their poems from the chosen collection. Here’s Elisabeth Sennitt Clough on what inspired her to write My Name is Abilene. My Name…
Elisabeth Sennitt Clough
Review: ‘My Darling from the Lions’ by Rachel Long
Rachel Long’s debut collection, My Darling from the Lions, interweaves accessible narrative poems with surrealist ones to explore a mixed-race speaker’s arrival into womanhood. Five nearly identical versions of the poem ‘Open’ occur in the book’s first section. Each features an ‘I’ engaged in the same dialogue with different interlocutors: This morning he told meI…
Emily Pérez