Poetry Book Society

Nobel Laureate Derek Walcott was a surprise omission from this year's Forward Prize shortlist, which comprises fellow-laureate Seamus Heaney's Human Chain, Jo Shapcott's Of Mutability, Robin Robertson's The Wrecking Light, Lachlan McKinnon's Small Hours, Fiona Sampson's Rough Music and Sinéad Morrissey's Through the Square Window.

This is a strong line-up for the £10,000 Prize in what is turning out to be a good year for poetry. Seamus Heaney, despite having won the Whitbread and the T S Eliot Prize, has never won the Forward and would be considered a likely candidate. But poet Ruth Padel, who chairs this year's judging panel said: "It was tough, whittling a rainbow down to a shortlist, and giving up many books we really loved, which in other years certainly would have been on the shortlist. But what we have got represents the quality and brilliant variety of poetry, and poetry publishing, in Britain today."

For the shortlist for the Felix Dennis Prize for Best First Collection, worth £1,000, the judges chose Christian Campbell's Running the Dusk, Hilary Menos's Berg, Abegail Morley's How to Pour Madness into a Teacup, Helen Oswald's Learning Gravity, Steve Spence's A Curious Shipwreck and Sam Willetts's New Light for the Old Dark.

The Best Single Poem Award, worth £1,000, pits Kate Bingham's 'On Highgate Hill' against Julia Copus's 'An Easy Passage', Lydia Fulleylove's 'Night Drive', Chris Jones's 'Sentences', Ian Pindar's 'Mrs Beltinska in the Bath', and Lee Sands's 'The Reach'.

Categories: Poetry News, Poetry Prizes

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