The shortlists for the 19^th annual Forward Prizes for Poetry, one of the UK's most valuable poetry prizes, were announced on 21 July 2010. On the Best Collection short list two former category winners compete with poets on the list for the first time, while the short list for Best Single Poem brings many new faces to the fore.

 

Highlights include:

 

• Robin Robertson, previous winner of all three Forward Prizes, is shortlisted for the second time for Best Collection, alongside another previous Best Collection winner, Jo Shapcott

 

• Seamus Heaney shortlisted for Best Collection 44 years after the publication of his first book of poems

 

• Lachlan Mackinnon, Sinéad Morrissey and Fiona Sampson shortlisted for Best Collection for the first time 

 

• Two poets from Scotland, Northern Ireland and England on the Best Collection shortlist 

 

• Shortlisted works feature emotive themes of cancer, mental illness and youth violence alongside a fun look at pirates

 

The shortlists are:

 

The Forward Prize for Best Collection

£10,000 - sponsored by the Forward Arts Foundation

 

Seamus Heaney       Human Chain                                   Faber & Faber

 

Lachlan Mackinnon Small Hours                                       Faber & Faber

 

Sinéad Morrissey      Through the Square Window         Carcanet

 

Robin Robertson      The Wrecking Light                          Picador

 

Fiona Sampson         Rough Music                                                 Carcanet

 

Jo Shapcott              Of Mutability                                                 Faber & Faber

 

The Felix Dennis Prize for Best First Collection

£5,000 - sponsored by Felix Dennis and the Forward Arts Foundation

 

Christian Campbell Running the Dusk                             Peepal Tree

 

Hilary Menos                         Berg                                                    Seren

 

Abegail Morley        How to Pour Madness into a Teacup Cinnamon Press

 

Helen Oswald           Learning Gravity                              Tall Lighthouse

 

Steve Spence          A Curious Shipwreck                       Shearsman Books

 

Sam Willetts               New Light for the Old Dark                        Jonathan Cape

 

The Forward Prize for Best Single Poem in memory of Michael Donaghy

£1,000 - sponsored by the Forward Arts Foundation

 

Kate Bingham           On Highgate Hill                   Times Literary Supplement

 

Julia Copus               An easy passage                Magma

 

Lydia Fulleylove        Night Drive                            Bridport Prize

 

Chris Jones                Sentences                             Staple

 

Ian Pindar                  Mrs Beltinska in the Bath     National Poetry Competition

Lee Sands                  The Reach                             Times Literary Supplement

Poet and author Ruth Padel is chair of the judges of the Forward Prizes for Poetry 2010. The other judges are poet and columnist Hugo Williams, performance poet Dreadlockalien, journalist and broadcaster Alex Clark, and award-winning actress and director Fiona Shaw.

Ruth Padel comments: "It is an astonishing year for poetry, with an unusually wide range as well as high standard - from international luminaries, much-loved British voices and exciting newcomers. With very different tastes and areas of expertise, we spent eight hours reading poems aloud to each other: beautiful lyrics, prose poems, daring modernists and some very funny surrealists. It was tough, whittling a rainbow down to a shortlist, and giving up many books we really loved, which in other years would have certainly been on the shortlist. But what we have got represents the quality and brilliant variety of poetry and poetry publishing in Britain today."

William Sieghart, Chairman of the Forward Arts Foundation, comments: "A high number of submissions this year after a record-breaking 2009 suggests the continuing demand for contemporary poetry. It is an exciting year in which we see much admired poets shortlisted for the first time, as well as the return of big names. A great year also for the small presses who keep pushing poets of such a high standard".

 

The Forward Prizes were founded by William Sieghart in 1992 to raise the profile of contemporary poetry and are sponsored by The Forward Group.  Worth a total of £16,000, the Forward Prizes reward both established and up-and-coming poets.

 

The winner of the Forward Prizes will be announced on Wednesday 6 October, the eve of National Poetry Day, at a ceremony in Somerset House, London.

 

The Forward Prize for Best Collection £10,000 - sponsored by the Forward Arts Foundation

 

Seamus Heaney                  Human Chain                                   Faber & Faber

Seamus Heaney was born in 1939 in County Derry, Northern Ireland. His first collection, Death of a Naturalist, was published in 1966, and since then he has published poetry, criticism and translations. He is seen as one of the leading poets of his generation. He has twice won the Whitbread Book of the Year, for The Spirit Level (1996) and Beowulf (1999). In 1995 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature and in 1996 he was made a Commandeur de L'Ordre des Arts et Lettres in 1996.  

 

For further information, please contact: Rebecca Pearson at Faber & Faber on 020 7927 3886 

 

Lachlan Mackinnon           Small Hours                                       Faber & Faber

Lachlan Mackinnon was born in Aberdeen, Scotland in 1956 and educated at Charterhouse and Christ Church, Oxford. He teaches English at Winchester College and reviews regularly for the Times Literary Supplement and in the national press. He has won an Eric Gregory Award (1986). His first collection of poems, Monterey Cypress, was published in 1988, followed by The Coast of Bohemia (1991) and The Jupiter Collisions (2003). He has also written two critical studies: Eliot, Auden, Lowell: Aspects of the Baudelairean Inheritance (1983) and Shakespeare the Aesthete: An Exploration of Literary Theory (1988), as well as a biography, The Lives of Elsa Triolet (1992).

 

For further information, please contact: Rebecca Pearson at Faber & Faber on 020 7927 3886 

 

Sinéad Morrissey                 Through the Square Window         Carcanet

Sinéad Morrissey was born in 1972 in Portadown, County Armagh, Northern Ireland. She has published four collections of poetry: There Was Fire in Vancouver (1996); Between Here and There (2002); The State of the Prisons (2005); and Through the Square Window (2009). Three of these collections have been shortlisted for the T. S. Eliot Prize and her latest collection won the Irish Times Poetry Now Award 2010. She was the 2002 Poetry International Writer in Residence at the Royal Festival Hall and is currently Writer in Residence at Queen's University, Belfast. In 2007 she was awarded a Lannan Literary Fellowship.

 

For further information, please contact: Eleanor Crawforth at Carcanet on 0161 834 8730

 

Robin Robertson                  The Wrecking Light                                     Picador

Robin Robertson was born in 1955 and is from the north-east coast of Scotland.  He is the author of three collections of poetry: A Painted Field (1997), winner of the 1997 Forward Prize for Best First Collection, the Aldeburgh Poetry Festival Prize and the Saltire Society Scottish First Book of the Year Award; Slow Air (2002); and Swithering (2006) which won the Forward Prize for Best Collection that year and was shortlisted for the T. S. Eliot Prize.  His translation of Euripides' Medea was published in 2008.  He lives and works in London, where he is Deputy Publishing Director at Jonathan Cape.

 

For further information, please contact: Emma Bravo at Picador on 020 7014 6184

 

Fiona Sampson                    Rough Music                                                Carcanet

Fiona Sampson was born in London in 1968. She has written fifteen books, of poetry, and on the philosophy of language and on the writing process. Her collections of poetry include Folding the Real (2001); The Distance Between Us (2005); and Common Prayer (2007), short-listed for the 2007 T. S. Eliot Prize. She was short-listed for the Forward Poetry Prize (Best Single Poem) in 2006. She is founder-editor of Orient Express, a journal of contemporary writing from the EU enlargement countries (2002-05). From 1995-2000, she directed Aberystwyth International Poetry Festival. Since 2005, she has been the editor of Poetry Review. She contributes regularly to radio and to a number of publications, including The Guardian, the Irish Times and The Liberal. Fiona Sampson received a Cholmondeley Award in 2009.

 

For further information, please contact: Eleanor Crawforth at Carcanet on 0161 834 8730

 

Jo Shapcott                          Of Mutability                                                Faber & Faber

Jo Shapcott was born in London in 1953. She is Professor of Creative Writing at Royal Holloway College, University of London, and the current President of The Poetry Society.  Her Book: Poems 1988-1998 (2000), consists of a selection of poetry from her three earlier collections: Electroplating the Baby (1988), which won the Commonwealth Poetry Prize for Best First Collection, Phrase Book (1992), and My Life Asleep (1998), which won the Forward Poetry Prize (Best Collection). She has also won the National Poetry Competition twice. Together with Matthew Sweeney she edited an anthology of contemporary poetry in English, but gathered from around the world, entitled Emergency Kit: Poems for Strange Times (1996).

 

For further information, please contact: Rebecca Pearson at Faber & Faber on 020 7927 3886 

 

The Felix Dennis Prize for Best First Collection
£5,000 - sponsored by Felix Dennis and the Forward Arts Foundation

 

Christian Campbell                        Running the Dusk                            Peepal Tree

Christian Campbell is a poet, cultural critic and journalist. He has presented his work in the Caribbean, the US, the UK and Switzerland, and is widely published in journals and anthologies on both sides of the Atlantic. A Cave Canem Poetry Fellow and Arvon Foundation graduate, he was a member of the Bahamian National Swim Team. During his time at Oxford, he co-founded Slice( ) Mango, a collective of Oxford writers working in non-canonical traditions, which is currently preparing to find a publisher for their inaugural anthology.

 

For further information, please contact: Hannah Bannister at Peepal Tree on 0113 245 1703

 

Hilary Menos                                    Berg                                                    Seren

Hilary Menos was born in Luton in 1964. She has won or been placed in numerous competitions including the Mslexia Poetry Competition, BBC Wildlife Magazine Poet of the Year, the Buxton Poetry Competition and the Envoi Poetry Competition. She was one of five first stage winners of The Poetry Business Book and Pamphlet Competition 2004 and her pamphlet, Extra Maths, was published by Smith/Doorstop Books. She was one of 17 poets featured in the Oxford Poets 2007 Anthology published by Carcanet. Her first collection, Berg, is published by Seren Books.

 

For further information, please contact: Simon Hicks at Seren on 01656 663 018

 

Abegail Morley                   How to Pour Madness into a Teacup Cinnamon Press

Abegail Morley was born in 1967 and grew up in Lincolnshire. After several years working in publishing, she is now a librarian. She lives in Kent where she is a member of her local Kent and Sussex Poetry Society. In 2008 she won the Cinnamon Press Poetry Collection Award and the Orbis Readers' Award. Her work appears in the anthology The Sandhopper Lover and Other Stories, as well as a wide range of magazines including The Spectator, Anon and Other Poetry.

 

For further information, please contact: Jan Fortune-Wood at Cinnamon Press on 01766 832112

 

Helen Oswald                      Learning Gravity                              Tall Lighthouse

Helen Oswald was born in 1965. She has received commendations in the Arvon International and National Poetry Competitions, as well as winning the Blue Nose Poets-of-the-year Competition. Some of these poems formed part of a collection which won second place in the Hollis Summers Poetry Prize, Ohio University Press. She lives in Brighton and works for the trade union Unison.

 

For further information, please contact: Les Robinson at Tall Lighthouse on 020 8297 8279

 

Steve Spence                       A Curious Shipwreck                      Shearsman Books

Steve Spence lives in Plymouth and helps to run The Language Club, a group which promotes live poetry events and is based at the Arts Centre. His reviews and poetry have appeared in a number of magazines, including Shearsman and The Rialto. He was assistant editor of Terrible Work magazine and in 2007 completed an MA in Creative Writing at the University of Plymouth. A Curious Shipwreck is his first collection of poetry and he is currently working on a second.

 

For further information, please contact: Tony Frazer at Shearsman Books on 01392 434511

 

Sam Willetts                          New Light for the Old Dark                        Jonathan Cape 

Sam Willetts was born in 1962. He read English at Wadham College, Oxford, and now lives in London. He has worked as a teacher, journalist and travel writer.

 

For further information, please contact: Fiona Murphy at Jonathan Cape on 020 7840 8400

The Forward Prize for Best Single Poem in memory of Michael Donaghy
£1,000 - sponsored by the Forward Arts Foundation

 

Kate Bingham                      On Highgate Hill                  Times Literary Supplement

Poet and filmmaker Kate Bingham was born in 1971 and has had two collections of poetry published by Seren, Cohabitation in 1998 and Quicksand Beach in 2006, which was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best Collection. She received an Eric Gregory Award from the Society of Authors in 1996. She is also the author of two novels, Mummy's Legs and Slipstream (Virago). She lives and works in London.

 

For further information, please contact: Alan Jenkins at Times Literary Supplement on 020 7782 4970

 

Julia Copus                           An easy passage                           Magma

Julia Copus was born in London in 1969. She won an Eric Gregory Award in 1994 and in the same year published a pamphlet, Walking in the Shadows, which was also a winner in the Poetry Business competition. In 2002 she won the National Poetry Competition with her poem, Breaking the Rule. From 2005-2008, she was Royal Literary Fund Fellow at Exeter University, and in January 2007, Poet in Residence at The Guardian. Her two collections of poetry, The Shuttered Eye (1995) and In Defence of Adultery (2003), were both Poetry Book Society Recommendations, and the former was shortlisted for the Forward Poetry Prize for Best First Collection in 1996.

 

For further information, please contact: Laurie Smith at Magma on 020 8643 4642

 

Lydia Fulleylove                  Night Drive                                        Bridport Prize

Lydia Fulleylove writes poetry, short stories, articles and creative writing materials.

She received a Writer's Award from ACE in 2007 to work on a first poetry collection and a pamphlet is at present being considered by Happenstance Press. Her poetry and short stories have been published in a range of literary magazines and anthologies including Smiths Knoll, The Interpreter's House, Iota, Staple, Envoi and Re-writing the Map (Vane Women Press). She has also led creative writing projects for a range of healthcare groups and for young people. She was winner of the Isle of Wight Faber/Ottakar poetry competition and runner up in the national competition in 1998.

 

For further information, please contact: Frances Everitt at the Bridport Prize on 01308 428333

 

Chris Jones                           Sentences                                         Staple

Chris Jones has lived in Sheffield since 1990. He was awarded an Eric Gregory Award for his poetry in 1996. From 1997 to 1999 he worked as a writer-in-residence at Nottingham Prison. He was the Literature Officer for Leicestershire for five years before becoming a freelance writer and poetry festival organiser. He currently teaches creative writing at Sheffield Hallam University. In 2007 he published his first full-length collection, The Safe House, (Shoestring Press).

 

For further information, please contact: Wayne Burrows at Staple Magazine on 0115 9410 306

 

Ian Pindar                              Mrs Beltinska in the Bath National Poetry Competition

Ian Pindar's debut poetry collection, Emporium, will be published by Carcanet in May 2011, and his second collection, Constellations, will follow in 2012. His poems have appeared in the London Magazine, Magma, New Poetries III (Carcanet), Oxford Poetry, PN Review, Poetry Review, Stand and the Times Literary Supplement. He won second prize in the National Poetry Competition 2009 for this poem.

 

For further information, please contact: Lisa Roberts at the Poetry Society on 020 7420 9895

Lee Sands                             The Reach                             Times Literary Supplement Lee Sands has published poems in various magazines, including Critical Quarterly, Stand and Poetry Wales.

For further information, please contact: Alan Jenkins at Times Literary Supplement on 020 7782 4970

 

For further information about the prizes or to arrange an interview with any of the poets, please contact Sarah Watson or Kate Wright Morris at Colman Getty

on 020 7631 2666 or sarah@colmangetty.co.uk

 

- Ends -

 

Notes to editors:

 

1.       The Forward Prizes are one of the UK's most valuable annual prizes for poetry, with a total prize value of £16,000.  The prizes are divided into three categories: The Forward Prize for Best Collection (£10,000), The Felix Dennis Prize for Best First Collection (£5,000) and the Forward Prize for Best Single Poem (£1,000).

 

2.       147 collections published in the UK and Ireland between 1 October 2009 and 30 September 2010 were considered for this year's Prizes.  119 poems, either published in a newspaper or magazine between 1 May 2009 and 30 April 2010, or winners of poetry prizes in the same period, were submitted for the Forward Prize for Best Single Poem

 

3.       Previous winners of the Forward Prizes are:

 

Best Collection: Don Paterson Rain (Faber & Faber) 2009, Mick Imlah The Lost Leader (Faber & Faber) 2008,  Sean O'Brien The Drowned Book (Picador) 2007, Robin Robertson Swithering (Jonathan Cape) 2006, David Harsent Legion (Faber & Faber) 2005, Kathleen Jamie The Tree House (Picador) 2004, Ciaran Carson Breaking News (Gallery Press) 2003, Peter Porter Max is Missing (Picador) 2002, Sean O'Brien Downriver (Picador) 2001, Michael Donaghy Conjure (Picador) 2000, Jo Shapcott My Life Asleep (OUP) 1999, Ted Hughes Birthday Letters (Faber & Faber) 1998, Jamie McKendrick The Marble Fly (OUP) 1997, John Fuller Stones and Fires (Chatto) 1996, Sean O'Brien Ghost Train (OUP) 1995, Alan Jenkins Harm (Chatto) 1994, Carol Ann Duffy Mean Time (Anvil Press)1993 and Thom Gunn The Man with Night Sweats (Faber & Faber) 1992

 

Best First Collection: Emma Jones The Striped World (Faber & Faber) 2009, Kathryn Simmons Sunday at the Skin Launderette (Seren) 2008, Daljit Nagra Look We Have Coming To Dover (Faber & Faber) 2007, Tishani Doshi Countries of the Body (Aark Arts) 2006, Helen Farish Intimates (Jonathan Cape) 2005, Leontia Flynn These Days (Jonathan Cape) 2004, A.B. Jackson Fire Stations (Anvil Press) 2003, Tom French Touching the Bones (Gallery Press) 2002, John Stammers Panoramic Lounge-bar (Picador) 2001, Andrew Waterhouse In (The Rialto) 2000, Nick Drake The Man in the White Suit (Bloodaxe) 1999, Paul Farley The Boy from the Chemist is Here to See You (Picador) 1998, Robin Robertson A Painted Field (Picador) 1997, Kate Clanchy Slattern (Chatto) 1996, Jane Duran Breathe Now, Breathe (Enitharmon) 1995, Kwame Dawes Progeny of Air (Peepal Tree) 1994, Don Paterson Nil Nil (Faber & Faber) 1993 and Simon Armitage Kid (Faber & Faber) 1992

 

Best Single Poem: Robin Robertson At Roane Head (London Review of Books) 2009, Don Paterson Love Poem For Natalie 'Tusja' Beridze (Poetry Review) 2008, Alice Oswald Dunt (Poetry London), 2007, Sean O'Brien Fantasia on a Theme of James Wright (Poetry Review) 2006, Paul Farley Liverpool Disappears for a Billionth of a Second (The North) 2005, Daljit Nagra Look We Have Coming to Dover (Poetry Review) 2004, Robert Minhinnick The Fox in the Museum of Wales (Poetry London) 2003, Medbh McGuckian (2002), Ian Duhig (2001), Tessa Biddington (2000), Robert Minhinnick (1999), Sheenagh Pugh (1998), Lavinia Greenlaw (1997), Kathleen Jamie (1996), Jenny Joseph (1995), Iain Crichton Smith (1994), Vicki Feaver (1993) and Jackie Kay (1992)

 

4.       Chair of judges, Ruth Padel, and the short-listed poets may be available for interview on request. Photographs and further information on the poets is available from the individual publicists listed above

 

5.       William Sieghart, Chairman of the Forward Arts Foundation, is the founder of National Poetry Day and the Forward Prizes.  He is available for interview through Colman Getty

 

6.       The Forward Arts Foundation operates from Forward, one of the UK's leading customer publishing agencies. Forward creates beautifully crafted, highly targeted customer communications for clients such as Patek Philippe, Bang & Olufsen, Tesco, Ford, Standard Life, Transport for London and Barclays.

Forward's bespoke magazines, websites, ezines and emails are produced in 38 languages and reach customers in 172 countries. For more information please visit www.theforwardgroup.com

 

7.       The Forward Arts Foundation is the primary sponsor of the Forward Prizes for Poetry and is behind National Poetry Day and Big Arts Week

 

8.       Copies of the short-listed books and the single poems are available on request from Colman Getty