Forward Poetry win for Tiphanie Yanique's Wife (Peepal Tree Press)

 

We are thrilled to announce that the Forward Prize judges have chosen Tiphanie Yanique's Wife (Peepal Tree Press) as the winner of the UK's top poetry prize for new poets!

Malika Booker, on behalf of the judges, said: “Tiphanie Yanique’s Wife is above all a generous and witty book, an agile exploration of the many relationships within marriage. She has written a delightful exploration of the tensions and complexity of matrimony, in language that’s deceptively simple.” 

The Forward Prizes were announced at an awards ceremony and readings marking the Forward Prizes 25th year (and Tiphanie's birthday!) at London's South Bank Centre on 20 September 2016. The best collection prize was awarded to Vahni Capildeo for Measures of Expatriation (Carcanet), and the prize for best single poem went to Sasha Dugdale for 'Joy', first published in PN Review.

It's not the first time a Peepal Tree poet has featured in the Forward prizes, both Loretta Collins Klobah (The Twelve Foot Neon Woman) and Christian Campbell (Running the Dusk) have both made the shortlists before, and in 1995 the prize was won by a young Kwame Dawes with his first collection of poems, Progeny of Air (Peepal Tree Press), so the future looks bright for Tiphanie!

Order Wife 

Read about Tiphanie Yanique

 

Forward Prizes 2016

The Felix Dennis Prize for Best First Collection (£5,000)

Tiphanie Yanique – Wife (Peepal Tree Press)

Shortlisted titles

Nancy Campbell –Disko Bay(Enitharmon Press)

Ron Carey –DISTANCE(Revival Press)

Harry Giles –Tonguit (Freight Books)

Ruby Robinson –Every Little Sound (Liverpool University Press)

 

The Forward Prize for Best Collection (£15,000) 

Vahni Capildeo –Measures of Expatriation (Carcanet) 

Shortlisted titles

Ian Duhig –The Blind Roadmaker (Picador Poetry)

Choman Hardi –Considering the Women (Bloodaxe Books)

Alice Oswald –Falling Awake (Cape Poetry)

Denise Riley –Say Something Back (Picador Poetry)

 

The Forward Prize for Best Single Poem (£1,000) 

Sasha Dugdale–‘Joy’ (PN Review)

Shortlisted poems

David Harsent –‘from Salt’ (Poetry London)

Solmaz Sharif –‘Force Visibility’ (Granta Magazine)

Melissa Lee-Houghton –‘i am very precious’ (Prac Crit)

Rachel Hadas –‘Roosevelt Hospital Blues’ (Times Literary Supplement)

Share this article