Forward Prizes for Poetry | |
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Awarded for | Best Collection (£10,000); Best First Collection (£5,000); Best Single Poem (£1,000) |
Sponsored by | Forward Worldwide, Arts Council England, The Monument Trust, The Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, The Rothschild Foundation, The estate of the late Felix Dennis |
Location | United Kingdom |
The Forward Prizes for Poetry are awards for poetry, presented annually at a ceremony in London. They were founded in 1992 by William Sieghart with the aim of celebrating excellence in poetry and increasing its audience, raising poetry's profile and linking poetry to people in new ways. The prizes do this by identifying and honouring talent: collections published in the UK and Ireland over the course of the previous year are eligible, as are single poems nominated by journal editors or prize organisers. Each year, works shortlisted for the prizes — plus those highly commended by the judges — are collected in the Forward Book of Poetry.
The awards have been sponsored since their inception by the content marketing agency Bookmark, formerly Forward Worldwide. The best first collection prize is sponsored by the estate of the late Felix Dennis.
The 25th Forward Prizes was awarded on 20 September 2016 at the Royal Festival Hall in London.
The Forward Prizes for Poetry consist of three awards:
The Prizes are run by the Forward Arts Foundation, which is also responsible for National Poetry Day. The executive director of the Forward Arts Foundation is Susannah Herbert.
The 2017 judging panel is chaired by Andrew Marr, journalist and broadcaster, artist Chris Riddell, poet-critic Sandeep Parmar, and the poets Mona Arshi and Ian Duhig.