Forward Prize for Best First Collection: “Wife” by Tiphanie Yanique

The poetry of Forward Prize winner Tiphanie Yanique may redefine words like “arresting,” “jarring,” and “mind-altering.”

Yanique’s Wife won the Forward Prize, given by the Forward Arts Foundation in the United Kingdom, for best first collection. As the title suggests, it’s a collection of poems about becoming a wife, being a wife, thinking and rethinking the meaning of the idea of wife – colored and shaped by a Caribbean context.

We find the drudgery of housework and considerations of cheating on one’s husband. We find the romance of elopement and musings of divorce in a happy marriage. We find musings about one’s one family and experiences in common with all families. And by the end of the collection we understand that are of these seeming contradictions are held together, even if in tension, in every relationship and marriage.

To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.

Forward Prize: “Measures of Expatriation” by Vahni Capildeo

Forward Prize winner Vahni Capildeo has given me a new way of thinking about poetry.

The Forward Prizes in Poetry are given annually by the Forward Arts Foundation in the United Kingdom. They were established in 1992 by philanthropist William Sieghart to “celebrate excellence in poetry and increase its audience.” The prizes are awarded annually to published poets with works in print in the last year, and are given in three categories – best collection, best first collection, and best published poem.

The prize awards are significant – 15,000 pounds for best collection, 5,000 pounds for best first collection, and 1,000 pounds for best published poem. (At current exchange rates, that’s about $20,000, $6,500, and $1,300, respectively.)

Vahni Capildeo, whose Measures of Expatriation is winner of the prize for best collection, was born in 1973 in Port au Prince, Trinidad and Tobago. She moved to London in 1991.

To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.

Help Us Celebrate National Poetry Day UK on Oct. 6!

This week, I’m completing an online course, “William Wordsworth: Poetry, People, and Place.” Offered by Lancaster University in partnership with the Wordsworth Trust, the course has submersed me in Wordsworth’s poetry for the past three weeks. I’ve analyzed several of his poems; listened to academic experts; learned about manuscripts and how it was only in the Romantic period that writers and poets began to hold on to the various drafts; written short essays for critique by other participants; assembled and reassembled poems; and studied how the geography of the Lake District influenced Wordsworth.

If I extrapolate from the number of comments, I would guess that up to a thousand of us are taking this course, and from all over the world. Wordsworth in particular and British poetry in general has a sizeable fan base. And it’s no surprise that poetry is vitally important in Britain.

Next week – Thursday, Oct. 6 to be precise – Britain celebrates National Poetry Day UK, and Tweetspeak Poetry is joining with the Forward Arts Foundation to participate. The foundation is an organization that celebrates excellence in poetry and works to widen poetry’s audience, and National Poetry Day is one of its official initiatives. It also sponsors the annual Forward Poetry Prizes. The theme of this year’s poetry day celebration is “Messages.”

Poetry is indeed serious business in Britain. London Transport even posts poems on the Underground, or Tube.

To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.