World Literary Awards

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Forward Prizes for Poetry ふぉわーどししょう

Edition 21 (2012)

PoetryPoetry collectionFirst collectionSingle poem (written)Single poem (performed)

Winners

3 people
Jorie Graham じょーりー・ぐれあむ Winner

A poetry collection that searches for a human place in a world moving toward ruin by relying on imagination and experience. It asks how language might still sustain the world while threading together bodily perception and the tensions of parent-child life.

It asks whether poetry can still make room for us in a damaged world.

96 pages
poetryecologyimaginationparent-child relationslanguage
Sam Riviere さむ・りゔぃえーる Winner

Against the atmosphere of austerity, short sharp poems capture social pressure and the instability of self-awareness. Wit and unease coexist, and the form itself carries a sense of reduction.

The stripped-down language makes the pressure of the moment stand out all the more.

128 pages
poetrypoliticswitself-awarenessausterity
Denise Riley でにーす・らいりー Winner

The sequence explores how poetry can speak loss after the death of a child, moving away from expectations of maternal silence and stoicism. It combines restraint and play, opening private grief into a public act of reading without forcing it.

Speaking loss becomes an experiment in form rather than a retreat into silence.

poetrylossgriefmotherhoodformal experiment