Prizes, AWARDS, ETC
PThe Forward Prizes for Poetry honours excellence in contemporary poetry published in the UK and Ireland across three categories with the £1,000 prize for Best Single Poem awarded to the best poem from magazines and competitions.
The Little Miracles is a tender account of caring for her mother in the aftermath of a stroke. The poem took inspiration from her work with a psychologist, who helped Booker come to terms with her mother’s recovery from the stroke and early stage dementia, encouraging her to communicate and share more positive and meaningful interactions. Judges praised its “warmth, frustration and humour”.
It was originally commissioned by
Magma Literary magazine, when guest editors Adam Lowe and Yvonne Reddick created an interdisciplinary collaboration between poets, counsellors and psychologists.
Booker, lecturer in creative writing at Manchester Writing School, at Manchester Metropolitan University, said: “I am overjoyed to have won the Forward Best Single poem prize for my poem The Little Miracles the day after I celebrated my birthday. I am also joyful because the judges’ decision not only acknowledges my writing, but the subject matter — which praises the strength of Clara Elizabeth Booker Boyce — the woman who gave birth to me.
“In a way the poem is a testimony to her tenacious spirit and how vital she is to our family. The poem is also strangely relevant to this time and seems to resonate with the personal storms we are all wrestling with during this global pandemic. It is both an honour and a validation for my devotion to poetic practice and can encourage other writers to keep going.
“It is both an honour and a validation for my devotion to poetic practice and can encourage other writers to keep going.
The Forward Prizes for Poetry winners were announced during an online ceremony celebrating poetry, hosted by the British Library.
The judging panel included Kim Moore, alumnus of Manchester Metropolitan’s Creative Writing MA and PHD, alongside poets Roger Robinson and David Wheatley, journalist Leaf Arbuthnot and writer, critic and social historian Alexandra Harris.
Harris, who chaired the judging panel, said: “The Little Miracles is a poem about love and patience: you can feel time moving in its rhythm of work and relief. Every word is freighted with the effort and desire to communicate. The poem breathes with warmth, frustration and humour.”
The judges’ selection of shortlisted poems are featured in the Forward Book of Poetry 2021, which also contains more than 50 poems highly commended by judges.
Malika Booker is a British poet of Guyanese and Grenadian parentage and the founder of Malika’s Poetry Kitchen.
Her collection Pepper Seed (Peepal
Tree Press, 2013) was shortlisted for the OCM Bocas 2014 poetry prize, and the Seamus Heaney Centre 2014 prize for first full collection. She received her MA from Goldsmiths University and was recently awarded the Cultural Fellowship in Creative Writing/ Literary Art post at Leeds University. Booker was the first British poet to be a fellow at Cave Canem and the inaugural Poet in Residence at the Royal Shakespeare Company, and has represented British writing internationally, both independently and with the British Council.
Booker has also written for the stage and radio, and poems are widely published in anthologies and journals including: Out of Bounds, Black & Asian Poets (Bloodaxe 2012); Ten New Poets (Bloodaxe, 2010); The India International Journal 2005; and Bittersweet: Contemporary Black Women’s Poetry (The Women’s Press, 1998).
They included her own children’s book Superheroes Are Everywhere, her memoir The Truths We Hold: An American Journey, a children’s book by her niece Meena Harris called Kamala and Maya’s Big Idea, and Nikki
Grimes’ illustrated Kamala Harris: Rooted in Justice.
Harris made history as the first black woman to become vicepresident. The California senator, who is also the first person of South Asian descent elected to the vice presidency, will become the highest-ranking woman ever to serve in government.
President-elect Biden also got a spot on the charts just outside of the top 10. Dr Jill Biden’s children’s book Joey: The Story of Joe Biden landed in 14th place.