The shortlist for the twentieth annual Forward Prize for Poetry, the U.K.-based award given for a collection by an established writer, a debut book, and a single poem, were announced this week. Among the finalists for the ten thousand pound best-collection prize (worth more than sixteen thousand dollars) isAmerican poet D. Nurkse, who lives in Brooklyn, New York, for Voices Over Water (CB Editions; first published in 1996 by Four Way Books in New York City).
Criticized by the Guardian for its all-male composition, the shortlist also includes former winners Sean O'Brien for November (Picador) and David Harsent for Night (Faber and Faber), as well as John Burnside for Black Cat Bone (Jonathan Cape), Geoffrey Hill for Clavics (Enitharmon Press), and Michael Longley for A Hundred Doors (Jonathan Cape). While women writers have historically had a strong representation among debut prizewinners, only three women poets, including U.K. poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy, have received the top award.
The debut collections cited for this year's one-thousand-pound honor are Rachael Boast for Sidereal (Picador), Judy Brown for Loudness (Sidereal), Nancy Gaffield for Tokaido Road (CB Editions), Ahren Warner for Confer (Bloodaxe Books), John Whale for Waterloo Teeth (Carcanet Press), and Nerys Williams for Sound Archive (Seren).
Nominated for best poem are R. F. Langley, who died in January, for "To a Nightingale," Alan Jenkins for "Southern Rail (The Four Students)," Sharon Olds for "Song the Breasts Sing to the Late-in-Life Boyfriend," and Jo Shapcott for "I Tell the Bees."
The winners will be announced in October 5, the eve of U.K. National Poetry Day.
In the video below, Nurkse reads an "ecologically correct love poem," "The Present," at popular New York City poetry venue Cornelia Street Cafe.