Sarah Howe Wins Forward Prize for Best Collection With 'Foretokens'

The Hong Kong-born poet takes the £10,000 Forward Prize for best collection, a decade after 'Loop of Jade', while Nur Turkmani, Tara Bergin and Biff Smith win the other categories, the Guardian reports.

Sarah Howe has won the Forward Prize for best collection, one of the UK's most prestigious poetry awards, for 'Foretokens', the Guardian reports. The collection explores new parenthood, the death of her father and her mother's early life in Hong Kong. Howe was announced as the winner at a ceremony hosted by Joelle Taylor at London's Southbank Centre and receives £10,000. Born in Hong Kong to an English father and a Chinese mother, she published 'Foretokens' as her second collection, a decade after 'Loop of Jade' became the first debut to win the TS Eliot Prize; the new book was also shortlisted for the 2025 TS Eliot Prize.

Three other winners were named. Nur Turkmani, a Lisbon-based poet who grew up in Beirut, won the £5,000 Jerwood Prize for best first collection for 'October', which was also shortlisted for this year's PEN Heaney Prize; it is the first nomination and first win for her publisher, the independent Hajar Press. Turkmani said the poems were mostly written in Beirut during a period of protests, wildfires, economic collapse, a port explosion and an ongoing war, and that writing became a way of seeing, understanding and continuing. Dublin-born poet Tara Bergin, who teaches creative writing at Newcastle University, won best single poem in written form for 'The Fear', first published in the Stinging Fly, and Scottish singer-songwriter Biff Smith won the performance category for 'Dumbarton East', recorded at the Loud Poets night in Scotland. Bergin and Smith each receive £1,000.

The Forward Prizes' co-executive director, Mónica Parle, called 'Foretokens' an exceptional collection that can emerge after ten years in the making and still bear distinct relevance to our time. The judging panel was chaired by novelist Sarah Moss, alongside Romalyn Ante, WN Herbert, Michael Mullen and Yomi Ṣode; Moss said it was consoling to be called back into poems and performances in months when the world could easily seem darker every week, adding that poetry is not a panacea but gives words, images and metaphors for what matters. Established in 1992, the prizes have recognised poets including Seamus Heaney, Ted Hughes and Claudia Rankine, and last year's best collection award was shared for the first time, between Vidyan Ravinthiran and Karen Solie. This account relies on the Guardian's report of the announcement.