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Now in their seventeenth year, the Forward
Poetry Prizes are open to poets old and new alike. Developed
in order to bring contemporary poetry to a wider audience, this year’s
shortlist inclusion of young poets alongside their peers raises some
interesting questions about what we want from poetry and how we think
of poets today. Is the younger generation exploding the stereotype of
a poet as a weathered old alcoholic by innovating with style and delivery,
for instance? – should they be? And what about the rise of the
spoken word – is this taking poetry back to its bardic beginning
or is it pushing back the boundaries of poetry itself?
Culture
Wars’ reviews of the books shortlisted for the Best Collection
prize prove to be as diverse as the books themselves, with commentary
from both sides of the Atlantic and one review in the style of a comic
strip. In the spirit of experimentation and innovation, these reviews
bring out some of the most pertinent issues surrounding contemporary
poetry today, and in ever interesting ways. If you are interested in
writing about poetry for Culture Wars, contact commissioning editor
for books Sarah Boyes.
Backwards,
forwards and awards
Forward Poetry Prizes award ceremony, London, 3 October 2007
The poets were easy to spot – not because
of their tortured stares, but their large name tags, which helpfully
noted what prize they’d been short-listed for – and I got
the distinctly creepy feeling that everybody knew each other.
Sarah Boyes
Poetry
in contemporary culture
Culture Wars Forum, London, 3 October 2007
Whilst at first blush it seemed to many present
that an intimacy with technical issues of style and structure led to
a deeper appreciation of poetry, and was maybe even necessary for appreciating
poetry, the issue quickly became more complex.
Culture Wars
Forward
Looking, Forward Thinking
On the Forward Prize for Poetry
The poetry scene I know is busy, lively and optimistic.
It’s led by passionate activists – risk-taking independent
presses; industrious events promoters; and, of course, the poets themselves.
Tom Chivers
Reviews
Domestic
Violence
by Eavan Boland
It would be foolish to think that Domestic Violence
ignores the past. Like most Irish writers, the poet is acutely aware
of how intertwined past and present can be in Ireland, 'as though the
past could be present and memory itself / a Baltic honey'.
Andrew
Wheelhouse
Gift
Songs
by John Burnside
Burnside strives to depict the meaning of words,
rather than their physical reference. This yearning to define the indefinite
- like art, like religion - is both cause and consolation for a puzzling
existence.
Jay
Bernard
The
Habour Beyond the Movie
by Luke Kennard
A thing made is a thing created. Kennard’s
poems are hugely intelligent, sympathetic, and moving things, in free
verse and prose. We love what we do not understand—the beloved,
to begin with, the classics of literature, art, music, and philosophy,
too.
Tim
Markey
The
Drowned Book
by Sean O'Brien
He comes to bury Thatcher, not to praise her.
The message implies that we should move on, but in many ways it seems
like the poem is another elegy – not for Thatcher, but for the
angry young man O’Brien was, and the old political discourse.
David
Bowden
Birds
with a Broken Wing
by Adam Thorpe
Thorpe's poetry explains our failure to take flight
through the lives of the ordinary man. Disasters are invoked with the
mention of Hitler or Chamberlain, yet these are not the individuals
who experience the true course of life.
Ion Martea
Useful
links
Brief
descriptions of the Forward Prize shortlist
selection
Should
Poetry Please? session at the Battle of Ideas festival in London,
Sunday 28 October 2007
The
Poetry Archive, with recordings of poets reading their work
The
Poetry Society
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