Renowned writer and lecturer Malika Booker’s powerful new poem Libation has been shortlisted for Best Single Poem in the Forward Prizes for Poetry 2023.
An evocative and moving poem on grieving, Caribbean wakes and how these rituals are passed on, Libation was originally published in The Poetry Reviewmagazine.
It has now been recognised by the Forward Prizes for Poetry 2023 which honours excellence in contemporary poetry published in the UK and Ireland.
Spanning ancestorial altars and Caribbean traditions, Libation also looks at black on black violence and the act of libation – a drink poured in honour of the dead – that youth enact at funerals, even though they do not fully understand the act.
Booker, creative writing lecturer at Manchester Met’s Manchester Writing School, said: “Libation is about the act of grieving and inheritance, and how customs are passed on. Yet behind all this, the poem seems to lament the senseless deaths caused by knife and gun crimes in our inner cities.
“I’m happy it’s been shortlisted for this prize. It’s such an honour to have your poem chosen by peers. I feel validated as a poet and over the moon, especially as this is my third time on the shortlist.”
A multi-award-winning poet, Booker won the Forward Prize for Best Single Poem in 2020 for The Little Miracles, which was inspired by caring for her mother. In 2017 she was shortlisted in the same category for Nine Nights, and received a Cholmondeley Award for her outstanding contribution to poetry in 2019.
The Forward Prizes for Poetry, run by the Forward Arts Foundation since 1992, have recognised many of contemporary literature’s most celebrated names including Seamus Heaney and Ted Hughes, as well as Manchester Writing School’s own Kim Moore, Helen Mort, and Professor of Contemporary Poetry, Carol Ann Duffy.
The 2023 winners will be announced in October, and the judges’ selection of shortlisted and highly commended poems are published in the annual Forward Book of Poetry 2023, available now.
