Forward Prize jointly awards Best Collection for first time in award’s history

NewsOct 26, 2025by Lauren Brown

Karen Solie and Vidyan Ravinthiran

The Forward Prize for Best Collection has been jointly awarded for the first time in the prize’s history, with Vidyan Ravinthiran and Karen Solie receiving the award on Sunday 26th October at a ceremony in the Southbank Centre’s Queen Elizabeth Hall.

Vidyan Ravinthiran’s Avidyā (Bloodaxe Books) is described as “a political and a spiritual collection, whose multiple poetic forms, open and closed, are shaped by myth and philosophy, and by Sri Lankan as well as global crises. It is also a book about the forms of both strength and fear that parents pass on to their children”.

Karen Solie’s Wellwater (Picador) “inducts a self-interrogative conversation with a culture in crisis and a natural world on the brink”. Host Joelle Taylor and chair of judges Sarah Hall awarded the joint prize, with each poet taking home £5,000 each.

Meanwhile, Isabelle Baafi’s debut Chaotic Good (Faber) won the Jerwood Prize for Best First Collection (£5,000), Abeer Ameer’s At Least, originally published in Modron Magazine, won the Forward Prize for Best Single Poem – Written (£1,000), and Griot Gabriel was the winner of the Forward Prize for Best Single Poem – Performed for Where I’m From, originally performed at Manchester UNESCO City of Literature (£1,000). 

Chair of judges Sarah Hall said: “In such divisive times, with wars, genocide, the rollback of rights and environmental protections, and an erosion of truth taking place, it was buoying to read poetry from all corners of the globe and find within its diversity common ground – light, song, sincerity, humour, wisdom and courage. It’s more vital than ever to be culturally collegiate.”

She continued: “This prize is nothing if not radical, ingathering, communitarian and soul-searching; qualities clear and present in the work of the finalists. They are also technically brilliant, unique, indelible works. It’s been an absolute honour to read, listen to, watch and feel this poetry. Rather than judging it, I often felt critiqued by its literary, political and emotional propositions, and found myself needing to grow, then growing, for which I owe these incredible poets a huge debt of gratitude.”

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Judge Lisa Kelly added: “Chosen from a dazzling shortlist celebrating groundbreaking ‘firsts’, including two Deaf poets in the Best Single Poem Performed category and two Latinx books in the Best Collection category, the winners confirm the Forward Prizes as a champion of exceptional poetry that foregrounds the vitality of the human spirit in the face of personal and existential crises.

“Karen Solie’s Wellwater and Ravinthiran’s Avidyā address the urgent challenges of our time – climate crisis; war and migration – with personal insight and philosophical depth. Isabelle Baafi’s Chaotic Good is a feat of formal brilliance which immerses the reader in the disorientating dynamic of a toxic relationship from which escape is hard-fought and transformative. Abeer Ameer’s At Least harnesses the power of a lullaby to interrogate the duplicity of language in reports about Israel’s bombing of Gaza. Meanwhile, Griot Gabriel’s Where I’m From captures community and personal identity with rhythmic force and spellbinding lines.” Other judges included Hannah Lavery, Sean O’Brien and Rommi Smith.