Forward Prizes for Poetry 2025 winners announced

Isabelle Baafi and Griot Gabriel won in their categories at the Forward Prizes for Poetry 2025 ceremony in London, UK, on Sunday, October 26, 2025.

The Forward Prizes for Poetry were founded by William Sieghart to celebrate excellence in poetry and increase its audience in 1992. There are four prizes on offer in the Forward Prize for Best Collection (£10,000), the Jerwood Prize for Best First Collection (£5,000), the Forward Prize for Best Single Poem – Written (£1,000), and the Forward Prize for Best Single Poem – Performed (£1,000). Previous winners include Kei Miller, Danez Smith, Claudia Rankine, and Malika Booker. In 2023, Jason Allen-Paisant, Malika Booker, and Momtaza Mehri won in their categories.

The 2025 jury, comprising award-winning writer and two-time Booker Prize nominee Sarah Hall, poet, editor, and educator Lisa Kelly, poet and playwright Hannah Lavery, poet Sean O’Brien, and writer, performer, broadcaster, and academic Rommi Smith, announced the shortlists on Thursday, July 17.

The winners were made public at a ceremony at the Southbank Centre’s Queen Elizabeth Hall on Sunday evening.

Chair of judges Sarah Hall said, “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.”

Winning in their categories were the following poets of African descent;

The Jerwood Prize for Best First Collection Ali (£5,000)

• Chaotic Good, Isabelle Baafi – Framed by the story of escape from a toxic marriage, Chaotic Good focuses on the incremental ways in which power accumulates, shifts, and is relinquished within both home and community.

The Forward Prize for Best Single Poem – Performed (£1,000)

• Where I’m From, Griot Gabriel – Manchester poet Griot Gabriel performed category for his poem ‘Where I’m From’, originally performed at Manchester UNESCO City of Literature. Gabriel describes the poem as “a love letter to Manchester, specifically paying homage to my local communities of Longsight and Ardwick. It highlights both the joys and sorrows of my community, which seems to resonate deeply with people from various parts of the country.”