Greta Stoddart shortlisted for the Forward Prize

We are delighted to announce that Greta Stoddart’s poem ‘Deep Sea Diver’, first published in Magma 52, has been shortlisted for this year’s Forward Prize for Best Single Poem (in memory of Michael Donaghy). Greta’s poem was selected for the Forward Prize by the judging panel which this year included Leonie Rushforth, Ian McMillan and Alice Oswald. Leonie Rushforth said of the shortlist: “the lists we have agreed reflect the wonderful range of poetries being written in English today and we are looking forward to finding the winners from them.”

Born in 1966, Greta Stoddart grew up in Oxford and studied in Paris and London. Her first book, At Home in the Dark, won the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize in 2002. She lives in Devon and works as a poetry tutor for, among others, The Poetry School and Bath Spa University. Salvation Jane, Greta Stoddart’s second collection of poems, was published by Anvil Press Poetry in October 2008. Shortlisted for the Costa Book Award 2008 in November.

The other shortlisted entries for Best Single Poem are Denise Riley for A Part Song (London Review of Books); Michael Longley for Marigolds, 1960 (London Review of Books); John Kinsella for Mea Culpa: Cleaning the Gutters (The Warwick Review) and Marilyn Hacker Fugue on a line of Amr bin M’ad Yakrib (The Wolf Magazine) . The results of the prize will be announced in October.

You can read more about the Forward Prize here.