The Women Poets' Prize is an award for poets. It is awarded biennially by the Rebecca Swift Foundation to three female poets. The award and foundation were established in 2018 to honor the memory of

Rebecca Swift Rebecca Swift (10 January 1964 – 18 April 2017) was a British poet and essayist. She was co-founder in 1996 of The Literary Consultancy. Biography Rebecca Margaret Swift was born in Highbury, north London, the daughter of Clive Swift and Marg ...

, a poet, essayist, editor, and founder of The Literary Consultancy. The goals are to support "poetry and the empowerment of women" and a diverse group of poets. It was announced at the Second Home Poetry Festival in June 2018. Each of the three winners receives £1,000 and support from the Rebecca Swift Foundation and its partner organizations and two mentors, one for poetry and one to help them with their life. In 2018, the award accepted submissions in June and July before announcing a shortlist later in the year and the winners in October. For the first year of the award, 2018, the jurors were

Moniza Alvi Moniza Alvi (born 2 February 1954) is a Pakistani-British poet and writer. She has won several well-known prizes for her verse. Life and education Moniza Alvi was born in Lahore, Pakistan, to a Pakistani father and a British mother. Her father ...

Fiona Sampson Fiona Ruth Sampson, is a British poet and writer. She is published in thirty-seven languages and has received a number of national and international awards for her writing. A former musician, Sampson has written on the links between music a ...

, and

Sarah Howe Sarah Howe (born 1983) is a Chinese–British poet, editor and researcher in English literature. Her first full poetry collection, '' Loop of Jade'', won the T. S. Eliot Prize and the ''Sunday Times'' / Peters Fraser & Dunlop Young Writer of ...

. In 2018, the first shortlist for the award included nine poets: Jenna Clarke, Claire Collison, Alice Hiller, Holly Hopkins, Bryony Littlefair, Anita Pati, Nina Mingya Powles, Em Strang, and Jemilea Wisdom-Baako. Ultimately, the award was given, on 31 October 2018, to Claire Collison, Anita Pati, and Nina Mingya Powles. According to ''

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The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'', Powles was selected for her work's "incredible originality" and Collison was selected because her work was "mesmerising, with unusual and subtle shifts," while the judges said that Pati's work was "full of linguistic and sonic quirk, with a great display of

emotional intelligence Emotional intelligence (EI) is most often defined as the ability to perceive, use, understand, manage, and handle emotions. People with high emotional intelligence can recognize their own emotions and those of others, use emotional information ...

References

{{Authority control 2018 establishments in the United Kingdom Awards established in 2018 British poetry awards