Sarah Howe Wins Forward Prize for Best Collection for Foretokens
Sarah Howe has won the Forward Prize for Best Collection for Foretokens, and she will receive £10,000. The winner was announced on Saturday 24 October 2026 at a ceremony at London's Southbank Centre, hosted by Joelle Taylor.
The Forward Prizes for Poetry are run by the Forward Arts Foundation, a charity working in the UK and Ireland. The Best Collection award goes to a single book of poems by one poet, which the trade calls a collection.
Foretokens is Howe's second collection, arriving a decade after Loop of Jade. The poems move through new parenthood, the death of Howe's father and her mother's early life in Hong Kong. The book was published by Chatto & Windus and first appeared in 2025. It was shortlisted for the 2025 TS Eliot Prize, a list of finalists picked before a winner is named.
The Forward ceremony also handed out several other awards. Nur Turkmani won the £5,000 Jerwood prize for best first collection for October, which was published by Hajar Press. Tara Bergin took the prize for best single poem in the written category for "The Fear," meaning a poem made to be read on the page. Biff Smith received the award for best single poem in the performance category for "Dumbarton East," a poem written to be heard aloud. Bergin and Smith each received £1,000.
Poetry prizes can be easy to overlook next to the big fiction awards, but they do a practical job. A £10,000 cheque can buy a poet time to write, and a win puts a book in front of people who might never have walked into a poetry section. For readers, it is also a clear invitation: a short list of winners to pick up and try.
The Forward Prizes are one of the few poetry awards that name both written and spoken work in the same ceremony. This year that meant a page poem and a performed poem sat alongside a debut collection and a full second book, all honoured in one room in London.
