Mick Imlah wins 2008 Forward prize

The Forward prizes, launched in 1991 by William Sieghart, inventor of the UK’s National Poetry Day, direct £16,000 and public attention towards a collection by an established poet, a first book by a newcomer; and also an individual poem. This makes the annual Forward Book of Poetry a kaleidoscope of what has been appearing for the last 12 months in the UK, and this year there were a lot of poems published by small presses as well as big houses. 

The Forward awards ceremony also saw 35-year-old Kathryn Simmons take the £5,000 best first collection prize for Sunday at the Skin Launderette. The £1,000 best individual poem prize went to Don Paterson's poem about his unrequited love for an obscure Eastern European singer, beating Seamus Heaney's ‘Cutaways’.