More on Crafting an Award-winning Poem with Malika Booker 28/4/25

Malika Booker, the only woman (or non-binary person) to win the UK Forward Prize for Best Single Poem twice, will generously share the creative and editing processes behind her poem, Libation which won the 2023 Forward Prize, one of the most prestigious prizes in the UK.

In this workshop, Malika will share her drafts and the evolution of this highly awarded poem. You will gain rare insight into how it was conceived, refined and completed. Malika will discuss how the poem was developed in the context of a regular writing practice during lockdown with the support of her peers, such as TS Eliot prize winner Roger Robinson. She sifted through a lot of material, including draft poems written ‘around’ the same theme that weren’t as strong, to allow this fabulous poem to shine through.

How can you make the most of a regular writing practice? How do you decide what is working or good enough? Can you set the bar high? How can your poetry peers help you hone your writing? What is the value of returning many times to one topic, even obsessively? Malika will consider these questions and share her decisions and finely tuned edits that made the poem as strong as it could be within its context of ritual, culture, place, the personal and political.

Spend an inspiring hour and a half with Malika Booker's exceptional poetic energy and wisdom. These are small groups (one screen), so there will plenty of opportunity for discussion and to ask questions during the workshop.

Although this masterclass is the second part of a series – last year she reflected on ‘Little Miracles’, her first Forward Prize winning poem from 2020 – it is a completely independent workshop and you don’t have to have attended the first workshop to enjoy this one. It is also a very different approach to the previous workshop, but just as fascinating with new angles to reflect upon.