Poetry prizes for alum Will Harris

16 June 2020

October 2020 update: further congratulations to Will as ‘Rendang’ wins Forward’s Felix Dennis Prize for Best First Collection and is shortlisted for the TS Eliot Prize.

Hertford alum Will Harris (English, 2007) has recently been shortlisted for a Forward Prize for Poetry which honour excellence in contemporary poetry in the UK and Ireland.

Will’s first full poetry collection, Rendang, has been shortlisted for the Felix Dennis Prize for Best First Collection 2020, with the winner due to be announced in October. Will is no stranger to awards, with his poem ‘SAY’ also being shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best Single Poem in 2018. He won a Poetry Fellowship from the Arts Foundation in 2019, and his debut pamphlet of poems, ‘All this is implied’ was joint winner of the London Review Bookshop Pamphlet of the Year and shortlisted for the Callum Macdonald Memorial Award.

He is also a Contributing Editor at The Rialto and a fellow of The Complete Works III. He co-edited the Spring 2020 issue of The Poetry Review, and has been featured on Poetry International and in ES Magazine as part of the ‘new guard’ of London poets.

Congratulations on making the shortlist, and we wish Will all the best for the announcement of the winner on 25th October.