MA student Phoebe Power wins Forward Prize for first poetry collection

Posted on 19 September 2018

Phoebe Power, a postgraduate student on York’s MA in English Literary Studies programme, has been awarded the UK’s most prestigious poetry prize for her debut collection, 'Shrines of Upper Austria'. This year’s Forward Prize ceremony took place on 18 September, in London’s Southbank Centre, with readings from the shortlisted poets.

Shrines of Upper Austria, published by Carcanet earlier this year, is partly inspired by Phoebe’s family history, shifting between German and English in its retelling the story of an Austrian woman who married a British soldier after the Second World War. Before winning the £5000 First Collection prize, the book was selected by the Poetry Book Society as a Spring 2018 recommendation. Previous winners of the Forward first collection prize include Emily Berry, Daljit Nagra, Leontia Flynn, Don Paterson, and Simon Armitage.

In her review of the book for the Poetry School website, Mary Jean Chan writes: ‘Power is a poet who knows how to enter each poem with purpose, then to step off lightly when the moment is right,’ calling Shrines of Upper Austria ‘a collection not to be missed.’ Included in Phoebe's collection are the poem In and Out of Europe and the longer prose sequence Austrian Murder Case.

Phoebe has been dazzling us with her writing throughout her MA at York, launching her pamphlet Harp Duet (Eyewear Books, 2017) with a reading in the Humanities Research Centre last year, and another launch for Shrines of Upper Austria this Spring. She recently submitted her final dissertation project, researching use of the Japanese ‘haibun’ form by twentieth-century American poets.

We are thrilled for Phoebe – we wish her continued success with her wonderful poetry, and thank her for all she has contributed to York’s writing community.