This volume brought together the poets shortlisted in the 2025 Forward Prizes, as well as fifty poets that were highly commended by the judges. This reading celebrated the launch of the 2026 edition, and featured performances by poets (including JR Carpenter, Griot Gabriel, Rommi Smith, Isabelle Baafi, and Ian Duhig).

J. R. Carpenter is an artist, writer, and lecturer in creative practice at University of Leeds. Her digital poem ‘The Gathering Cloud’ won the New Media Writing Prize 2016. Her debut collection An Ocean of Static was highly commended for the Forward Prize 2019. Her hybrid print-digital project This is a Picture of Wind was listed in The Guardian’s best poetry books 2020 and featured in the British Library’s Digital Storytelling exhibition 2023. Measures of Weather was The Observer’s poetry book of the month for February 2025 and a poem from this collection has been highly commended for the Forward Prize 2026.

Griot Gabriel is a Manchester poet, founder of The Poetry Place and professional youth worker. He describes himself as ‘Underdog, Under armour, Under God’ exploring issues on race, resistance, faith and personal identity. He has written and performed for Warner Brothers, was commissioned to work with CHANEL, exhibiting at the Metiers D’Art Show, performed at Glastonbury Festival and is currently Manchester’s Slam-o-Vision Champion, coming 2nd in the Global UNESCO’s International City of Literature Slamovision.

Isabelle Baafi is a poet, writer, and editor from London. Her collection Chaotic Good (Faber & Faber / Wesleyan University Press, 2025) is a Poetry Book Society Recommendation. Her pamphlet Ripe (ignitionpress, 2020) won a Somerset Maugham Award and was a Poetry Book Society Pamphlet Choice. She won First Prize in the Winchester Poetry Prize 2023 and Second Prize in the London Magazine Poetry Prize 2022. Her writing has been published in Granta, the Times Literary Supplement, The Poetry Review, Callaloo, The London Magazine, and elsewhere. She is a Ledbury Poetry Critic and an Obsidian Foundation Fellow. She edits at Poetry London and elsewhere.

Rommi Smith is a writer, performer, broadcaster and academic. Winner of the Northern Writers’ Prize for Poetry, Rommi is recipient of prestigious fellowships, residencies and commissions, from the BBC to The British Council. Rommi is the inaugural British Parliamentary Writer-in-Residence and a Poet-in-Residence for Keats’ House and the Wordsworth Trust, Grasmere. A three-time BBC Writer-in-Residence, Rommi guest-curated Poetry Please and contributes to programmes ranging from The Verb to Front Row. As a librettist, Rommi collaborates with the composer Roderick Williams. Cusp premiered at The Southbank Centre in May 2024. The Blacke Songs, premiered at The Tower of London in June 2024. Three Dimensions (commissioned by St Paul’s Cathedral to mark the sixtieth anniversary of The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King preaching there), premiered in December 2024. Awarded a doctorate in English, Rommi’s academic work is published by Routledge and New York University Press. A five-part essay series based on her research, was broadcast on BBC Radio 3.