Marjorie Lotfi wins the Forward Prize for Best First Collection 2024
Marjorie Lotfi's first book-length collection, The Wrong Person to Ask, has won the Felix Dennis Prize for Best First Collection 2024, one of the Forward Prizes. The all-female winners of the 2024 Forward Prizes for Poetry were announced at Gala Theatre Durham last night, 10 October 2024, opening the Durham Book Festival.
The winners of the four categories were announced following performances from the shortlisted poets. Marjorie Lotfi read her powerful poem of migration and home, 'The Hebridean Crab Apple'.
The Wrong Person to Ask was published by Bloodaxe Books in October 2023. It was a joint winner of the inaugural James Berry Poetry Prize and a Poetry Book Society Special Commendation for Winter 2023. It is also on the longlist for the poetry category of the Saltire Book Awards 2024.
The Forward Prizes for Poetry are the most influential awards for new poetry in the UK and Ireland, honouring fresh voices alongside internationally established names. First awarded in 1992, over the last three decades the prizes have celebrated some of the most recognised names in contemporary poetry. There are now four prizes: Best Collection (£10,000), Best First Collection (£5,000), Best Single Poem – Written (£1,000) and Best Single Poem – Performed (£1,000). The fourth category was added in 2023.
The judges for the Forward Prizes in 2024 were actor, presenter and poet Craig Charles, and poets and writers Alycia Pirmohamed, Vanessa Kisuule, Daniel Sluman and Jane Clarke. Chair of Judges Craig Charles said:
“We judges read such an incredible selection of work across the last six months, and it took five hours and a mountain of emails just to decide on the shortlists. It was a challenge to winnow down further to a single winner in each category – all the shortlisted collections and poems spoke to us in multiple ways. Collectively, the winners, the shortlists and all the commended poems are a tribute to how vibrant poetry is today.”
The Wrong Person to Ask was introduced by co-judge Alycia Pirmohamed:
‘The Wrong Person to Ask by Marjorie Lotfi moves effortlessly across time and space to revisit experiences of displacement and exile during the Iranian revolution. It also examines the contours of her current home in Scotland through meditations and memories of family and migration. Knowingly, tenderly, and not without pain, these poems are reflections on place and the complicated feelings that accompany leaving a place and arriving elsewhere. The Wrong Person to Ask is as precise as it is dynamic; every line is exact, and each image carefully sculpted.’
Full details of all the shortlisted titles are on the Forward Prize website here.
An interview with Marjorie Lotfi is on the Forward Prize website here.
'How I Did It: Forward Prizes – Marjorie Lotfi on ‘The Wrong Person to Ask’ is featured on The Poetry School's website here.
News coverage of the winners is in The Guardian here. This article links to a Guardian Poem of the Week feature and a review of The Wrong Person to Ask.
Marjorie Lotfi was interviewed by Jumoké Fashola live on BBC Radio London on Friday 11 October. Available on BBC Sounds until 5pm on 10 November 2024. The Poetry Corner feature with Marjorie Lotfi starts at 1:15:14. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0jpwq2j
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For print or digital review copies of The Wrong Person to Ask, please email Christine Macgregor at Bloodaxe Books: publicity@bloodaxebooks.com.
For interview requests in connnection with the Forward Prizes, please contact Ned Green at FMcM: publicity@fmcm.co.uk
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The Wrong Person to Ask is a book of two halves, each a meditation on the idea of home, both the places we start and end up in our lives. Spanning a childhood in Iran dislocated by revolution, through years as a young woman in America, to Marjorie Lotfi's current home in Scotland, these poems ask what it means to come from somewhere else, what we carry with us when we leave, and how we land in a new place and finally come to rest.
Marjorie Lotfi was born in New Orleans, moved to Tehran as a baby with her American mother and Persian father, and fled Iran at hour's notice during the Iranian Revolution. She lived in different parts of the US before settling in the UK in 1999, and in Scotland in 2005. She now lives in Edinburgh. In June 2024 she was named one of ten early-career writers selected for the National Centre for Writing's ILX 10: Rising Stars of UK Writing programme. Her first full collection The Wrong Person to Ask was a joint winner of the inaugural James Berry Poetry Prize and a Poetry Book Society Special Commendation. It won the Felix Dennis Prize for Best First Collection 2024, one of the Forward Prizes, and is longlisted for the poetry category of the Saltire Book Awards 2024.
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Reviews, interviews and poem features for The Wrong Person to Ask
MARJORIE LOTFI INTERVIEW & AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL ESSAY ON WRITERS' MOSAIC
Writers’ Mosaic: What We Leave We Carry: Marjorie Lotfi, online 17 July 2024
A forty-minute autobiographical essay by Marjorie Lotfi went online on the Royal Literary Fund’s Writers’ Mosaic website on 17 July, narrated by Marjorie Lotfi, with a text version also available. She was talking about growing up in Iran, fleeing to the US, moving to Britain and eventually settling in Scotland.
‘In this episode of What We Leave We Carry, the series that tells true-life stories of migration to the UK, the poet, essayist and memoirist Marjorie Lotfi recalls fleeing Iran as a child in 1978 during the revolution. She and her family made their way to the US. And now she has settled in Scotland where she is celebrated for her poetry.’
https://writersmosaic.org.uk/what-we-leave-we-carry/marjorie-lotfi/
An in-depth interview with Marjorie Lotfi went online on Writers’ Mosaic in June 2024. She was in conversation with historian Colin Grant, and read and introduced her poems ‘On seeing Iran in the news, I want to say’, ‘The Wrong Person to Ask’, ‘The Last Thing’, ‘When They Ask’ and ‘The Hebridean Crab Apple’ from her debut collection The Wrong Person to Ask.
https://writersmosaic.org.uk/people/marjorie-lotfi/
LANTERN SCOTTISH POETRY PODCAST WITH MARJORIE LOTFI
Lantern Scottish Poetry Podcast: Episode 8: Marjorie Lotfi & Gerda Stevenson, 18 July 2024
Marjorie Lotfi and Gerda Stevenson were guests on episode 8 of the Lantern Scottish Poetry Podcast. They were in conversation with hosts Kathleen Jamie, Scotland’s Makar, and Alistair Heather. The episode was recorded in the Scottish Poetry Library. Marjorie read and introduced her poems ‘Maman Bozorg’, ‘To the Airport’ and 'The Hebridean Crab Apple' from The Wrong Person to Ask.
‘What happens when traditions get broken? When there is a movement in a family, or within a culture? Exploring the feminist tradition of picking up on lost female voices, Gerda Stevenson and Marjorie Lotfi explore this topic through their own work, guided by Kathleen Jamie and Ally Heather.’
Scroll down to Episode 8, Marjorie Lotfi & Gerda Stevenson, 18 July 2024.
https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/podcast/lantern-scottish-poetry-hosted-by-kathleen-jamie/
MARJORIE LOTFI CHOSEN FOR THE ILX 10 RISING STARS PROGRAMME
In June 2024 Marjorie Lotfi was named as one of the writers chosen for the ILX 10: Rising Stars of UK Writing, a selection of ten early-career writers based in the UK whose work has the potential to speak to and engage with global literary audiences. The International Literature Exchange is a programme run by the National Centre for Writing, Norwich. https://nationalcentreforwriting.org.uk/writing-hub/ilx10/
A brief interview with Marjorie is included as part of the ILX 10 feature, along with quotes from reviews of her first full poetry collection The Wrong Person to Ask.
https://nationalcentreforwriting.org.uk/writing-hub/ilx10-marjorie-lotfi/
INTERVIEW WITH MARJORIE LOTFI IN THE SKINNY
The Skinny, Books interview, October 2023 issue
A full-page interview with Marjorie Lotfi is featured in the October 2023 issue of The Skinny ahead of publication of her debut collection The Wrong Person to Ask on 19 October 2023. Marjorie moved to the UK in 1999 and settled in Scotland in 2005. She now lives in Edinburgh.
‘Against this backdrop of rigid political boundaries, Lotfi’s collection is also in intimate conversation with the natural world, a relationship which offers new ways of understanding emplacement beyond ideas of nationhood.’ – Andrés Ordorica, The Skinny, on The Wrong Person to Ask
‘Books author Marjorie Lotfi, whose new poetry collection explores ideas of place, home, migration.’
Available online via The Skinny's website here.
REVIEW COVERAGE IN THE GUARDIAN
The Guardian, Poetry Books of the Month, Saturday 4 November 2023
Marjorie Lotfi’s The Wrong Person to Ask was given an excellent review in Rebecca Tamás’ November poetry round-up in The Guardian.
‘Lotfi’s imagistically rich debut collection moves from her childhood in Iran, where her family were uprooted by the revolution, to her youth in America and her current home in Scotland. Lotfi is sensitively attuned to the painful dislocation of self that can come from moving between different nations … Again and again her radiant language turns over the loss of family intimacy and identity caused by political upheaval and violence … Lotfi’s book mourns these losses and separations, while at the same time rendering the possibilities of a capacious, multifaceted sense of belonging: “And what is home if not the choice – / over and over again – to stay?”’ – Rebecca Tamás, The Guardian (Best recent poetry roundup)
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/nov/03/the-best-recent-poetry-review-roundup
ONLINE POEM OF THE WEEK FEATURE IN THE GUARDIAN
The Guardian, Poem of the Week, online Monday 4 December 2023
Carol Rumens featured ‘Picture of Girl and Small Boy (Burij, Gaza, 2014)’ from Marjorie Lotfi’s debut The Wrong Person to Ask in her online Poem of the Week column in The Guardian of 4 December. The poem was reproduced in full, followed by Carol’s commentary.
‘Marjorie Lotfi’s first full-length collection, The Wrong Person to Ask is a clear-eyed, sometimes productively reticent debut, and was one of three winners of the James Berry Poetry prize… Lotfi is a quiet and faithful witness. There is no self-indulgent introspection. She insists on seeing what she sees.’ – Carol Rumens, The Guardian (Poem of the Week)
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/dec/04/poem-of-the-week-from-the-wrong-person-to-ask-by-marjorie-lotfi
ONLINE POEM FEATURE IN BOOKS FROM SCOTLAND
BooksfromScotland, online 23 October 2023
Four powerful poems of migration and home from Marjorie Lotfi’s first full collection The Wrong Person to Ask were featured online in the autumn issue of BooksfromScotland to mark the book's publication in October 2023.
The poems featured are ‘Packing for America’, ‘The Last Thing’, ‘Granddaughter, I entered your mother’s house’ and ‘The Hebridean Crab Apple’.
https://booksfromscotland.com/2023/10/the-wrong-person-to-ask/
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JAMES BERRY POETRY PRIZE WINNERS' EVENT
James Berry Prize Winners' Reading, Culture Lab, Newcastle University, Thursday 9 November 2023, 7pm
Marjorie Lotfi joined fellow winner Kaycee Hill for this special event at Newcastle University celebrating the winners of the inaugural James Berry Poetry Prize. Their readings were followed by a Q&A hosted by Bloodaxe editor Neil Astley and poet and director of the Newcastle Poetry Festival Theresa Muñoz.
The James Berry Poetry Prize is the UK’s first poetry prize offering both expert mentoring and book publication for young or emerging poets of colour. Organised by NCLA with Bloodaxe Books, and supported by special funding from Arts Council England, the prize was launched in April 2021. Marjorie Lotfi and Kaycee Hill won the inaugural prize in 2021 jointly with Yvette Siegert, whose debut will be published by Bloodaxe in 2025.
Marjorie Lotfi reads from The Wrong Person to Ask at Newcastle Centre for the Literary Arts
Marjorie read from her first full collection The Wrong Person to Ask at this launch event in November 2023, celebrating the winners of the inaugural James Berry Poetry Prize.
[10 October 2024]
