We’re delighted to share that Keith Jarrett has been shortlisted for the 2026 Forward Prize for Best Collection for his collection, Hide Me Under the Blood and I Shall Be Satisfied, which was published in March by Bad Betty Press.

This year’s winners will be announced at a special ceremony at the Southbank Centre as part of the London Literature Festival at the Queen Elizabeth Hall on 24^th October 2026. The winner of this category will win a £10,000 prize fund.

This year’s judging panel includes novelist and memoirist Sarah Moss (Chair) and poets Romalyn Ante, WN Herbert, Michael Mullen (shortlisted for the Jerwood Prize for Best First Collection last year) and Yomi Ṣode.

Selections were made from a pool of work by over 500 poets of which chair, Moss, said: “I saw new worlds in new words on almost every page, in almost every line. The range of our lists is deeply exciting: grief, laughter, old age, embodiment, landscape; lamentation and celebration and observation. I hope poets see that we see them, and readers see our delight in everything poets do with words.”

Read more about the prizes here.