Three books from Salt Publishing in the Forward Prizes Shortlist 2007

As most readers of this blog will be aware, my second collection Boudicca & Co. was published in 2006 by the Cambridge-based poetry specialist press, Salt Publishing.

This year, Salt have no fewer than three books in the recently announced shortlist for the Forward Prizes, one of the most prestigious prizes on the poetry calendar. This is a superb achievement for any imprint, but perhaps particularly for one of the newer independent presses on the poetry scene, and I'm sure everyone at Salt - not to mention the three poets concerned, Luke Kennard, Melanie Challenger and Eleanor Rees! - must be very proud of themselves.

So it's congratulations to Salt Publishing, and I look forward to seeing this level of achievement for many years to come!

Forward Prizes 2007 Shortlist

Best collection prize (£10,000)
Domestic Violence by Eavan Boland (Carcanet)
Gift Songs by John Burnside (Jonathan Cape)
The Drowned Book by Sean O'Brien (Picador)
Birds with a Broken Wing by Adam Thorpe (Jonathan Cape)
The Harbour Beyond the Movie by Luke Kennard (Salt Publishing)
Beasts of Nalunga by Jack Mapanje (Bloodaxe)

Best first collection prize (£5,000)
Twenty Four Preludes and Fugues on Dimitri Shostakovich by Joanna Boulter (Arc Publications)
Galatea by Melanie Challenger (Salt Publishing)
Look We Have Coming to Dover! by Daljit Nagra (Faber and Faber)
Andraste's Hair by Eleanor Rees (Salt Publishing)

Best single poem prize (£1,000)
The Hut in Question by David Harsent (Poetry Review)
Thursday by Lorraine Mariner (The Rialto)
Dunt by Alice Oswald (Poetry London)
The Day I Knew I Wouldn't Live Forever by Carole Satyamurti (The Interpreter's House)
Goulash by Myra Schneider (The North)
The Birkdale Nightingale by Jean Sprackland (Poetry Review)