Top poetry prize nomination for PhD student’s debut collection

A ‘beautiful, necessary book’ of poems on Ukrainian heritage and identity by a Manchester Met creative writing student has been shortlisted for the Forward Prizes for Poetry, one of the most important awards of its kind in the UK.

Manchester Writing School PhD student Charlotte Shevchenko Knight’s debut anthology Food for the Dead is in the running for the award’s Felix Dennis Prize for Best First Collection 2024.

Dealing with invasion, war and destruction, as well as the bonds of humanity, Food for the Dead examines the war in Ukraine with a particular human focus, while exploring its brutal aggression within a wider historical and social context.

Described by author of Deaf Republic Ilya Kaminsky as a ‘beautiful, necessary book’ and said by Olia Hercules (Mamushka) to ‘break your heart and feed your soul’, Shevchenko Knight’s first collection is already the winner of the Eric Gregory Award.

It will now go up against four other inaugural anthologies at an awards ceremony in October, with acclaimed industry judges selecting the winner, who will receive £5,000 to develop their craft.

Shevchenko Knight is a poet of both British and Ukrainian heritage whose Ukrainian-born mother emigrated to the UK in the 1990s, and whose family still live near Kyiv. She is in her second year of a PhD at Manchester Writing School.

She said: “Being shortlisted for the Forward Prizes means so much to me. Food for the Dead is about my family history and the Holodomor, a famine that occurred in the 1930s in Ukraine.

“I’ve tried to track that event in my poetry through a history of food and explore what that moment in time means for a family now in Ukraine. My writing is about generational trauma, and my hope is that my predecessors’ legacy can live on and be understood by a bigger audience.”

Manchester Writing School has a successful history of Forward Prizes accolades, with lecturers Malika Booking winning Best Single Poem last year, Kim Moore winning Best Collection in 2022, and Helen Mort being nominated in the same category that year.

Professor of Contemporary Writing and Shevchenko Knight’s tutor, Andrew McMillan added: “We are all immensely proud to be working with Charlotte here at the Manchester Writing School where she is part of a highly talented, innovative, and world-leading cohort of postgraduate students. I look forward to continuing to work with Charlotte and to seeing her work continue to grow and flourish.”

The Forward Prizes for Poetry are the most influential awards for new poetry in the UK and Ireland, recognising fresh voices like Shevchenko Knight alongside internationally established names.

First awarded in 1992, the Prizes have celebrated some of the most famous names in poetry including Ted Hughes, Seamus Heaney and former poet laureate and current Director of Manchester Writing School Professor Carol Ann Duffy DBE.

To learn more about Charlotte Shevchenko Knight’s nomination and read a poem from her collection Food for the Dead, go to generational hazard - Forward Arts Foundation