Warda Yassin, a Sheffield Based Somalia Poet Wins UK's Women's Poet Prize — Pawners Paper

Warda Yassin, a Sheffield based Somalia poets is one of the three winners of the Women Poets’ Prize 2020. The winners of the poetry prize was...

Warda Yassin, a Sheffield Based Somalia Poet Wins UK's Women's Poet Prize

Photo by Timm Cleasby via Forge

Warda Yassin, a Sheffield based Somalia poets is one of the three winners of the Women Poets’ Prize 2020. The winners of the poetry prize was announced in London on November 17, 2020. The other two winners of the prize were Alisha Dietzman and Natalie Linh Bolderston.

Yassin is a secondary school teacher in Sheffield who in October 2020 became  her country’s poet laureate

Warda Yassin was also recently named Sheffield’s Poet Laureate. Her pamphlet Tea With Cardamon, a collection of poems that blend the family storytelling traditions of a home in Somalia with a childhood in a UK city, won the 2018 New Poets Prize.

The Rebecca Swift Foundation was established in memory of Rebecca Swift; the editor, novelist, diarist, poet, and founder and director of The Literary Consultancy. 

The prize was intended to celebrates poetry and the empowerment of women. The Foundation provides support and creative professional development opportunities to women poets through the delivery of its biennial Women Poets’ Prize. The Prize, which is free to enter, aims to maximise vital creative space for women poets within a supported environment. 

The first winners of the Women's Poetry Prize, named in 2018, were Claire Collison, Nina Mingya Powles, and Anita Pati.

The benefits incurred from winning the Women's Poetry Prize includes £1,500 (US$1,988) each for the three winners. Alongside the cash prizes, they will also receive mentorship for their work with opportunities for performance, collaboration with prize sponsors, and child-care assistance.

Yassin's works was praised by the jurors of this year's Women's Poetry Prize and described as having  “a maturity and clarity that’s profound and deeply moving,” finding “much to admire in these poems which feel vivid, fresh and passionately engaged, with a lyrical grace and dazzling image-making.”

The shortlist for the award was judged by Malika Booker, Liz Berry, and Pascale Petit this year and was announced on September 21 . However, the shortlist was revealed on October 23. 

Hence, we say congratulations to Wards Yassin