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Judges praise the British-Indian poet’s ‘formidable’ collection, exploring the dynamic between an immigrant and her white, middle-class host
Bhanu Kapil has won the most valuable award in British poetry, the TS Eliot prize, for her “radical and arresting” collection How to Wash a Heart, in which she depicts the uncomfortable dynamics between an immigrant and her white, middle-class host.
In the collection, Kapil’s immigrant guest addresses her liberal host, exploring how “it’s exhausting to be a guest / In somebody else’s house / Forever”. It beat works by poets including JO Morgan and Natalie Diaz to the £25,000 prize, which counts among its former winners Ted Hughes, Carol Ann Duffy and Seamus Heaney. Continue reading...