Forward prize names poets Vidyan Ravinthiran and Karen Solie its first joint winners

Vidyan Ravinthiran and Karen Solie have been named joint winners of this year’s Forward prize for best collection, one of the UK’s most prestigious poetry awards, marking the first time in the prize’s history the honour has been shared.

Ravinthiran, who was born in Leeds to Sri Lankan Tamil parents and now lives in the US, was recognised for Avidyā. The collection is described as having emerged from “journeys of great personal significance, and out of a migrant sensibility tied to three different countries”. The Canadian poet Solie shared the prize for Wellwater, a “self-interrogative conversation with a culture in crisis and a natural world on the brink”.

Each poet received £5,000. The winners were announced at a ceremony at London’s Southbank Centre on Sunday evening.

One judge, Lisa Kelly, said the winners “address the urgent challenges of our time” – climate crisis, war and migration – “with personal insight and philosophical depth”.

The prize also recognised three other winners. Isabelle Baafi, a London-based poet of Jamaican and South African heritage, won the Jerwood prize for best first collection for Chaotic Good, described as “a feat of formal brilliance” that explores power and transformation through the story of escape from a toxic marriage.

Abeer Ameer, a Cardiff-based poet of Iraqi heritage, won the Forward prize for best single poem in written form for At Least. The poem, responding to the violence of airstrikes on a block of flats, was praised for its “devastating” meditation on loss and for exposing the “duplicity of language” used to sanitise tragedy in media coverage of Gaza.

The Manchester poet Griot Gabriel received the Forward prize for best single poem in the performance category for Where I’m From, a “love letter to Manchester” that celebrates and mourns his communities in Longsight and Ardwick.

The judges this year – Sarah Hall, Lisa Kelly, Hannah Lavery, Sean O’Brien and Rommi Smith – praised the ambition of the shortlisted works. Lavery said the joint best-collection winners reflected “how many ways poetry can speak to us right now”, describing Avidyā as “dazzling and searching” and Wellwater as “rooted and elemental”.

“It was buoying to read poetry from all corners of the globe and find within its diversity common ground – light, song, sincerity, humour, wisdom and courage,” said the chair of judges, the author Sarah Hall. “It’s more vital than ever to be culturally collegiate.”

The Forward prizes’ co-executive director, Mónica Parle, said the decision to name two best collection winners reflected the strength of contemporary poetry. “Our shortlisted poets tackled some of the biggest issues of our day – migration, language, empire, the environment, gender dynamics and sexuality – and they perfectly capture lived experience in some unique and transformational way,” she said. “In the end, it can be impossible to find a single, definitive answer in our complex world.”

The Forward prizes were established in 1992 and have recognised some of the biggest names in poetry, including Simon Armitage, Ted Hughes and Carol Ann Duffy. Last year’s best collection prize went to Victoria Chang for With My Back to the World. Marjorie Lotfi’s book was named best first collection; Cindy Juyoung Ok won the prize for the best single poem (written); and Leyla Josephine was awarded the prize for the best single poem (performed).