Forward Prizes 2025 | ‘Altar’: a reading list

We’re continuing to showcase writing from the Forward Prize for Poetry shortlistees – here, Desree, nominated for the Best First Collection award for Altar (Bad Betty Press), shares with us some of the books which have been important to her on her journey.

 

When writing Altar, I leaned heavily on the influences and experiences shaped by my love of reading. Growing up, my mum insisted on 8 p.m. bedtime (which was torturous in the summer, especially as mine and my brother’s bedroom overlooked the park!) But she never minded if we stayed up later as long as we were reading. So, while my little brother held Captain Underpants upside down for half an hour before drifting off, I was under the covers with some toy-magazine torch, getting lost in worlds that, more often than not, felt a little like mine. 

Under the Udala Trees by Chinelo Okparanta
A queer coming-of-age story set in Nigeria during the Biafran War, Under the Udala Trees is a breathtaking exploration of what it means to be yourself, even when no one – including you – wants you to be. Intertwining religion, duty and queerness, Okparanta writes with tenderness about a young girl who spends her life trying and failing not to fall in love with women. Told in first person, it captures the relentless voice of shame, something I tried to navigate throughout Altar specifically throughout the poems in ‘Guide Me O Thou Great Redeemer’.

Oi You Lot by Kareem Parkins-Brown
Undoubtedly one of my favourite poets, Kareem Parkins-Brown writes with a style that is bold, experimental, hilarious and heartfelt all at once. Oi You Lot gave me permission to speak unapologetically from my own experiences, to stretch both my influences and my voice, and to trust how I write about how I navigate the world. Kareem’s pamphlet doesn’t ask you to join him politely, it insists. It pushes, it provokes and it trusts that you will rise to the challenge.

Emergent Strategy by adrienne maree brown
This is not a self-help book! It’s a social-help book. Looking to nature, brown asks why humans and communities have not adopted the same evolutionary strategies that animals and ecosystems use to adapt and thrive. Why don’t our community leaders take turns to lead like geese, depending on their energy? Why didn’t we learn from the oak trees in New Orleans, which survived Hurricane Katrina because their roots held one another underground? Thinking about the ways we can mirror nature to build community has deeply shaped my own perspective, whether it’s drawing comparisons between fungi and gentrification, finding meaning in the sharpness thorns and beauty of roses, or even in the disposability of cockroaches. brown offers us a radical and practical blueprint for collective resilience.

Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin
Of course, this masterpiece had to be on my list. I read it in 2023 with my book club, Only Black Books, and it became our highest-rated book of the year. If you’ve read Baldwin before, you’ll know: his writing reveals humanity with a beauty that feels unmatched, and I wanted that same quality to echo through Altar. The hardest, darkest parts of humanity are often the most accessible as a writer, but Baldwin reminds us that softness can be just as compelling. This novel, which explores gender expectations, sexuality and shame, showed me how to find tenderness even in difficult truths, and it guided the kind of softness I wanted to weave into my own work.

While I Yet Live by Gboyega Odubanjo
This pamphlet acted as a masterclass in balancing craft and heart, perspective and resilience. Gboyega’s work is filled with depth, playfulness and joy, which is hard to explain when he does it so incredibly and it feels effortless. He will always be the best of us.

Big by Vashti Harrison
Yes, it’s a children’s book. But I can’t explain how deeply it healed me. This picture book tells the story of a young Black girl who is constantly told she is ‘too big’ or takes up ‘too much space’. The illustrations paired with the words spoke directly to my inner child and allowed space for those feelings of being both too much and not enough that I speak on, both in the past and present throughout Altar. I treasure it so much that it isn’t in the collection of children’s books I’ve built for my niece and nephews, I’ve hidden it so that I can read and reread it when I’m having some big feelings.

Stag’s Leap by Sharon Olds
Reading this collection was like finding a map for the kind of rawness I wanted to write into Altar. Recounting Olds’ divorce, the poems hold heartbreak, growth, and all the mess in between. They resonate so powerfully you find yourself reflecting on your own divorce even if you’ve never been married. The way she threads joy and devastation together made me determined to create something with the same kind of resonance: a body of work that makes people feel something, even if it isn’t theirs to feel.
 

Desree is the author of Altar, published by Bad Betty Press. See all the books on the Forward Prize shortlists here.