Disabled Poets Prize
Disabled writers face significant barriers to developing their careers. The Disabled Poets Prize brings the work of the winning poets to new prominence, focusing attention on the exceptional work being produced by d/Deaf and disabled writers.
The Prize has two categories
- Best Single Poem
- Best Unpublished Pamphlet
Cash prizes are awarded to first, second and third place as well as highly commented entries across both categories. Prize-winners and all shortlisted writers will also receive career development opportunities courtesy of Spread the Word, CRIPtic Arts, The Literary Consultancy and Arvon Foundation; while the winner of the Best Unpublished Pamphlet prize is offered the opportunity to have their book published by Verve Poetry Press.
Established in 2023 by Jerwood Poetry Fellow Jamie Hale, the Prize looks to find the best work created by UK-based deaf and disabled poets. The Prize is a collaboration between Spread the Word, Verve Poetry Press, and CRIPtic Arts in partnership with The Literary Consultancy and Arvon Foundation. The Disabled Poets Prize is supported by the Authors’ Licensing and Collecting Society (ALCS).
To support the continuation of the Disabled Poets Prize, please consider making a donation.
"The Disabled Poets' Prize is very meaningful to myself and to many in our phenomenally talented D/deaf and/or disabled literary community. It aims to celebrate all our stories and verses. I'm delighted to return to the judging panel for it. Jamie Hale founded this Prize to provide a platform to poets who continue to face unjust barriers in the literary sphere, whose artistry is often underestimated, and in fact has always been consistently revelatory"
Khairani Barokka, Judge
“The Prize is such an important and necessary part of a poetry ecosystem in which far too many barriers to equality of access and opportunity are perpetuated. The support, perspective, expertise, and community of other disabled writers has been invaluable to me as a writer and a person. The world is better when we work together. I can’t wait to see more disabled poets thrive and develop through initiatives like the Disabled Poets’ Prize. I’m looking forward to reading poems which do the things great poems do on whatever terms they set for themselves: surprise me, change me, change how I experience the world after the poem.”
Polly Atkin, Judge
2025 Prize Judges
Jamie Hale
Judge, best single poem & best unpublished pamphlet
Jamie is an award-winning theatre maker, poet, (screen)writer, charity CEO, founder and Artistic Director at CRIPticArts. They focus creatively on crip- and queer- realities, and the urgency of living as a disabled person. Their poetry pamphlet, Shield was published in 2021, and read by Jack Thorne in the 2021 MacTaggart lecture, calling them an “extraordinary voice”. Their solo poetry film, NOT DYING, was described as “fantastic” by Hannah Gadsby. In 2021, they were awarded the Jerwood Poetry Fellowship, and won Director/Theatremaker of the Year Award for NOT DYING in the Evening Standard Future Theatre Fund Awards. Jamie founded CRIPtic x Spread the Word online retreat for deaf and disabled writers in 2020, and ran it in 2021. They have been published in magazines including Magma and the Rialto, guest-edited the ‘Bodies’ issue of Modern Poetry in Translation, and are working on their first full poetry collection.
Polly Atkin
Judge, best single poem
Polly Atkin (FRSL) is a poet and nonfiction writer. She grew up in Nottingham and lived in East London for seven years before moving north to Cumbria. She has published three poetry pamphlets and two collections – Basic Nest Architecture (Seren: 2017) and Much With Body (Seren: 2021), a PBS Winter 2021 recommendation and Laurel Prize 2022 longlistee. Her nonfiction includes Recovering Dorothy: The Hidden Life of Dorothy Wordsworth (Saraband: 2021), a Barbellion-longlisted biography of Dorothy’s later life and illness; and a memoir exploring place, belonging and disability, Some Of Us Just Fall: On Nature and Not Getting Better (Sceptre: 2023), a longlistee of the Wainwright Prize for Nature Writing 2024, and Lakeland Book of the Year 2024. Her third nonfiction book is a love song to the owls of Lakeland, The Company of Owls (Elliott and Thompson: 2024). Her work is included in various anthologies, including Moving Mountains (Footnote: 2023).
She works as a freelancer from her home in the English Lake District. In 2023 she and her partner took ownership of historic Grasmere bookshop Sam Read Bookseller.
Khairani Barokka
Judge, best unpublished pamphlet
Khairani Barokka is a writer, poet and artist. She was Modern Poetry in Translation’s inaugural Poet-in-Residence, the first non-British Associate Artist at the UK’s National Centre for Writing, and an NYU Tisch Departmental Fellow. She is currently UK Associate Artist at Delfina Foundation and Research Fellow at University of the Arts London.
Published internationally in anthologies and journals, Khairani is the author and illustrator of poetry-art book Indigenous Species, nominated for a Goldsmiths Public Engagement Award, author of poetry collection Rope (Nine Arches Press, 2017), co-editor with Ng Yi-Sheng of HEAT: A Southeast Asian Urban Anthology (Fixi, 2016), and co-editor, with Sandra Alland and Daniel Sluman, of Stairs and Whispers: D/deaf and Disabled Poets Write Back (Nine Arches Press, 2017), shortlisted for a Saboteur Award for Best Anthology and a Poetry School Book of the Year. Her latest book, poetry collection Ultimatum Orangutan (Nine Arches Press) was published in March 2021, and was shortlisted for the Barbellion Prize.
Disabled Poets Prize 2023 Results and Interviews
2025 Partners
