We end the week here on My Poetic Side with a look at the Forward
Poetry Prize for 2020. We also have an article about the new museum in St.
Petersburg that will be dedicated to the poet Joseph Brodsky.
2020 Forward Prize Launched
The judging panel for the 2020 Forward Prize has been announced. Alexandra Harris, the writer, social historian and critic has been announced as the chair of the panel of judges, which will be made up of 3 poets and the journalist and novelist Leaf Arbuthnot.
There are three categories in the Forward Prize; the Best
Collection which carries the biggest award £10,000, the Felix Dennis Prize
which is awarded for the Best First Collection and has a prize of £5,000 and
the Best Single Poem which is worth £1,000.
The competition will be open from now until 9th
March for submissions. The winners for each category will be announced on 25th
October at the Southbank Centre.
Museum Dedicated to Joseph Brodsky to Open
In St. Petersburg
A museum based in the old communal apartment where Joseph Brodsky once lived will be opening in May. This venture is the result of years of fundraising and negotiations and will be based in St. Petersburg, the poet”s hometown.
Brodsky, a Nobel laureate, lived at 24 Liteiny Prospekt with his parents until he was forced to emigrate in 1972.
It is hoped that the official opening of the museum will take place on the poets birthday, 24th May. Until that date, there will however be a few limited events and excursions taking place until the renovation work has been completed.
Unfortunately, the opening was delayed for a number of years because the current residents of the building refused to sell. However, this was finally overcome as an obstacle. The sponsors of the project purchase all but one of the rooms of the apartment and also an adjoining flat in order to provide enough room for the museum.
The apartment played an important part in Brodsky’s life, he wrote an
essay “In a Room and a Half” from here in 1986.
Working with the Anna Akhmatova museum there has
been extensive work on the apartment including replacing the floorboards which
creaked. Akhmatova was not just a friend to Brodsky, but also a mentor and
whilst the new museum ins being renovated the Akhmatova museum has been the
home of a reconstruction of Brodsky’s study from his home in Massachusetts.
Considered
one of the best Russian poets of the 20th Century in 1987 Brodsky
was awarded a Nobel Prize for Literature. However, life did not go smoothly for
him in Russia, he was denounced during a show trial and given a sentence which
was eventually commuted thanks to the intervention of the international
literary community. He spent two years in the far north in exile and then
returned to Leningrad as it was called at the time. From here he emigrated to
the US. He never saw his parents again or returned to the Soviet Union.