Being a slow producer of poems, I have some particular difficulties when trying to 'force' a number loose, as I am at the moment. I am used to composing for a long time (weeks, months) in my head, before I start drafting on the page, by which point the language, content and phrasing is usually set and fairly well-honed. The drafting mainly takes care of technical matters - sequencing, linebreaks and so on.

But here, I am forcing myself to start writing once I have a couple of lines. The trouble is,'a couple of lines' is a 'line pair' - that is, I know they belong together, and represent either an opening, a close, or a volta in a poem, such is my (possibly Asperger-y) method of making poems - and I am unused to entering the drafting process with no idea where the pair belongs, or what will surround it. So I currently have half-a-dozen part-drafts in which the line pairs which founded the poem move like yo-yos from the top to the bottom to the middle of the poem.

Does the following pair sound like an opening, a volta or a close, for example?

When next you pass through beeches, think:
These are old lovers; this how I left them.

I have no idea.

Among this year’s Forward Prize winners are Robin Robertson for the excellent Swithering and Sean O’Brien – Best Single Poem for Fantasia on a Theme of James Wright (respectively, my editor and my Doctoral supervisor – good people to have in a good mood, I’d say).

Of the latter, the judges said O’Brien’s poem is “as close as it is possible to come to a perfect poem”. I like the idea (The Last Poem, the End of Poetry etc.) – but it seems to be one of those phrases designed to haunt the recipient. Probably deliberately.

The Best First Collection prize went to Tishani Doshi for Countries of the Body (Aark Arts), beating Hallam Poets colleague Tim Turnbull and his excellent Stranded in Sub-Atomica

Scattering Eva has been shortlisted for a Glenn Dimplex New Writers’ Award in the poetry category.

The awards seem to be structured rather like the Whitbreads – a winner in each category, with an overall winner chosen from the category winners.

Very cheering.