Malika Booker wins the Forward Prize

‘The Little Miracles’ takes as its departure point Tomas Tranströmer’s ‘Winter Night’; the raging storm of that poem is transformed into an interior storm, the poet’s mother’s stroke. Booker gives an uncompromising picture of the process of care and recovery: its fears, its effect on sibling relationships, its moments of false hope, its triumphs and gratitudes: ‘each spoonful of pureed food / slipped into her mouth like a tender offering takes us a step away / from feeding tubes, and we are so thankful for each minuscule miracle.’