Clementine E Burnley wins James Berry Poetry Prize

Clementine E Burnley is one of the winners of the James Berry Poetry Prize (2024), Britain’s first and only poetry prize offering both expert mentoring and book publication for young or emerging poets of colour. Along with the two other winners, Nadine El-Enany and Roshni Gallagher, Clementine will receive year-long mentoring, a £1000 prize, and publication of her debut book-length collection with Bloodaxe Books in 2026.  Nathalie Teitler, one of the judges described her work as “incredibly rich”, adding that it “explores the diasporic experience in which song, gesture and ritual take centre stage” Here Clementine reads from ‘Berber for Water’, from her first pamphlet Radical Pairings which was published by Ignition Press in 2023.