Kei Miller wins Forward poetry prize

Judges praise Miller’s ‘distinctive voice’ as The Cartographer Tries to Map a Way To Zion takes £10,000 prize

• Caroline Davies - The Guardian, Tuesday 30 September 2014 

The poet Kei Miller. Photograph: Graham Turner for the Guardian

The Jamaican poet Kei Miller has won the prestigious Forward prize for the best poetry collection of 2014 for his “standout” book based on dialogue between a mapmaker striving to impose order on an unfamiliar land and a “Rasta-man” who queries his project.
The Cartographer Tries to Map a Way To Zion took the £10,000 prize, with judges relishing Miller’s ability to “defy expectations” and “set up oppositions only to undermine them”.

Miller, 35, who was born in Kingston, Jamaica, and financed his studies at Manchester Metropolitan University by winning poetry slams, currently teaches creative writing at Royal Holloway college, University of London.
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