British-Indian poet Bhanu Kapil wins TS Eliot Prize for 'radical' work

The writer won for her latest collection of poems, 'How to Wash a Heart'

British-Indian poet Bhanu Kapil has won the TS Eliot Prize for her 'radical' work in 'How to Wash a Heart'.

It might be the award most poets only dream of winning, but this year it's British-Indian writer Bhanu Kapil's turn to bag the top accolade in the TS Eliot Prize for poetry.

Known as the most valuable award for British poetry, Kapil won for her collection of poems called How to Wash a Heart, in which she explores the dynamics between an immigrant and her white, middle-class host.

Judges described the work as "radical and arresting", "formidable" and "a really invigorating, and testing, read".

Kapil, who was born in England to Indian parents, beat nine other finalists in a shortlist that included both established and up-and-coming poets.

It is a £25,000 ($34,223) prize, which counts Ted Hughes, Seamus Heaney and Carol Ann Duffy as past winners.

It is a radical and arresting collection that recalibrates what it's possible for poetry to achieve

Writer Lavinia Greenlaw, chair of the TS Eliot Prize judges, said the collection had been chosen unanimously by the panel, which also includes poets Mona Arshi and Andrew McMillan.

"It is a radical and arresting collection that recalibrates what it’s possible for poetry to achieve," said Greenlaw.

Kapil was inspired to write the book after she saw a photograph in a newspaper of a couple in California who had opened their home to a guest with a "precarious visa status", she has said in an interview with her publisher.

"What caught my attention was the tautness of the muscles around the mouths of these hosts," she said. "Perhaps they were simply nervous of being photographed. Nevertheless, the soft tissue contraction of those particular muscles are at odds [when visible] to a smile itself."

Bhanu Kapil, bottom left, beat nine other finalists in the TS Eliot Prize 2021. @TSEliotPrize / Twitter

"For me, this was also a way to write about the discrepancy between being in spaces that, outwardly, present themselves as inclusive, open to outsiders or minority presences, but which, in the lived experience of inhabiting them, is excruciating," Kapil says.

Today, Kapil lives in the UK and US, and she is the author of six books, but How to Wash a Heart, which was released last year, was her first collection to be published in the UK.

The TS Eliot Prize was established in 1993 to celebrate the Poetry Book Society's 40th birthday and to honour its founding poet.

It is awarded each year to the author of the best new poetry collection published in the UK and Ireland.

Former poet laureate Sir Andrew Motion described it as "the prize most poets want to win", while the Independent newspaper has dubbed it "the world's top poetry award".

Greenlaw said of this year's shortlist: "[It] celebrated the ways in which poetry is responding to profound change, and the stylistic freedom that today’s poets have claimed."