Slough poet ‘grateful and honoured’ as first book shortlisted for prestigious prize

A poet shortlisted for a prestigious prize says ‘Slough is fundamental’ to her identity and writing.

Desree grew up in Britwell and is an artist in residence for the poetry collective EMPOWORD, which meets every month at the Queensmere Shopping Centre.

The 33-year-old was drawn to the stage personas of poets who ‘play on the musicality of poetry’ and launched an open mic night in Slough in 2014, which ‘fostered’ her love of spoken word.

“I think there's something musical and rhythmic about spoken word that I was immediately drawn to,” she told the Express.

“When I was young, I used to write stories. As I got older, I was writing music, writing raps, and it turned into spoken word, so it evolved and changed as I grew up.”

Also being a playwright – bringing her stage adaptation of children's comic book, The Comet, to The Curve this December – Desree said spoken word ‘amalgamates’ her interests into one specific form.

“I loved writing and I loved plays and I loved poetry, I loved rhyming and music, it felt like all of my favourite things drilled into one,” she said.

Altar is Desree’s first collection of published poetry, which explores the resilience of youth, the strength of the Black female body, the complexity of chosen and unchosen family, and the sweeping effects of gentrification.

“It also looks at queerness, but also Black joy – lots of different avenues, but they all revolve around place and growing up. A lot of it is about Slough as well,” she added.

She has received the Poetry Book Society Recommendation Spring 2025 and is among 20 poets shortlisted for the 2025 Forward Prizes for Poetry in September.

The coveted prizes have recognised influential names in poetry such as Seamus Heaney, Ted Hughes and Carol Ann Duffy, and Desree is among the four poets shortlisted for the Jerwood Prize for Best First Collection.

She started writing nearly seven years ago, and the collection has taken ‘lots of different shapes’ and become ‘lots of different things' since then.

"It's gone through a lot of editors and I've felt really honoured to be able to spend this much time with a piece of work," she added.

Desree said Slough is 'fundamental to who I am as a person but also as a writer' and quoted the excerpt: “Darling Slough, I love you like rain."

"It's the idea of loving a place but being able to see the stressful and gritty parts of it, but also still loving it and still wanting the best for it," she said.

“Who I am fundamentally and the way that I write wouldn't exist without where I've come from.

"It's influenced my idea of place, my idea of fairness and the joy that you can have in survival."

While Desree is ‘grateful and honoured’ to be shortlisted, she knows there are many ‘incredible’ poets who aren’t recognised because spoken word is ‘slightly outside of the [box]’.

She hopes poetry becomes more accessible and ‘opens a new world’ of how people engage with ideas and the number of creatives who ‘look like me’ or come from 'the same place as me’.

“I'm really grateful I get to work in and around and for different parts of the community,” she added.

“I find a lot of joy and a lot of honour in that.

“If you had told me when I was in secondary school that I was going to be a poet when I grew up, I wouldn't have believed you.

"It felt so out of reach and outside of my wheelhouse that it felt like it wasn't even something I could dream about.

"It's not necessarily just about creating another generation of poets, which obviously I'd love to do, but it's also about being able to see a world beyond that includes you."

The 2025 Forward Prizes for Poetry winners will be announced in a ceremony at the London Literature Festival on Sunday, October 26.