Disabled Poets Prize

Jamie Hale is a Lewisham based award-winning theatre maker, poet, (screen)writer, charity CEO and founder and Artistic Director at CRIPticArts. They focus creatively on crip- and queer- realities, and the urgency of living as a disabled person. Their poetry pamphlet, Shield was published in 2021. In 2021, their poetry pamphlet, Shield was published, they were awarded a Jerwood Poetry Fellowship, and won Director/ Theatremaker of the Year Award for NOT DYING in the Evening Standard Future Theatre Fund Awards. Jamie founded CRIPtic x Spread the Word online retreat for deaf and disabled writers in 2020, and ran it in 2021. They have been published in magazines including Magma and the Rialto, guest-edited the Bodies issue of Modern Poetry in Translation, and are working on their first full poetry collection.

German-born Kabir is a poet, visual language artist and designer. In 2023 he became the British Deaf Association’s first UK BSL Poet Laureate. He uses beautiful, expressive and comical signed poetry presented purely in a visual form for both deaf and hearing audiences to enjoy. Kabir has directed, produced and participated in performances both here in the UK and around the world.

Pascale Petit was born in Paris and lives in Cornwall. She is of French, Welsh, and Indian heritage. Her eighth collection of poetry, Tiger Girl (Bloodaxe, 2020), was shortlisted for the Forward Prize and for Wales Book of the Year. Her seventh, Mama Amazonica (Bloodaxe, 2017), won the inaugural Laurel Prize and the RSL Ondaatje Prize. Four previous collections were shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize. Pascale was a co-founder of The Poetry School, and has been Chair of the T.S. Eliot Prize and the Laurel Prize. Her debut novel, My Hummingbird Father, is due from Salt in 2024.
Photo of Pascale by Derrick Kakembo.

Stephen Lightbown is a Blackburn-born, Bristol-based poet and disability rights champion. Paralysed following an accident in 1996 when he was sixteen, Stephen uses his poems to give a voice to his disability. He has spoken at events across the UK and at festivals such as Shambala, WOMAD, Verve Poetry Festival and Lyra Bristol Poetry Festival. In addition, Stephen has read internationally in San Antonio, Texas. His poems have been widely anthologised, and is the author of two poetry collections Only Air and The Last Custodian, both published by Burning Eye Books. In September 2023 he will publish his first poetry book for children, And I climbed, And I Climbed, through Troika Books. He lives in Bristol in the UK, and in November will represent England for the second time at the ISA World Para Surf Championships in California.