Forward Prize for Best Single Poem – Performed
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The third in this year’s Forward Prizes for Poetry interview series.
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Joshua Idehen: Hello, Bella! Can I start by asking when you wrote this poem? What motivated you to write it at that particular time?
Bella Cox: Great question. I thought about this before our call and, actually, I remembered that this poem had an original iteration that was called Third Culture Kid, but it just wasn’t very good in hindsight.
Joshua: No self-criticism here!
Bella: Well, [laughs], I mean it was good in the sense that it still touched people, but it wasn’t as poetically written or as powerful. There was an essence to it that I wanted to articulate, though. I first wrote it in 2018 which was a year after I’d moved to London, and I was still sort of processing what that meant for me in terms of who I was and where I had come from. People kept asking me, who are you? Where do you come from? What’s your background? And I felt like I just didn’t really have the right answers. And so that’s where the poem originally came from – trying to articulate the answer to those questions. Then, in 2022, I revisited it because I was working on my pamphlet, and that summer I was seeing someone who spoke multiple languages, and we had a chat and discussed how I could blend the languages I know in the piece. I took it away and had a whole revelation on how I could use languages, and that’s how the third stanza came about.
The first time I properly performed it was at Europe House for the European Day of Languages, and they needed a poem that worked with different languages, and so it was perfect for that. It then sort of became my signature piece, as an introduction to who I am, because I feel like it begins to answer the question of who I am by not actually answering it. It’s a smorgasbord of answers; you can take your pick!
Joshua: What’s the response been to the poem so far as you’ve been performing it?
Bella: It’s been really good, really powerful, and it’s allowed me to connect with other people who have similar experiences of different backgrounds and not knowing what home is. I’ve had a lot of people come to me and say, ‘this is the first time I feel like I’ve understood that there are other people like me who also don’t feel like they belong in one singular place but in lots of different places’. I think it’s quite a common experience, especially in London. So many of us are from all different parts of the world and have so many different threads that connect us back to home – whatever ‘home’ is. It’s been nice to create that interpersonal feeling that poetry does so well, where you think you’re having this solitary, solo, lonely experience, but then you write it down and perform it, and someone’s like, no, me too!
Joshua: Ah, I love that. I’m paraphrasing now because I haven’t got it in my head, but I love the line in your poem about choosing a home, and that ability to choose meaning that there’s something you’re going to lose.
Bella: ‘Choosing one home means losing another.’
Joshua: Yeah! It’s so strong. It really resonated with me too, and the nomadic side in me. I’ve never really felt that I belonged in one place. There’s always been a sense that I’ve existed in spaces and your piece really spoke to me about that, as someone who’s travelled a lot and called a lot of different places home.
Bella: Yeah, because you’re the most nomadic! That’s why it’s so great that we’ve been put together for this interview. Where are you actually based right now?
Joshua: I’m in Stockholm right now. But it could be any number of places!
Bella: What about your piece, then? When did you first write it and what inspired it? There’s a wonderful tongue-in-cheek, fuck-the-system-type of approach to this piece that I really enjoy.
Joshua: It was written in the time before this time; in the time before this chaos that we inhabit. I’m speaking of like 2015, you know?
Bella: Yeah, that’s way before everything really started to hit.
Joshua: At that time things felt like they couldn’t get any worse, and then the world was like, ‘wanna bet?’ I remember there was this big online fight happening on Twitter called Gamergate, which was essentially between misogynistic, right-wing, white male commentators and feminist, progressive people in video gaming culture. Actually, a lot of the people who were part of the debate on the right-wing side went on to take high-profile jobs, like Milo Yiannopoulos and others. This is how the media outlet Breitbart took off, they really tried to push the talking points into the mainstream, and found there was a huge cache of video gamers who were male, old or divorced incels and had these really strong opinions and wanted a mouthpiece. Anyway, these two groups were debating on Twitter, and then there was another group who were anti-gaming, like me. We were having these huge arguments and you had only 148 characters to get your point across. This was before threads or retweets!
Bella: No threads? Wild.
Joshua: Yes! I was terminally online back then as well, and I remember my wife at the time telling me I needed to go for a walk. So, I got off Twitter, went for a walk and I remember thinking that if someone joined this Gamergate debate online, they would need a glossary to help them understand all the terminology we were using. But instead of using, like, a classic term and definition, I used the idea of your mother doing the washing. Then my ADHD kicked in, and I started writing all these different versions, and I couldn’t stop. I posted them all on Twitter and my phone started popping off. I was getting retweets and followers non-stop, and it went viral at the time. Every year after then they would get recirculated and I would get another wave of followers, it was crazy.
And then in 2018 I remember I was performing at Latitude Festival. And, you know, sometimes people notice you – sometimes people confuse for Saul Williams. It happens, [laughs]. But that year someone came up to me before my performance and called me by my Twitter name which was Benin Citizen, and they were like, are you performing here? And I said I was on the poetry stage in like an hour, and he asked if I was going to be doing the ‘my mother does the washing’ bits. And I had never performed it as a poem before then, but I was like okay, why not. I did it like a series of Tweets and just read it off my phone, and I literally had to repeat every line because people kept on howling and laughing. I’ll never forget, Robin Ince came over to me after – bearing in mind I’d done an entire set on my dad passing away, on Blackness and love poetry – and he said to me your set is really good, but that poem at the end is your best. So, from that point on it sort of became my anchor. I started using it in my sets as the poem to win people over with; it always got a reaction, and so it’s been very good to me. I’ve obviously spoken about it a lot, and I used a few choice lines for the music version, but it’s been a long journey!
Bella: Wow. So you wrote the poem around 2015 and have been performing it since 2018?
Joshua: Yeah! I’m working on my new album at the moment and it’s the oldest piece on it, but it was the last one we turned into a song. I added in a few extra lines about certain political events that’ve happened in the last two years, and at first the team wasn’t sure, but then we did and it’s taken on another life of its own.
Bella: So, what made you want to finally submit it to a prize like this? And what is your relationship with the Forward Prizes?
Joshua: You know what, you’d have to ask my publishers, Jake and Amy at Bad Betty, because they submitted it and they didn’t even tell me, [laughs]. They said they were going to submit one of mine but didn’t say which or what performance. So, that’s why! But the Forward Prizes have always been a big thing for me, and one for the bucket list. The first time I heard about the prize was when Danez Smith won the Best Collection category for Don’t Call Us Dead (Graywolf Press). I remember thinking before the awards that if Danez doesn’t win, I’m quitting poetry, because his performance was so powerful, so visceral and so unabashedly spoken word. I saw myself in him, and I’ve always looked to the Forward Prizes for this, because of the people who’ve won it. It made it feel not only achievable, but also something I would feel more at home with. I was ecstatic when I heard I was shortlisted, especially because this poem fully encapsulates my journey.
And throwing the question back to you, why did you submit it to the Forward Prizes? What does it mean to you?
Bella: Well, I was in a bookshop like four or five years ago, I think it was a Foyles, and I remember coming across this anthology, the Forward Book of Poetry. I remember reading through it and absolutely loving it, it was a really modern book of poems and very much my vibe.
Joshua: Yeah, the Forward Prizes been doing this for a long time!
Bella: Right! But I had no idea until only a few years ago! So, I’m holding this book and I’m thinking, this is so cool but never in my wildest dreams could I ever imagine myself being in such a prestigious book. I didn’t even know they had a performance category. But last year I was part of the Barbican Young Poets group that went to the Young Poets’ Summit that the Forward Prizes were organising. We had some amazing conversations with poets from all over the country, mingling with people from Manchester, London, Nottingham and all over. And last year Leyla Josephine won the Best Single Poem – Performed category. I’d met Leyla a few times and we’d really got on, and I remember watching her performance thinking we had a slightly similar style, which gave me hope – I could see myself, you know? Like you said – and I spoke to her about it, and she very sweetly said I should just submit. So, I then did the whole race around trying to get footage of this piece, SIKILIZA, which came in just in time for the deadline. When I got the email saying I’d been shortlisted, I ran up and down my living room, screaming, [laughs]. I called my mum straight away and she started crying, she was so proud.
For me, it felt like the first time I’d been properly recognised in London. It felt really affirming and validating to know that I’d been here for eight years, working so hard on this career, and that I was being recognised for my work on the year I’d decided to leave. Winning is sort of irrelevant, I’m just so thrilled to be shortlisted. So many people have helped me to get to here though, is there anyone you want to shout out?
Joshua: I do just want to quickly shout out my publishers, Jake and Amy at Bad Betty, and also Sarah Sanders and Sharmilla Beezmohun. I was on a train with Sarah and Sharmilla once and they completely changed my way of thinking about myself as a performer and a poet for the page. They reminded me of how many other people around me have faith in what I do, even if I don’t, and that was so helpful to hear. It gave me the confidence I needed in my work to exist in both forms.
Bella: Yeah, it’s really important to recognise the people who have properly supported you, especially when you’ve gone through that whole self-esteem, imposter-syndrome bullshit. For me, it’s been Jacob Sam-La Rose. He’s been my mentor, my teacher and he’s recently become my colleague. I love that man with so much of my heart! He was the editor for my pamphlet and he’s literally been everywhere with me since I first moved to London. If anyone doesn’t know of Jacob, get to know!
Joshua: Yes! Jacob is the man! If you are a poet working today you need to know him! Thanks, Bella.
Bella: Thank you, Joshua.
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Bella Cox is a British Spanish writer, poet, educator and performer based in London. Her debut poetry pamphlet Sikiliza was published with Flipped Eye in 2023. Since 2014, she has performed and shared work at events such as Word n Sound, TEDx Pretoria, Sköll World Forum, Bi Pride UK, and the Malta Mediterranean Literature Festival, among many others. Her work has also appeared in numerous anthologies, and she has been commissioned to write for institutions such as the Barbican Centre, HSBC UK, Time Out London and others, as well as Westminster Abbey where she was the Poet in Residence for 2023 and 2025.
Joshua Idehen is a British-born Nigerian based in Sweden. A spoken word artist, musician and facilitator, he has contributed poems to Mercury-nominated albums Channel The Spirits by The Comet Is Coming, Your Queen Is A Reptile and the Mobo-winning Black To The Future, both by Sons of Kemet. More recently, he worked with LA electronic maestro Daedelus on the critically acclaimed mini LP, Holy Water Over Sons. In 2023, he continued his journey as a solo musical artist, collaborating with producer Ludvig Parment (Saturday, Monday) on his mixtape Learn To Swim, released to critical acclaim and support, leading to a performance in front of the King of Sweden and (more importantly) Angelique Kidjo at the 2023 Polar Prize Award show (TV4). Songbook, his first collection, was published by Bad Betty in 2024 and selected as a Poetry Book Society Recommendation.
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