Courtney Conrad was won the £5,000 Michael Marks poetry award for her pamphlet I Am Evidence, set in Jamaica and described by one of the judges, Fiona Benson, as having “the reach and impact of a long novel”.

She added: “One pamphlet stood out for us for its sheer nerve and its virtuosic use of the pamphlet form: Courtney Conrad's I Am Evidence.  These are startling poems of personal, social and political resonance … each poem explodes on the page.'

When it was shortlisted the judges said the poems “give fierce witness to the precarity and turmoil of a violent and impoverished Jamaica. The poems are linguistically surefooted, and enriched by a rich, dynamic Jamaican patois; they are also technically incredibly accomplished. Through evocations, classifieds, stories, recipes and witness, we are immersed in the convulsions and mercies of a dangerously unequal society.

“While these poems bear witness to the most brutal violence, the collection is not without joy, because love is always present at the table. Although the pamphlet is a short form, I Am Evidence has the reach, ambition, structural integrity and humanity of a long novel. This pamphlet is obeah; wonderful, dangerous magic.”

Courtney Conrad is a Jamaican poet who is currently based in London. I Am Evidence was co-published in September 2023 by Bloodaxe Books and Mslexia.  It won the 2022 Mslexia Women's Poetry Pamphlet competition, judged by Imtiaz Dharker, for which publication by Bloodaxe was part of the prize.