Mona Arshi and Andrew McMillan, said, “Our shortlist celebrated the ways in which poetry is responding to profound change, and the stylistic freedom that today’s poets have claimed. From this impressive field, we unanimously chose Bhanu Kapil’s How to Wash a Heart as our winner. It is a radical and arresting collection that recalibrates what it’s possible for poetry to achieve.” Bhanu Kapil was born in England to Indian parents, and she grew up in a South Asian, working-class community in London. She lives between the UK and the US, where she spent 21 years at Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado. She is the author of six books of poetry/prose: