Congratulations to OUP poets Jane Draycott and Jo Shapcott, both placed by the judges for this year's Forward prizes (in what chairman Simon Armitage calls "a two-fingered cheerio" to the publisher that wanted shot of them) on the best collection shortlist. No thanks to OUP itself, of course, or to Carcanet, which now manages the Oxford squad: tipped off that the deadline had passed with no word from the city of dreaming spires and, apparently, publishers, the poets themselves contacted the organiser. Extending the kind of special indulgence appropriate to an elderly, demented don, Forward allowed OUP a month's grace to submit a list that included, besides Draycott and Shapcott, Tobias Hill, Peter Porter and Stephen Romer. They must all feel very loved and valued.

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