SARAH HOWE: In the Chinese Ceramics Gallery
Written by Sarah Howe, these poems originally appear in Foretokens (Chatto & Windus, 2025) which was shortlisted for the T. S. Eliot Prize in the same year. The works are reproduced here with kind permission from the author.
Sarah Howe is a British poet, editor, and academic born in Hong Kong in 1983. Raised between Hong Kong and the United Kingdom, her multicultural background has profoundly shaped her writing, which often explores themes of identity, migration, memory, language, and cultural belonging. She studied at the University of Cambridge and later completed a doctorate in English literature. Howe's acclaimed debut collection, Loop of Jade (2015), reflects on her Anglo-Chinese heritage and family history through richly layered, lyrical poems. The collection won the prestigious T. S. Eliot Prize, making Howe the youngest poet and the first debut collection to receive the award. Alongside her poetry, she has worked as an editor and literary scholar. Today, Sarah Howe is recognised as one of the most distinctive voices in contemporary British poetry. A link to her website can be found here.