Momtaza Mehri is a poet and researcher working across criticism, education, and radio. Currently, she is the Poet-in-Residence at Homerton College, University of Cambridge. She is a columnist for Tate Etc, the arts magazine published by the Tate network of galleries. Her debut poetry collection Bad Diaspora Poems recently won the 2023 Forward Prize for Best First Collection, as well as an Eric Gregory Prize, a Somerset Maugham Award, and a Sky Arts Award. It also won the 2025 Glenna Luschei Prize for African Poetry. In 2024, she was shortlisted for the prestigious Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award. Her writing has been translated into various languages, including Arabic, French, Dutch, Portuguese and Slovenian.
She is a former Young People’s Poet Laureate for London and Frontier-Antioch Fellow at Antioch University (Los Angeles).