Yogesh Patel MBE

Shortlisted for the Aryamati Prize 2023, Yogesh Patel has received an MBE for literature in the Late Queen's 2020 Honours List. 

Patel’s 2021 collection of poems, The Rapids, a winner of the Finalist Award in the Indie Book Awards, was published by The London Magazine. His latest collection of poems, 2½: Two and a  Half, was published by Poetrywala in February 2026. Internationally celebrated, he edits Skylark and runs Skylark Publications UK, as well as a non-profit Word Masala project to promote literature. Honoured with the Freedom of the City of London, and nominated for the Pushcart Prize, he has LP records, films, radio, a children’s book, fiction, and non-fiction books, and three poetry collections to his credit. A recipient of many awards, including The International Pinnacle Accolade Award by Vatayan - Poetry on South Bank and a Co-Op Prize for the poetry on the environment, Patel was Poet-of-Honor at New York University in April 2019. Among the venues he has read in, are the House of Lords and the National Poetry Library. Patel’s poem is also scheduled for the moon aboard a NASA/SpaceX rocket to be archived in a time capsule as part of humanity’s cultural record on the moon’s Southern Hemisphere.

In 2025 he was "commended Winner' of Faber and Faber's FAB Prize. His poetry film was the winner of Poetry Archive's WorldView Now.

His writing has appeared in many notable literary journals, including AGNI, PN Review, The London Magazine, World Literature Today, Indian Literature, Stand, Envoi, Under the Radar, Shearsman, IOTA, Understanding, Orbis, The Book Review, and Confluence. He has also appeared on BBC TV and Radio. Patel’s work also features in The National Curriculum anthology, MacMillan educational series, Sahitya Akademi anthologies, and more than fifteen other anthologies across the world. Having written columns and articles for numerous broadsheets and literary journals, he is currently an editor at Ars Notoria and writes regular columns for Confluence.

By profession, Patel is a qualified optometrist and an accountant. Author’s Websites are: www.patelyogesh.co.uk and www.skylarkpublications.co.uk