Poet Andrew McMillan has won the inaugural £2,000 Polari prize recognising work that explores the LGBT experience with his second collection Playtime. McMillan won the Guardian First Book award with his debut collection Physical.

Judge and Booker-winning novelist Bernadine Evaristo said McMillan was “exploring coming of age, masculinity and sexuality in ways that move and surprise. His poetic voice is completely natural and free, with no pretence or attempts to obfuscate meaning, yet the work has emotional complexity, power and depth.” Fellow judge Paul McVeigh said Playtime was “beautiful, courageously honest and disarmingly vulnerable. Playtime does what the best writing does, articulates unflinchingly what it is to be human.”

McMillan’s win and that of author Angela Chadwick, who took the £1,000 Polari first book prize, were announced on Tuesday at the Southbank Centre as part of the London Literature Festival.