Award-winning poets Soonest Nathaniel, Jide Badmus, and Martins Deep are the judges for the 10th edition of the Eriata Oribhabor Poetry Prize, EOPP 2022. Over 450 entries were received for the N100,000 Prize between June and August 2022.
A huge thank you goes to everyone who submitted something for the Prize!
Meet your 2022 Judges…
MARTINS DEEP (he/him) is an Urhobo poet based in Zaria. He is a photographer, digital artist, & currently an undergraduate student of Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria. His most recent works have appeared—or are forthcoming— in Magma Poetry, Strange Horizons, FIYAH, Augur Magazine, Lolwe, 20.35 Africa, Fantasy Magazine, Josephine Quarterly, Anathema Magazine, & elsewhere. He doubles as a dreamer— fantasizing about reincarnating as an owl, & a sleepy workaholic. He tweets @martinsdeep1
JIDE BADMUS is an engineer, a poet inspired by beauty and destruction; he believes that things in ruins were once beautiful. He is the author of There is a Storm in my Head; Scripture; Obaluaye (FlowerSong Press, 2022). What Do I Call My Love for Your Body (Roaring Lion Newcastle, 2022). He was nominated for the Pushcart Prize in 2021. Badmus has curated and edited several anthologies, and his poems have appeared in Disquiet Arts, The Shore, Kreative Diadem, Jalada Africa, Sub-Saharan and elsewhere. He is the founder of INKspiredNG, Poetry Editor for CỌ́N-SCÌÒ Magazine, a mentor in the SprinNG Fellowship, and sits on the board of advisors for Libretto Magazine. Jide writes from Lagos, Nigeria. He tweets @bardmus.
SOONEST NATHANIEL is a poet, broadcast journalist, and spoken word artist from Nigeria. His poetry collection, “Teaching Father How to Impregnate Women,” was selected as a winner of the RL Poetry Award. A Rhysling and Pushcart nominee, Soonest was named a 2021 Langston Hughes Fellow at the Palm Beach Festival and Poet Laureate for the Korea Nigeria Poetry Festival. His poems have been included in Rattle, FIYAH, Pedestal Magazine, Ilanot Review, Feral Poetry, Contemporary Verse 2, Coffinbell, Idle Ink, Icefloe Press, Tulsa Review, Cider Press, Off the Coast Magazine, Northridge Review, Qmaker, The Elevation Review, Raven Chronicles, Scintilla, Silver Blade Poetry, Rockford Review, Evocations Review, Praxis Online, Loudthotz, Reverbnation, Saraba, Elsewhere, Erbacce UK, among others. Soonest lives and works in Abuja, when he is not scribbling in his Milk House, he spends the time listening to the music of the spheres or reading the stars.
PRIZES TO BE WON:
- First Prize – ₦50,000 cash
- First Runner-up – ₦30,000 cash
- Second Runner-up – ₦20,000 cash
ABOUT THE ERIATA ORIBHABOR POETRY PRIZE:
EOPP was instituted in 2012 as an annual Prize to give much-needed attention to Nigerian poetry and encourage young Nigerian poets to use poetry as a tool for social change. The yearly contest has become the leading platform for the discovery, encouragement, and celebration of poets in Nigeria. [READ MORE ABOUT EOPP]
