Place and identity are intimately bound together. This is never more apparent than when they pull apart and press up against each other. The Lagos / London poetry competition is seeking poems on the theme of ‘Homecoming’ written by poets from Nigeria and the Nigerian diaspora.
This programme will open up a cultural conversation between poets in Nigeria and the UK, poets who share heritage, culture and even languages. By writing poems that express multiple, sometimes contradictory, sometimes revealing perspectives on ‘homecoming’ we are laying a foundation for a shared, international conversation.
Lagos / London is free to enter. The shortlisted poets will be invited to an online transition workshop and the winners will become part of the next UNDERTOW programme, a year-long artist development scheme focusing on polylingual creativity.
The competition is being run by the Poetry Translation Centre and The Book Buzz Foundation
with funding from the British Council Nigeria.
Our judges
The Lagos / London prize will be judged by Nigerian poet and language activist Amarachi Attamah, Efe Paul Azino the director of the Lagos International Poetry Festival and one of Nigeria’s foremost performance poets and Kaozara Okikiola Oyalowo, a Leicestershire based poet with a Yoruba background who is a Roundhouse Poetry Slam and Unislam finalist 2019.
Read more about the judges below.
How to Enter
Send us a short poem on the subject of ‘Homecoming’. Thirty lines more or less. Take whatever approach suits you best, the theme is there to inspire you.
Alongside your poem we want to know a bit more about you. On the submission form we will ask you to tell us more about you as a poet, and why you want to be part of the next UNDERTOW polylingual poets programme.
Submit your poem here for free. (https://poetrytranslationcentr…)
Winning, prizes and why you should enter
We will select 6 winners for the competition, half from Nigeria and half from the UK.
The Lagos / London programme is dedicated to developing young poets. To do this we provide the winners with a package of opportunities including, publication, performance, peer to peer support and professional tutoring to help them grow creatively and professionally.
For the 15 shortlisted poets we will be running an online translation workshop, a great opportunity to meet other poets and experience the translation process, with all its intricacies and surprises, first hand.
The winning poets will have their work published in the Aké Review 2022 and an opportunity to perform as part of an online event at the Lagos International Poetry Festival before going on to become the participants in the next UNDERTOW polylingual poets scheme, where they will develop their practice by celebrating the creative potential of working with more than one language.
The UNDERTOW 2022-23 programme will include one to one tutorials, polylingual writing prompts, seminars with arts professionals and opportunities to perform your work. Find out more about UNDERTOW here.
The where and the when
The deadline for submissions is midnight, Sunday 4 September 2022
The shortlisted poets will be informed on Friday 9 September 2022
The poetry translation workshop for the shortlisted poets will take place on Tuesday 20 September 2022
The winning poets will be announced 3 October 2022
The winning poets will have their work published in Aké Review 2022 journal
The winning poets will perform at on online event as part of the Lagos International Poetry Festival
The UNDERTOW 2022-23 programme will kick off in December 2022
Who can enter (The PTC’s Ts and Cs)
Eligible entrants are aged 16-26, are Nigerian or have Nigerian heritage living in the UK, and are open to exploring multiple languages in their poetry.
About the Judges
The Lagos / London prize will be judged by Nigerian poet and language activist Amarachi Attamah, Efe Paul Azino the director of the Lagos International Poetry Festival and one of Nigeria’s foremost performance poets and Kaozara Okikiola Oyalowo, a Leicestershire based poet with a Yoruba background who is a Roundhouse Poetry Slam and Unislam finalist 2019.
Amarachi Attamah is an award-winning Chant
Performer, Poet, Broadcaster, and a Mother-Tongue Advocate. Her core
interests are indigenous language sustainability, culture curation, and
intangible heritage preservation. She has performed in Nigeria, Ghana,
South Africa, the United Kingdom (where she recently completed a
four-month performance fellowship with the National Theatre where she
performed in the fifty-two theatre productions of the Three Sisters
directed by Nadia Falls, written by Inua Ellams), and the USA. She is
currently studying for a masters in Museum Studies and Cultural Heritage
Preservation at Syracuse University, New York State.
Efe Paul Azino
is one of Nigeria’s best-known performance artists and poets. In 2015,
he co-founded West Africa’s first international poetry festival, the
Lagos International Poetry Festival, which he currently directs. He is
also the director of poetry at the annual Lagos Book and Art Festival.
In 2017 he was named as one of the most powerful people in the Nigerian
art and culture space by Ynaija. He published his first collection of
poetry in 2015 titled For Broken Men Who Cross Often, under Farafina
Books. He has appeared at the Berlin Poetry Festival, Johannesburg Arts
Alive Festival, Spier International Poetry Festival Cape Town, Taipei
Poetry Festival and the Ake Book and Arts Festival amongst others. His
poems have been translated into Afrikaans, French, German and Mandarin.
He is an Osiwa Poetry Residency Fellow, and 2019 Moniack Mhor
International Writer in Residence.
Kaozara Okikiola Oyalowo is a poet from Leicester. Her poems explore themes such as femininity, race, religion, diaspora, and immigration. Kaozara is a Roundhouse Poetry Slam and Unislam finalist 2019. She has been commissioned by 2FunkyArts, BBC, Derbyshire County Council Historic England and Quiet Down There.
The Lagos-London Poetry competition is funded by the British Council.
