Nigerian Poet Announced as Winner of the National Poetry Series


by Sirajo Abdulazeez Illo (Bá Sabouke)


Nigerian poet, D. M. Aderibigbe, has been announced as a winner of the National Poetry Series 2024 for his manuscript titled The 82nd Division. 

Among other honors, his debut book of poems How the End First Showed (University of Wisconsin Press, 2018) won the Brittingham Prize in Poetry.

In a social media post, the poet expressed;

"I'm happy to share that my manuscript, The 82nd Division, has been chosen as a winner of the 2024 National Poetry Series and will be published by Akashic Books next fall. I'm a big dreamer, but not even in my wildest dream did I think I would win an award as significant and prestigious as this."

He added that, "All I ever want to do is write unapologetically about my Nigeria."

D. M. Aderibigbe is from Lagos, Nigeria. Currently, he is an assistant professor of Creative Writing at the University of Southern Mississippi. 

He has received fellowships from the Sewanee Writers’ Conference (Walter E. Dakin Fellowship), The James Merrill House, OMI/Ledig House, Ucross, Jentel, and Boston University where he earned his MFA in creative writing. 

His poems appear in The Atlantic, The Nation, Ploughshares, The Southern Review, and New England Review, among others.

Other winners of the prize include;

Games for Children by Keith Wilson
Chosen by Rosalie Moffett for Milkweed Editions

Blue Loop by AJ White
Chosen by Chelsea Dingman for University of Georgia Press

Our Hands Hold Violence by Kieron Walquist
Chosen by Brenda Hillman for Beacon Press

Shade is a Place by MaKshya Tolbert
Chosen by Maggie Millner for Penguin

The National Poetry Series  is a literary awards program that sponsors the publication of five books of poetry each year. The manuscripts, solicited through an annual Open Competition, are selected by poets of national stature and published by a distinguished group of trade, university, and small presses. 




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