FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
[LAGOS, MARCH 2026] —
The Arole Agarawu Foundation is honored to announce that Matthew Shenoda — poet, professor, and a founding editor of the African Poetry Book Fund — will serve as the inaugural judge of the Arole Agarawu African Poetry Prize. An anonymous panel of first readers will oversee the selection of finalists, from whom the winners of both the Arole Agarawu African Poetry Prize and Arole Grayling Wraith Prize will be chosen.
Together, the two prizes constitute the Alhaji Arole Agarawu African Poetry Prize, the foundation’s flagship initiative. Each award carries a $1,000 prize. Both are free to enter and open to poets of African descent, 18 and older, who have published no more than two full-length collections.
"Poetry is one of the few things left with and for us. It’s one of the few things that may never die, and I am happy to be contributing to archiving the best voices of my generation,” said Adedayo Agarau, Founder and Executive Director of the Arole Agarawu Foundation. "The difference between my grandfather’s generation and mine is that we are writing at a time of access. Talent comes with a face, a name, and language has never been more accessible. My grandfather composed hundreds of songs for artists who became legends, but his name was never on any of them. This prize exists because the lyric has always known what the record often doesn’t: the drums remember the hand, or as Yusef Komunyakaa puts it, the skin’s exquisite touch. This prize is looking for that touch, insisting on the black lyric — wherever it is sung, wherever it is written.
Shenoda is the author of Somewhere Else (Coffee House Press, 2005), named one of the year's best debut collections by Poets & Writers and winner of a 2006 American Book Award; Seasons of Lotus, Seasons of Bone (BOA Editions, 2009); Tahrir Suite (Northwestern University Press, 2014), winner of the Arab American Book Award; and The Way of the Earth (Northwestern University Press, 2022), a lyrical collection examining the quotidian beauty that endures despite deep loss and the climate crisis. His next collection, Holdings, is forthcoming from Knopf in 2027. He is a founding editor of the African Poetry Book Fund and African Poetry Book Series, and currently serves as Professor and Chair of the Department of Literary Arts at Brown University. His most recent poem, “The Tomb Attendant Contemplates His Own Death,” appeared in The New Yorker in March 2026.
Shenoda's appointment as sole judge of the Arole Agarawu African Poetry Prize reflects the foundation’s commitment to placing this prize in the hands of a reader who understands, from the inside, what it costs and what it means to carry a multi-conscious and diasporic literary inheritance. His parallel work as an institution-builder in African literary culture makes him a natural steward of an inaugural cycle whose deepest purpose is recognition as justice.
The Arole Grayling Wraith Prize, supported by media partner Grayling and Wraith, will be selected by an anonymous panel of first readers assembled by the foundation. Winners of both prizes will receive professional video productions of their winning poems, produced by Grayling and Wraith.
The submission window runs from February 28 through May 31, 2026. Poets may submit 10 unpublished poems (maximum 15 pages) via our submission manager.
Full guidelines are available at aroleagarawufoundation.com.
Ijeoma Ndata
Contact: info@aroleagarawufoundation.com
Website: aroleagarawufoundation.com