In a statement by Pamilerin Jacob, the coordinator of the Nigerian NewsDirect Poetry Prize, the call for submissions was necessitated by the desire of Nigerian NewsDirect to fulfill its long-term goal of supporting innovation in Nigerian poetry.

The prize money totals N150,000. The first prize winner is to take N70,000, the second prize winner takes N50,000 and the third prize winner goes home with N30,000

Guidelines:

  1. The competition is open to all Nigerian poets at different stages of their career (except members of Unserious Collective and staff/interns of The African Writers). Nigerian poet, we take to mean a person born in Nigeria, or whose parents (at least one) are Nigerian, or a person living in Nigeria naturalized as a citizen.
  2. Send in ONE previously unpublished poem of any length in a .doc or .docx file—Single-spaced. Font: 12, Garamond or Times New Roman—to poetrycolumnnnd@gmail.com. (Note: “n” appears three times in the email address)
  3. Original entries only.
  4. There is no guiding theme or style. Submit your best work.
  5. Email subject should read, “NNDPP 2020 ENTRY.”
  6. In the body of the mail add full name, a bio not more than 70 words, email address, and phone number.
  7. No entry Fee.
  8. Entrants retain copyright of their works but submission gives us permission to publish selected poems in a future anthology.

Deadline: January 25, 2021

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