The Longlist has been Announced! All Eyes are in Earnest for the Winner!
By Saheed Sunday and Chidiebere Nwuguru Sullivan
On the 14th of October, 2024, the ZODML Poetry Contest released the much-awaited longlist which narrowed down a whooping submission of 1445 from 120 public tertiary institutions across 35 states and the FCT down to just eleven poets.
Last year, we received entries across Nigeria on the theme of Motherhood, while the entries this year are geared towards the theme of Hopefulness. Apart from the fact that the cash prize increased from about 200 thousand Naira to 500 thousand Naira, the number of submissions also received a massive turnout, skyrocketing from 791 entries last year to 1445 entries as we had received this year.
It is noteworthy to mention that all of the entries that made the longlist had certain unique styles to them which boasted their exceptional voice. For instance, we had different poems which were written in pidgin; poems written in the traditional free verse, and poems written in the contemporary style. The fluidity and level of excellence in each of these poems made it lucidly clear why and how they had made the longlist. So to say, even the Chair Judge, Tade Ipadeola, made a comment on the longlist and the entries generally:
“Entries for the 2024 ZODML poetry contest, open to undergraduates in public universities in Nigeria, came in the hundreds. It was the task of the panel of judges to judge their poetic merits. The poems submitted displayed a surprising range in their linguistic configurations, awareness of the world, musicality, imagery, and overall felicity. The judges had their work cut out for them from the beginning, first in sifting through the submissions for the 11 poems for the long list and thereafter for the shortlist.
In 2024, with the rise and ubiquity of artificial intelligence even in the making of poems, the judges had their hands full and their ears tuned specifically for the ring of authenticity, most of all, in all the poems deemed worthy of the long list and then the shortlist.
The poems in the shortlist capture the fine balance between hope and hopelessness against the overarching backdrop of the Nigerian "Volksgeist". All the shortlisted poems offer, without exception, a new, often refreshing, way to approach the everyday challenges of Nigerians of their generation. At a challenging time in the history of the world at large, these poems offer a window into the soul of the youths of our country and, all told, present a picture of what is possible even in the midst of our most trying of times.”
As we all have our eyes in earnest on who is going to emerge as the overall winner of this year’s prize, some further important details need to be divulged ahead of the announcement of the winners. These cogent details are necessary to be in the loop of how the contest is moving:
The shortlisted entrants will be formally announced by the end of the week while the winners will be announced at our award ceremony that will be held in the University of Lagos, UNILAG on October 24th, 2024.
PS: You have read the longlist on our Instagram page. Who do you think will be the winner of this year’s edition?
