2027 JUPP Longlist/Shortlist

Longlist

This list contains a total of fifty one poems, out of two hundred and thirty six entries that were made, and they are:

1. Wisdom Ofonze – “25th Night”
2. Joemario Umana – “Because I am Here, I Call Each of These Things a Name”
3. Emediong Imowo – “Untitled Entry”
4. Ismail Bala – “A Stratigraphy of a Name”
5. Henry Opeyemi – “The Colour My Prayers Become”
6. Uduma Kalu – “I Am Still Eager”
7. Aderemi Oluwafunminiyi Ewaoluwa -“Shall we prey?”
8. Ahmed Saleh Michika -“We Count What Remains”
9. Asma’u Yahaya “Husnah” Mustapha – “All That Glitters Is Gold”
10. Ife Olatona – “Golgotha”
11. Chisom Okoronkwo – “Language as a Foreign Deity”
12.  Godwin Obaji – “The Commandment of Rainbow”
13. Felix Eshiet – “Seasonal Affairs”
14. Ifunanya Ilodianya – “It Is a New Morning”
15. Ifiokobong Etuk – “Paper Planes”
16. Progress Luke – “Cartography of a Wounded Earth”
17. Ridwan Fassasi – “Futorolepsy”
18. Sa’ada Isa Yahaya – “Case for an alternative mode of surrender”
19.  Christian Emecheta – “A Psalm for a Country on the Guillotine” 
20.  Clive Uche – “Lying in State”
21.  Saheed Sunday – “My Body keeps Your Secrets”
22. Chinma Udeji – “Line Three”
23.  Okoli Stephen Chinonso – “Jos”
24.  John Chinaka Onyeche – “One Time at a Time”
25.  Rachael Ajisafe – “Telemachus Was Not a Daughter”
26.  Edwin Onwuka – “Lost Pedestrians”
27.  Landy Dan-Gogo Itumu – “Inheritance of Dust”
28.  Aleshinloye Abdul-Afeez – “Untitled Entry” 
29.  Obiotika Wilfrid Tochukwu – “Elegy for a Voice Taken Alive”
30.  Nkasiobi Mbonu – “The World from the Corner of my Eyes is Blue”
31.  Timi Sanni – “Mother Tongue”
32. Benjamin Eshebi Eshebi – “This Country Is Not a Metaphor”
33. Monioluwa Ojisafe – “Untitled Entry” 
34.  Tukur Loba Ridwan – “A Poem Comes Out of a Hole in a Country’s Heart”
35.  ‎Adedire Adekunle Peter – “How to sketch the jingling corners of your city if Google cannot explicitly connect to its server”
36. Frank Ezechi – “Even the waters won’t take us”
37. Igbinosa Nosa – “The boy Who Ate Light”
38.  Anamelechi Esther – “Girls Who Learn”
39. Marvellous Mmesomachi Igwe – “Dispossessed”
40. Ogedengbe Tolulope – “Because Memory, too, Refuses to Die”
41. Chukwu Emmanuel Chibuzo – “A Brief History of Love”
42. Edith Bernard Udoeyop – “Metadata of a Living Ghost”
43. Annah Atane – “Stabat Mater”
44. Andrew Bula – “The Burnt innocents of Yeletawa”
45. Aishat Oshiokpekhai – “The Bird in My Tongue”
46.  Olusegun Ajayi – “Crossing Over”
47. David Jimoh – “Lamentations in Red”
48.  Ekemini David Udoh – “When the Sky Reaches Back”
49.  Taofeek “Aswagaawy” Ayeyemi – “I Make a Mirror of This River”
50. Chinwenite Kingsley Onyekwelu – “Father Figurine”
51.  Akanni Festus Olaniyi – “Every Tear Was a Prayer-drop”

Shortlist

1. Asma’u Yahaya “Husnah” Mustapha – “All That Glitters Is Gold”
2. Ifiokobong Etuk – “Paper Planes”
3. Chinwenite Kingsley Onyekwelu – “Father Figurine”
4. Clive Uche – “Lying in State”
5. Annah Atane – “Stabat Mater”
6. Ridwan Fassasi – “Futorolepsy”
7. Rachael Ajisafe – “Telemachus Was Not a Daughter”
8. Ahmed Saleh Michika -“We Count What Remains”
9. Ismail Bala – “A Stratigraphy of a Name”
10. Progress Luke – “Cartography of a Wounded Earth”