Michael Imossan wins 2024 Sillerman Prize, continuing Nigeria’s hat-trick
2022 winner, NewsDirect Poetry Chapbook Prize, Michael Imossan, has been named winner of the Sillerman First Book Prize for African Poetry, 2024 for his full-length manuscript “All That Refuses to Die.”
The African Poetry Book Fund, APBF, disclosed this on Wednesday, July 24, 2024, via a statement made available to Nigerian NewsDirect.
One of the judges praised Michael Imossan’s manuscript for its “exquisite language” and “piercingly memorable lines,” adding that the lines are “elegiac but with insistence on beauty and Love.”
This win follows Abu Sadiq’s 2023 win for his manuscript “Leaked Footages” and Tares Oburumu’s “Origin of the Syma Species” which won the 2022 edition, making Imossan the third consecutive Nigerian to win the coveted prize in three years.
Recall that prior to the APBF announcement of Michael as the Winner of the Sillerman Prize for Poetry, his chapbook had been selected by the African Poetry Book Fund as part of the New-Generation African Chapbook Boxset earlier in the year. For Imossan, this is a double endorsement from Africa’s foremost poetry institution.
In his words: “when I received the email, I could not believe it. I had submitted both manuscripts hoping that one is selected, having both of them picked was shocking. It was magic to me.”
One of the most prominent poetry prizes in Africa, the Sillerman Prize for African Poetry, is given to a poet who does not yet have a complete manuscript. The winner will receive a $1,000 prize, and the University of Nebraska Press will publish their book in the African Poetry Book Series.
Renowned poets like Safia Elhilo for her collection “The January Children,” Gbenga Adeoba for his collection “Exodus,” Tjawanga Dema for her collection “The Careless Seamstress,” and numerous more have previously won the award.
The Sillerman Prize was founded in 2013 by the late benefactors Robert F.X. Sillerman and his wife Laura Sillerman. Through the competition, up-and-coming African and African-diasporic poets who have not yet published a poetry book are, in collaboration with the University of Nebraska Press, honoured for their works.
Michael Imossan’s work mostly navigates societal issues, country, family, love and beauty. “I believe poetry is a chisel, and I as a poet can use it in shaping the society,” he said. Michael believes that protest poems, especially in the contemporary era can be approached through the personal.
According to him, “I allow myself to approach the public through the personal and in that way I am part of the collective suffering or joy of the people.”
Michael is currently an Editor for Chestnut Reviews, his works are published in/forthcoming from; Electric Literature, Frontier Poetry, Strange Horizon, Lucent Dreaming and elsewhere.
