Western Post journalist, Ogunrinde longlisted for 2025 live canon International Poetry Competition
A Nigerian writer and Western Post journalist, Oyelola Ogunrinde, has been longlisted for the 2025 Live Canon International Poetry Competition.
The prestigious UK-based award, which has been in existence for over a decade, celebrates exceptional contemporary poetry and was notably won in 2014 by Nigerian-British poet Inua Ellams.
This year’s overall winner, The Beekeeper of Heligan by Lauren Thomas, was announced at an online ceremony on Thursday, October 23, by guest judge Nina Murray, a poet and translator renowned for her powerful and thought-provoking lyricism.
Murray commended both the winning entry and the broader collection of submissions, highlighting the “high calibre and thematic diversity” of this year’s competition.
The selection process for the Live Canon Prize is known for its rigour, with judges placing strong emphasis on technical precision, emotional resonance, and originality.
Being longlisted, according to the organisers, signifies that a poet’s work demonstrates exceptional literary quality and the rare capacity to stand out in a blind judging process involving thousands of entries from around the world.
All the longlisted poems are included in our 2025 anthologyu here: https://www.livecanon.co.uk/store/product/2025-prize-anthology
