Praise for Poems – Judging & Reading Panel

‘The Etymology of Homesickness’​

      I’ve been outside of my life for years. Indeed, soldier, indeed. Is the poem moving? Yes, it is. Its weakness is a near-sentimentality. Perhaps that is its best feature.

–Pamilerin Jacob

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What a glorious poem. I like how it explores the etymology of words to talk about displacement and ostracization. Does homesickness no longer kill you?

–Bridgette James

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This poem transforms nostalgia from a historical diagnosis into a profound meditation on alienation, identity, and emotional exile. Its imagery and phrasing are compelling. The poem’s movement from collective space into a confession is handled with remarkable control.

–Chinua Ezenwa-Ohaeto

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‘Margins’

This poem gives you miracles like: Hissing back are the blue stories of uterine bodies / in my lineage. It is a sentimental poem, but it has its moments of tension, as in the opening lines.

–Pamilerin Jacob

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I always go for the spectacle in a poem. And the spectacle in this one is its extraordinary way it transforms medical examination, bodily insecurity, and pain into a haunting meditation on excesses and survival. The repetition of “blue” is delivered emotionally and symbolically, which is also devastating and alienating until it saturates the entire poem. I’m moved by how the speaker’s intensely personal experience inside the MRI machine expands into a larger revelation about performance and the hidden suffering. This is a good piece.

–Chinua Ezenwa-Ohaeto

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‘Horseback’

Tears are rolling down my face. I can make comparisons to Chinua Ohaeto’s poem: ‘What Chinualumogu Made with Clouds’ in his 2025 collection, The Naming. What beautiful lyricism learnt from this poet’s lived experiences too.

 –Bridgette James

This piece is compelling because of its honesty and narrative-ness. It traces the movement from fear and instability toward self-discovery.  The transition from the small town to the city, and then from uncertainty into the possibility of poetry, is handled with care. 

–Chinua Ezenwa-Ohaeto

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‘Stranger Danger’

Most of the poem actually elicits surprise. Illness, faith, healthcare are bundled into this rich blend of scintillating language. Even in the lines I consider weakest, ‘God of small glory’ still alerts me to a poet doing something interesting with language. As for structure, the stretching of words is reminiscent of the marvellous wordplay of the legendary Nigerian poet, Niyi Osundare.

–Pamilerin Jacob

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This piece offers a new way of looking at the subject of breast cancer or some form of disease affecting the breast. The pathogen is seen as an intruder. As a reader I was moved by the portrayal of uncertainty when a diagnosis is given.

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Such display of technical skill. I like how letters cascade. The poet too has changed form. They are God. But the idea of physical transformation or the notion of embodying God is not novel in poetry - not to be taken to mean this poem is clichéd.

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The poem feels complete, with one "line" of thought about the theme of Stranger danger running through it.

The female poet’s voice is clear, authentic, and memorable so this poem stands out and would resonate with lots of people around the world.

–Bridgette James

This poem is good in its fusion of spirituality and embodiment. This creates a voice that feels transcendent. I like the way the poem manipulates form and spacing—the fractured typography and cascading lines visually enact rupture and descent. The poem also refuses easy separation between the body and the divine by presenting illness as a site of questioning and profound spiritual confrontation.

–Chinua Ezenwa-Ohaeto

‘The Girl Who Asked for a Pen’​

Oh my! I feel the frustration in this voice, the hurt from things lost, especially innocence and a wasted mind. The words were simple, but powerful. I word does not have to be obscurely used or from a higher plain to have power.

–Gary Bryant

This poem is affecting in the way it traces a girl’s movement from curiosity and silenced longing into resistance and generational change. There is a recurring image of the yellow scarf and blue dress, which evolve from symbols of innocence into emblems of dignity and defiance. What makes the ending land well is the transformation of the speaker into someone who refuses inheritance as fate.

–Chinua Ezenwa-Ohaeto

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‘The Monster Who made Me’

I loved this poem. I was surprised to read this development from the youngest category. I could easily have believed it came from someone older. Great imagery and use of language.

–Gary Bryant

This poem captures the emotional dread of returning home while still holding space for love. The domestic details in it are incredible, which transforms an ordinary sound into a looming emotional presence. The ending is extraordinary because it shifts from describing the home to how the home now lives inside the speaker.

–Chinua Ezenwa-Ohaeto

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‘Raw/Rou’​

This poem intertwines language, identity, colonial history and grief into a meditation on what it means to lose — and keep searching for — a voice. The poem’s movement between Afrikaans and English beautifully enacts the fractured inheritance the speaker is trying to navigate. This is a good piece.

–Chinua Ezenwa-Ohaeto

‘The Priest’s Litany’

The narrator is an observer – the priest. Who is Oredia? Is she European? Is she the poet’s/priest’s daughter (not a biological relation though)? What is the darker path that Oredia treads? Is she a widow? Her spirit has disassociated from her ??body (the Host). I am intrigued by this storytelling poem. It is a masterpiece. It made me do my research. Is Oredia an outsider because she is bereaved? And where is Oredia grinding towards at the end? Isn’t she already in ?

–Bridgette James

‘Buy a Casket for Dorcas’

This piece merges oral storytelling, and social critique. The opening invocation of the grandmother’s storytelling tradition creates cultural grounding before the narrative descends into the devastating realities of abuse and abandonment.

–Chinua Ezenwa-Ohaeto

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‘No Love Outside Her Body’

This conflicted tale of maternal love and sexual desire almost veering into the forbidden, left me spellbound. I am reminded of a term coined by Sigmund Freud I 1910: Oedipus Complex. Oedipus unknowing married his mum after killing his dad. In the end it is a celebration of motherly love.

–Bridgette James