Longlist: Sande Poetry Prize 2025

Osadolor Osayande

29 Nov 2025 — 2 min read

Note From The Judges

Selecting this longlist was both an honour and an immense challenge. For this year’s Sande Poetry Prize, we received over 2,000 poems, each carrying its own spark, its own voice, and its own emotional weight. Narrowing that remarkable body of work down to just 30 poems proved far more challenging than any of us anticipated.

Although the contest initially announced that we would publish only a shortlist, the judges collectively felt that too many powerful poems would go unacknowledged. The quality of poetry was simply too high, the voices too striking, and the range of expression too rich to move straight to a shortlist. For this reason, we decided to release a longlist first—to celebrate more poets, and to ensure that deserving work does not go unheard.

Reading through the entries was deeply enjoyable and often profoundly moving. A strong current running through many poems was the exploration of grief. Yet the collection was far from sombre alone. Many poets wrote beautifully about love, reminding us how, even amid uncertainty, romance and tenderness persist. We also encountered stirring pieces of motivation and resilience, poems rooted in spiritual reflection, powerful critiques of political corruption, and thoughtful meditations on gender equality and identity.

This longlist is a celebration of the breadth and brilliance of Nigerian contemporary poetic expression. We are deeply grateful to everyone who submitted work, and we applaud the courage, craft, and heart that went into every poem we read.