It is pleasing to have received about 300 entries from the following countries:
Nigeria;
Ghana;
Botswana;
Cameroon;
Kenya;
South Africa;
Bangladesh;
Eswatini;
Greece;
United States;
Malawi;
Zimbabwe;
Gambia;
Trinidad;
Zambia;
Uganda;
Namibia;
Liberia;
Casablanca;
India;
Jamaica; and
Uncategorised.
All entries have been duly acknowledged. The process of selection and editing begins in earnest. The Hill-Top Creative Arts Foundation had constituted a team of poets to do the selection. The Editor is Saddiq Dzukogi.
Saddiq Dzukogi is a Nigerian poet and Asst. professor of English at Mississippi State University. He is the author of Your Crib, My Qibla (University of Nebraska Press, 2021), winner of the 2021 Derek Walcott Prize for Poetry, and the 2022 Julie Suk Award, as well as being one of the three finalists of Nigeria Ptize for Literature (poetry, 2022). He is the recipient of numerous fellowships from the Nebraska Art Council, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Pen America, and Ebedi International Residency. His poetry is featured in various magazines including POETRY, Ploughshares, Kenyon Review, Poetry London, Guernica, Cincinnati Review, Gulf Coast, and Prairie Schooner. Saddiq lives and writes from Starkville, Mississippi.
