Agarau appears twice on the shortlist for his works In Iowa, I Dreamt Of Canoes, and Oregon Nocturnal.
By Hope Ibiale
Nigerian poet, Adedayo Agarau, has been announced as one of the poets shortlisted for the 2023 Wales Poetry Award. Agarau appears twice on the shortlist for his works In Iowa, I Dreamt Of Canoes, and Oregon Nocturnal.
His works are shortlisted alongside 11 poems. The three top winners and 10 commended poets will be announced at the online Awarding Ceremony on July 22, 2024. Their poems will be published in Poetry Wales’ online booklet.

Adedayo Agarau is a poet and the Editor-in-Chief of Agbowó. He is also a Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford University and a Cave Canem Fellow. His poems have been featured in Poetry Magazine, Poetry Society of America, World Literature Today, and elsewhere. He is the author of the chapbooks, Origin of Names (African Poetry Book Fund, 2020), and The Arrival of Rain (Vegetarian Alcoholic Press, 2020). Last month, he received the Poetic Justice Editors Prize for a BIPOC Writer.

The Wales Poetry Award is an annual poetry award organised by Poetry Wales, a magazine that publishes poetry, features, and reviews in a bid to preserve works that inspire literary works. The poetry award, which was founded in 2019, aims to discover the best international poetry. This year’s prize is judged by author, Denise Saul.