KAYODE ADERINOKUN POETRY PRIZE SHORTLIST

Vanessa Chisakula ‘VanVan’ is a hyphenated artist, an award-winning poet from Zambia, and creative activist who uses art as a tool for advocacy and social justice. She is the 2023 Africa podcast and Voice Rising Talent (Poetry) Award recipient and has been featured in the Guardian, BBC Focus on Africa, and Afro Women Poetry. Her chapbook ‘Africana’ celebrates African identity. Vanessa’s work appears in Women Scream Anthology, PePeta Africa’s digital booklet, and her acclaimed poem Her Place fiercely amplifies women’s rights across global platforms.

Dr. Sinyuy Geraldine is a distinguished creative writer based in the North West Region of Cameroon. She holds a Ph.D. in Commonwealth Literature from the University of Yaoundé I. Her literary journey began in her teens, with her poems and folktales frequently featured on CRTV Bamenda’s “Literary Workshop: A Programme for Creative Writing and Literary Criticism.” She is a UNESCO-RIELA Affiliate artist, Cameroon Coordinator of the International Writers Association (July 2025-Present), a 2023 International Human Rights Arts Movement (IHRAM) fellow, Director of the International Human Rights Arts Movement, African Secretariate Cameroon (2024-present), advocate for organic gardening and proper waste management; a World Pulse Digital Ambassador and much more. She was chief judge for the Writing Ukraine International Poetry Competition in 2023; one of the judges for the 2023 Creative Writing Competition for Secondary Schools within the North West Region organized by the North West /West Branch of the Anglophone Cameroon Writers Association (ACWA) and in July 2025, she was nominated as one of the judges for the African Human Rights Inter-University Essay Competition in 2025. She served as a critical book review editor at Word City Literary Journal and is the founder of The Rising Sun Editing Company Ltd, established in 2022; editor for ASA (Journal of Education, Learning and Research) since 2024; Editorial Adviser, The Journal of Cameroonian and Nigerian Writers League (2025-). Her dedication to literature, social change, human rights activism and environmental advocacy underpins her raison d’etre. She is the author of Music in the Wood and Other Folktales, Agonies of the Displaced (2024), co-editor of Her Rights, Our Stories (2024); Poetry in Times of Conflict (2020) and contributing poet of A Poetry Anthology Dedicated to the Most Venerated African Patriarch His Excellency Chief Olusegun Obasanjo for his Luminous Legacy of Peace, Patriotism, Diplomacy, Entrepreneurship and Humaness (2025), Love Letters to Water (2022). Her poems and academic papers appear on many platforms. She is a member of the Anglophone Cameroon Writers Association, Academia Edu, and Research Gate.

Jackline Waziri– UK Based Writer & Poet From Tanzania. Born in Dar es Salaam, she is the daughter of Fauzia Waziri Juma, whose mother is Mwanjaa Shaaban Robert. Jackline is the great-granddaughter of the legendary Swahili poet Shaaban Bin Robert. Waziri was then moved to the United Kingdom, where she had a keen interest in Literature, creative writing and poetry. Waziri illustrates her truth and paints an art of her journey in the UK but her soul that was left behind in Tanzania, through her writing. Many know Waziri as a UK-based Poet and the Author of ‘Mwana’ poetry collection from Tanzania. She is also the Founder of ‘Mwana’ events, a platform that highlights and portrays artists and entrepreneurs from Africa based in London. It was established in 2020 and has worked closely in the local community, providing a focus for African culture, creativity and art through poetry and music – providing African entertainment events and most importantly a community. Waziri’s great passion is to bring healing, truth, light, awakening and unity to the African community but in particular the African children as she believes they are the future, who will lift up and rebuild Africa. Their motherland.

Dr. Martin Egblewogbe is from Ghana and is the author of the collection of short stories, The Waiting (Lubin & Kleyner, 2020) and Mr Happy and The Hammer of God and other Stories (Ayebia, 2012). His writing has appeared in several collections, such as The Gonjon Pin (2014 Caine Prize anthology), PEN America’s Passages Africa (2015), All The Good Things Around Us (Ayebia, 2016), Litro #162: Literary Highlife (2017), Between The Generations (2020), Shimmering At Sunset (2021) and Voices That Sing Behind The Veil (2022). Martin was the commissioning editor for the anthology Resilience: A Collection (2021), and also co-edited the anthology of short stories, The Sea Has Drowned the Fish (2018) as well as the anthologies of poetry Look where you have gone to sit (Woeli, 2010) and According to Sources (Woeli, 2015). He is a co-founder and a director of the Writers Project of Ghana, and director of Pa Gya! A Literary Festival in Accra.

Akeem Lasisi is a journalist, poet, and teacher who has been performing poetry within and outside Nigeria for over two decades. Famous for his ability to spontaneously deliver poems on various subjects, his craft mark is the ease with which he switches from Yoruba to English forms and vice versa. Two of his collections of poems, IREMOJE: Ritual Poetry for Ken Saro-Wiwa, and Night of my Flight, won the Association of Nigerian Authors/CADBURY Poetry Prize in 2000 and 2005, respectively. He is also the author of Right Option English (a textbook) and Goodness and Messi (a collection of jokes). Also, the publisher of Phenomenal.com.ng, Tutor for Phenomenal English and a columnist with THE PUNCH, Lasisi has earlier produced six musical poetry albums: Post Mortem, Ori Agbe, Wonderland (Eleleture), Udeme,  (Constituency Project),  Comforti. He has also produced poetic tributes to prominent people and institutions, a project that recently gave birth to his annual AFRICAN CITATIONS exhibition. Lasisi, who is also the Public Relations Officer of the First Technical University, Ibadan, co-authored (with Kabir Alabi Garba) Phenomenal Lagos, a textual, photographic, and poetic celebration of 50 monuments in Lagos State.