2025 Live Canon Poetry competition: Nigerian writer Ogunrinde gains global recognition
• Laughter — Oyelola Ogunrinde
Nigerian journalist and writer Oyelola Ogunrinde has been longlisted for the 2025 Live Canon International Poetry Competition, a prestigious UK-based literary award that has celebrated poetic excellence for over a decade.
The competition, known for its rigorous judging process and emphasis on technical mastery, emotional resonance, and originality, received thousands of entries from poets across the world this year.
Being longlisted, organisers noted, is a mark of exceptional literary quality and creative distinction.
The overall winner, Lauren Thomas, clinched the top spot with her poem “The Beekeeper of Heligan.”
The announcement was made during an online ceremony on Thursday, 23rd October 2025, by guest judge Nina Murray, an acclaimed poet and translator known for her evocative and thought-provoking works.
Murray commended the high calibre of submissions and the thematic diversity reflected in the finalists’ poems, noting that the entries captured a wide spectrum of human emotion, nature, and modern experience.
Ogunrinde’s longlisted poem, titled “Laughter,” stands among an impressive selection of works featured in the 2025 Live Canon Anthology, available via Live Canon’s official website.
Past winners of the competition include Inua Ellams, the Nigerian-British poet who took home the prize in 2014.
This year’s shortlist featured works such as “The Beekeeper of Heligan” by Lauren Thomas, “Rewilding at the End of the World” by Jen Feroze, “Pheasant Eggs” by Miles Gibson, and “The Gleaners” by Vasiliki Albedo, among others.
Ogunrinde’s recognition adds to the growing list of Nigerian writers making waves on the global literary stage, reinforcing the country’s vibrant contribution to contemporary poetry.
Shortlist
Blow — Nicky Kippax
Bycatch — Caroline Smith
E = mc² — Kate Fenwick
How Fungi Unmake and Remake the World and It’s Holy — Anne Cooper
Pheasant Eggs — Miles Gibson
Rewilding at the End of the World — Jen Feroze
The Beekeeper of Heligan — Lauren Thomas
The Cows on Testing Day — Ilse Pedler
The Final Foley Session: Climate Emergency — Jane Thomas
The Gleaners — Vasiliki Albedo
The Old People’s Home at the End of the World — Anna Bowles
To Mr Edwards (Physics) — Oenone Thomas
We Never Found the River — Laura Theis
Longlist
A Boy Scout Memory — Matthew McDermott
Angels Have Blue Feet — Lesley Saunders
Ascension Day — Martin Yates
Asclepius — Bex Hainsworth
Colourless Green Ideas Sleep Furiously — Brett van Toen
Dinger, Short for Schrödinger — Sharon Black
Dogwhelk — Claire Barnes
Don’t Love Me — Mehmet Izbudak
Even in Pristina We Get Ready for Winter — Lesley Sharpe
Family Matters — Julia Webb
Gaia Returns to Work After Maternity Leave — Karan Chambers
How to Ferment Your Past — Denise O’Hagan
I Am a Nothing-Doer — Katie Griffiths
If I’m Only a Handbag, You Might Be One Too — Aileen La Tourette
Laughter — Oyelola Ogunrinde
Leicester Car Parks — Julie Runacres
Love Map – A Zuihitsu — Vanessa Lampert
Mount Famine — Mark Totterdell
My Dad Wins the Charles Lindbergh Award for Driving to East Midlands Airport So Early the Terminal Has Yet to Be Built — Jeanette Burton
Oscar’s Boat — Mary Mulholland
Pitching God — Deborah Finding
Playing Among Ruins — David Clark
Self Portrait as All the Saints — Sue Burge
Slow — Ruth Sharman
Special Clinic — Lydia Kennaway
The Bowling Action of Muttiah Muralitharan — Sarah Gibbons
The Disaster Planner Enjoys Dessert — Suzanna Fitzpatrick
The Resurrection of the Tasmanian Tiger — David Underdown
The Shark God — Paul Terence Carney
The Story Is Rain — Jeff Bien
The Underside of Pigeons — Amelia Dowler
This Cuckoo from Harappa — Rishika Williams
Threads — Karis Williamson
To a Magnolia — Oliver Dixon
Towards the End — Penny Sharman
When a Sindhi Woman Dies, So Does a Book — Sapna Bhavnani
Wild Carrot Wild Mustard — Ger Duffy
Wrecked — Lesley Curwen
