Read the 2024 Winning Poem by Iyanuoluwa Adenle selected by the inaugural judge for the prize, Othuke Umukoro

2025 Submission Guidelines: 

1. The Prize is open to writers anywhere in the world. ONE unpublished poem per submission. Please, no multiple submissions by the same writer. 
2. Please do not submit any poem that has previously appeared in a chapbook, an anthology, a full-length collection, social media, or any literary magazine. 
3. The submitted poem should not exceed 50 lines. Epigraphs and the poem's title are not part of the line count. 
4. Submissions must not include identifying information; please do not include your name or biographical information in your submission document. Include the following ONLY in the body of the email: Name, Phone number, Email, and Country of Residence. Please send your submission as a PDF or Word doc attachment to: kofiawoonorpoetryprize@gmail.com, and with the subject: Kofi Awoonor Poetry Prize 2025
5. Any submission that does not follow these guidelines or is received after the deadline will be discarded unread. 
6. Close friends, family members, and recent students of the judge are not eligible for this prize.
7. No entry fee is required. 
8. The administrators of Pepper Coast Mag will collate the submissions and forward them to the judge, who will read ALL submissions anonymously. 
9. The judge’s decision is final. 
10. The winner will receive $150 plus publication in Pepper Coast Mag.
11. The finalists will be announced in October, and the winner will be announced in November 2025.

If you have any questions, please email us. Thank you. Good luck, and we can’t wait to receive your submission.   

Guest Judge

Maryhilda Obasiota Ibe is a Nigerian poet. She received her MFA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She is the winner of the Indiana Review Poetry Prize 2025, American Literary Review Poetry Prize 2024, and Bloomsday Poetry Prize 2020. She was a finalist for the Porter House Review Prize and longlisted for the Disquiet Poetry Prize. Her works have appeared or are forthcoming on Indiana Review, American Literary Review, Chestnut Review, Brittle Paper and elsewhere. She is currently the 2025-2026 Hoffman-Halls Emerging Artist Fellow (HEAF) at the Wisconsin Institute of Creative Writing.