Isele! Spoken Word Poetry Prize

Isele! is the dedicated to celebrating emerging talents. The dream is to partner with Publishers and Writers in promoting various literary activities, publicising works of new voices and appreciating literary excellence in our community through award programmes, with the intention that it serves as motivation to new voices. This dream was born from the need to build a community for the new voices who had not been heard and to promote and appreciate their works.

In line with this vision, and in partnership with Saraba Magazine, we are happy to unveil our first Spoken Word Poetry contest!

Interested poets are expected to write a 2-3 minutes spoken word on topics that border on any of the following topics;

1. Love
2. Peace
3. Religion
4. Education
5. Politics

They are to submit a video of the performance in MP4/3GP format not larger than 7MB. Fancy video works are not needed as judges would only want to see the performances and to feel the power of words.

The judges for the contest are the renowned performance poets Dike Chukwumerije and Sage Hasson.

The quality of the submissions will be closely monitored by the Poetry Editor of Saraba Magazine, Adebiyi Olusolape.

Contest Period: Entries will be accepted from May 3, 2013, and ending June 12, 2013. All entries must have been received by 11:59pm, June 12, 2013.

Deadline for submission: June 12, 2013

Award: The winner takes home a cash prize of N50, 000 and will be featured on a radio station. They also stand the opportunity to be featured on a TV station. The winner will also be featured at the Orange Crush Awards 2013 in Port Harcourt, Nigeria, and will be performing alongside other performance poets at the Lordz of Rhyme on the variety night of the Orange Crush/Niger Delta Creative Writers Workshop, also in Port Harcourt.

Eligibility: The contest is open only to Nigerians resident in Nigeria. Family members and/or those living in the same household, or those related to the organisers and partners or in their employ are prohibited from entering.

Judging Process: All entries will be uploaded on Youtube for public viewing, and the shortlisted entries will be properly criticized by selected critics. These shortlisted entries will be featured on various platforms/Magazines/Newspapers/Websites/Blogs, and may be susceptible to public voting which may or may not influence the judge’s decisions.

Notification: Shortlisted poets will be notified by email to their email address they had provided. A press release will also be sent through various platforms, Magazines, Newspapers, Websites/Blogs, and also the Facebook/Twitter pages of the contest. Also, notifications will be sent through Saraba Magazine, the official partner of this contest.

Rights: By entering for this competition, entrants have accepted that the entry is their original work and were in no way plagiarized, or are being, or will be, sued for intellectual theft. They also grant the organisers of this contest the right to publicized their entries, including their image, portrait, voice, and biographical information on various media, in perpetuity, solely for promotional purposes, without further compensation.

Submit to: thespokenwordpoetrycontest@gmail.com