Adedayo Agarau

Adedayo Agarau is Nigerian poet, essayist and art administrator. Agarau is a member of the UnSerious Collective. He is the editor-in-chief of Agbowo, an African literary magazine. He was a founding editor at IceFloe Press, Canada as the New International Voices editor and African Chapbook Acquisition manager. Agarau curated and edited Memento: An Anthology of Contemporary Nigerian Poetry.

Adedayo is a Cave Canem Fellow and a Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford University '25.

Work
Agarau is the author of three poetry chapbooks: For Boys Who Went, 2016, The Origin of Name which was selected for a chapbook box edited by Kwame Dawes and Chris Abani in 2020, and The Arrival of Rain, published in 2020 by Vegetarian Alcoholic Press. His writing is leading conversations on the possibilities of a wave of the new generation Nigerian writers and have attracted wide review from magazines like Open Country, YesPoetry, and AfroCritik.

Agarau's poems have been featured in online and print literary journals including Poetry Magazine, World Literature Today, Iowa Review, Poet Lore, Poetry Society of America, Frontier Poetry, Lolwe, Olongo Africa, Anmly, TheShore Poetry, Giallo Lit''. His essay has been published in Isele Magazine, Trampset, Icefloe Press and YesPoetry. He has been profiled or interviewed on international platforms including Africritik, Africa in Dialogue, Literature Voices, Nanty Greens, Libretto, Poets in Nigeria, Isele Magazine, Splash FM, Shamsrumi. Agarau was shortlisted for the Brunel African Poetry Prize in 2022, recipient of the Stanley Award for International Research and the Robert Hayden Fellowship. Agarau curated Memento: An Anthology of Contemporary Nigerian Poetry and the Nigerian National Poetry Prize.

Awards and nominations

 * Finalist, Sillerman First Book Poetry Prize 2021
 * Frontier Poetry: THE 2020 INDUSTRY PRIZE, 3RD PLACE WINNER: BAD DREAM WITH MY GRANDMOTHER'S STROKE BY ADEDAYO AGARAU
 * Longlist, The Emerging Poet Prize 2020: Palette Poetry
 * SEVHAGE/Angya Poetry Prize 2019 - Adedayo Agarau 'the origin of a name' [1st Runner Up]
 * Shortlist, Babishai Niwe Poetry Prize 2018
 * Eriata Oribhabor Poetry Prize (EOPP) 2017