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The 2026 Balcones Poetry Prize, presented by the Austin Public Library, has revealed its 2026 winner and finalists. Among the finalists are Nigerian poets: Chinụalụmọgụ Ezenwa-Ọhaeto, D.M. Aderibigbe, Ghanaian-American poet Brian Gyamfi, and American-Nigerian poet I.S. Jones are among the 2026 Balcones Poetry Prize Finalists. 

Judged by American poet and translator, Cindy Juyoung Ok, the selected books by African authors who made the finals are:

• Chinụalụmọgụ Ezenwa-Ọhaeto, The Naming.
• Brian Gyamfi, What God in the Kingdom of Bastards: Poems.
• D.M. Aderibigbe, 82nd Division.
• I.S. Jones, Bloodmercy.

The Balcones Prize, presented by the Austin Public Library, recognises outstanding books by authors connected to Texas across several literary categories, including poetry. The poetry prize honours a full-length collection and is among the awards presented as part of the annual Balcones Literary Prizes. CD Eskilson’s Scream Queen was named the 2026 winner,

About The Finalists

Chinụalụmọgụ Ezenwa-Ọhaeto

An Igbo and Nigerian poet, fiction and nonfiction writer, and essayist, Chinụalụmọgụ Ezenwa-Ọhaeto, became a runner-up in the Sparks Poetry Competition, Memorial University, Canada, 2023. He is a winner of the 2018 Castello di Duino Poesia Prize and the Eriata Oribhabor Poetry Prize (EOPP), and the 2019 winner of the Sevhage/Angus Poetry Prize. 

In 2023, Ezenwa-Ọhaeto was shortlisted for the Writivism Poetry Prize, the Alpine Poetry Fellowship, and the 2024 runner-up in the African and Africa American Studies Program (AAASP) Best Graduate Paper Prize hosted by the Institute for Ethnic Studies, University of Nebraska-Lincoln. 

His works have appeared in Isele Magazine, Poetry Ireland Review, Oxford Poetry, Massachusetts Review, Frontier, Palette, The Common, Southword Magazine, Poet Lore, Colorado Review, Mud Season Review, Notre Dame, Anmly, The Republic, Up the Staircase Quarterly, Ruminate, and elsewhere.

His full- length poetry collection, The Naming, was published in December 1, 2025, with African Poetry Book Fund via Nebraska Press.

Brian Gyamfi

Ghanaian-American Brian Gyamfi is the recipient of a Pushcart Prize, a National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellowship, the Zell Fellowship at the University of Michigan, two Hopwood Awards, the Helen S. and John Wagner Prize, and the Michael R. Gutterman Award. He has been a finalist for the Poetry International Prize, the Oxford Poetry Prize, the Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize, the Hopwood Drama Award, and the National Poetry Series.

His work explores a foundation of Blackness in the essence of being, hauntology, and deviance. He writes about boyhood, love, ancestral memory, and spirituality, offering a potential path to liberation, Blackness, and the imagination.

D.M. Aderibigbe

Born in Lagos, Damilola Michael Aderibigbe is a Nigerian poet based in Binghamton, New York. He is an assistant professor of poetry at Binghamton University (State University of New York). He is the author of the debut collection of poems, How the End First Showed, which won the Brittingham Prize in Poetry, among other honors. In 2024, Aderibigbe’s poetry collection, 82nd Division, was selected for the National Poetry Series, one of the most prestigious poetry book awards in the United States.

I.S. Jones

I.S. Jones is an American-Nigerian poet, essayist, and music journalist. She is a Graduate Fellow with The Watering Hole and holds fellowships from Callaloo, BOAAT Writer’s Retreat, and Brooklyn Poets.

She is the co-editor of The Young African Poets Anthology: The Fire That Is Dreamed Of (Agbowó, 2020) and served as the inaugural nonfiction guest editor for Lolwe. She is an Editor at 20.35 Africa: An Anthology of Contemporary Poetry, freelanced for Complex, Revolt TV, NBC News THINK, and elsewhere. 

Her works have appeared or are forthcoming in Guernica, Washington Square Review, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Hobart, LA Review of Books, The Rumpus, The Offing, Transition, Shade Literary Arts, Blood Orange Review, Honey Literary, and elsewhere. 

Congratulations, Chinụalụmọgụ Ezenwa-Ọhaeto, Brian Gyamfi, D.M. Aderibigbe, and I.S. Jones!