The Fellowship
The UnSerious Collective Fellowship awards FOUR (4) emerging Nigerian poets as Unserious Collective Fellows annually for poetry that is commendable, experimental, brilliant, and daring. The fellowship is part of the major essence of the collective—to recognize talents and celebrate hard work in the bustling Nigerian Poetry community.
All emerging poets who have not published full-length collections are eligible regardless of age, geographic location, or educational status, and are encouraged to submit.
Unserious Collective Fellows will receive ₦150,000 each, from a total prize pool of ₦600,000, and publication of their portfolios of poems on our website. The 4 Fellows will also have their poems published in a Microchapbook.
In light of the outstanding talent, skill, and commitment of emerging Nigerian poets and the limited resources available, we hope that this fellowship will offer some encouragement. We are fully committed to increasing the fellowship prize every year and are endlessly working on various programming and initiatives to further support Nigerian poetry.
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The Fellowship does not prefer any theme, style, or approach. Just quality writing that is bold and exciting. We want your proudest works.
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The fellowship is open to only Nigerian poets called Emerging. Our STRICT definition of an emerging poet is that entrants must NOT have published a full-length poetry book (excluding self-published books).
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Submit up to TEN (previously published or unpublished) pages of poems in a .doc or .docx file.
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You may submit both published and unpublished work, but NOT only PUBLISHED WORK.
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Single-spaced. Font: 12, Garamond or Times New Roman. Each page must be paginated.
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The submission title should read, "UCPS 2026", and must be submitted via our submission portal.
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Entries submitted via email will not be read.
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No identifying information (including publication history of individual poems) should be on the file.
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The 4 Fellows will have their entries published in a microchapbook.
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DEADLINE: JUNE 30, 2026