‘What a voice [Gboyega Odubanjo] has – fresh, worn, elegiac, present. If ever a volume offered a story about water, loss, migration and every last one of us, Adam does. – Andrew O’Hagan, Observer

Gboyega Odubanjo, shortlisted with his collection Adam (Faber & Faber, 2024), is the featured poet in this week’s Eliot Prize e-newsletter.

The newsletter tells you about the range of content we have just published to help you get to know more about Gboyega Odubanjo and his work. This includes Reader’s Notes, which include a selection of poems from Adam, plus reviews, reading suggestions, and writing prompts for those inspired to respond creatively. The aim of the Readers’ Notes is to inspire deeper readings of the book, individually or shared with friends, book groups or writing workshops. We have also published a searching review, commissioned from John Field.

The poetry community is still grieving the death last year of Gboyega Odubanjo. He was born in 1996 and raised in East London. He authored three poetry pamphlets: While I Yet Live (Bad Betty Press, 2019); Two stops short of Barking (The Alternative School of Economics, 2021); and Aunty Uncle Poems (The Poetry Business / New Poets List, 2021), winner of the Michael Marks Award and an Eric Gregory Award. Adam is his debut full collection. A Barbican Young Poets alumnus, Odubanjo was an editor at bath magg and Bad Betty Press, co-chair of Magma and a member of the Roundhouse Poetry Collective, after which he later became a Roundhouse Resident Artist. He was a Creative Writing Tutor on the Creative Future IMPART programme, supporting writers from under-represented backgrounds. His UK garage single ‘LDN GRLS’ with Love Remain is out with the Sony Music UK label Black Butter Records. The Gboyega Odubanjo Foundation for low-income Black writers was established in 2023 to honour his legacy.

To read more about this year’s Eliot Prize, simply sign up to weekly e-newsletter.