The SprinNG annual poetry contest winner

The SprinNG Annual Poetry Contest celebrates SprinNG's anniversary. This year, we received a record-breaking number of submissions - 1,125, of which Sanni Oluwatimileyin emerged as the winner.

The Contest prompt: Write a simple poem on any theme of your choice between 8-10 lines.

Winning Poem: Bitter Roots by Sanni Oluwatimileyin

Some day when tears have dried on the black faces of our mothers
And sadness no longer peeks out from beneath layers of grime
I'll write about them –our mothers
Of how grief broke them time and time again
And how like Knights of valor, they pushed their broken selves to victory
I'll write about them. Of how they watered hope with salty streams
That it might flourish into a buoyant tomorrow
And we, their children, get to inhale its sweet fragrance
Remembering the murky tragedies, the garden of grief
That nursed its fragile buds with radiant smiles and aching hearts

Sanni Oluwatimileyin is a coffee-loving poet, writer and literary enthusiast who bends and blends genres in his writings. His works have appeared or forthcoming in literary journals like Writers Space Africa, Rather Quiet, Fitrah Review, Nanty Greens, Praxis, African Writers, Fiction Limbo and elsewhere. 

He is a SprinNG Fellowship Alumnus. He won the Writers for Humanity poetry contest in 2019 and the Fitrah Review writing contest in 2020. He was also the first runner-up for the Splendors of Dawn Contest in June 2020. 

​When not studying or writing, he is either painting or exploring new places.

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The SEMI FINALISTS

First Runner Up - Omole Temiloluwa Ezekiel
​
LOVE DIED IN 1982 
Son! I tell you this because you're my only one; 
Love died and was buried far back as 19- eighty two; 
Then was Love between two lovers not three; 
But now a lad can claim loving nymphs up to four; 
Then was school lessons keeping us under the trees till five; 
And we don't mind receiving strokes of cane even if it's up to six; 
It broke my heart when we saw the Moon of Deceit at seven; 
Then I said to my husband "the end of days is near, it's already eight"; "
I think we need to tell our son our love story when he is nine"; 
My husband said "How I wish love was like when I was ten?".

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Second Runner Up - Popoola Oluwatobiloba Samuel
​
HOME
it means being
forged in the same
fire that consumed
those before you;

it means being melted,
re-casted for another use;

it's knowing
we are only tools

waiting to be reforged. 

...home.

The judges

The SprinNG Team thanks the judges who volunteered their time to select the Semi-finalists for the contest.