Othuke Umukoro, Tolu Oloruntoba and Lorna Goodison are among the finalists for the 2026 Derek Walcott Prize for Poetry. Umukoro is shortlisted for Fenestration, published by The University Press of SHSU and Masobe Books; Oloruntoba for Unravel, published by McClelland & Stewart; and Jamaican poet Lorna Goodison for The Inferno, published by Carcanet and Signal. Their collections explore histories of slavery and migration, questions of identity and belonging, and the relationship between Caribbean and African diasporic experience.

The Walcott Festival in Port-of-Spain, the Derek Walcott Prize recognises a full-length poetry collection by a living poet who is not a US citizen and whose book was published in the preceding calendar year. The prize is worth $2,000. Previous winners include Jamaican-Canadian poet Canisia Lubrin (2021), Nigerian poet Saddiq Dzukogi (2022), and British-Nigerian poet Theresa Lola (2025).

The 2026 winner will be announced in October. For Umukoro, the finalist recognition adds to the growing international attention around Fenestration, which moves between the history of the transatlantic slave trade, familial grief and the experience of writing from the diaspora. Oloruntoba’s Unravel similarly examines Nigerian heritage, immigration, fatherhood and faith through inventive poetic forms, while Goodison’s The Inferno reimagines Dante’s Inferno through Jamaican history, language and culture.

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