Nigerian poet and translator Rasaq Malik Gbolahan has made the final list for the 2026 Montreal International Poetry Prize with his poem “Suitcase.” He is the sole African poet among the 20 finalists competing for the CA$20,000 award, which is given biennially for a single poem. The international prize invites poets to submit poems of no more than 40 lines, with entries assessed anonymously throughout the judging process.

Gbolahan’s poetry career has been marked by a sustained interest in memory, grief, displacement, and the histories that shape individual lives. He is the founding editor of Agbowó and co-founded Àtẹ́lẹwọ́, a digital literary journal publishing in Yorùbá, while his own work has appeared in publications including POETRY, The Kenyon Review, Ploughshares, and Rattle. His collection The Origin of Wounds won the 2024 Anhinga Prize for Poetry, following the publication of his chapbooks No Home in This Land and The Other Names of Grief.

The Montreal shortlist also places Gbolahan’s work before this year’s final judge, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Natalie Diaz. The 20 finalist poems will be collected in The Montreal Poetry Prize Anthology, and the poets will participate in the prize’s Fluid Vessels online reading series. For Gbolahan, the selection extends a growing record of recognition beyond Nigeria and places his poetry in contention for one of the most substantial awards available for a single poem.

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