Ghanaian poet and prose writer Daniel Naawenkangua Abukuri’s full-length poetry manuscript, Son in a Wild God’s Arms, will be published by the University Press of Kentucky after being selected for the 2026 New Poetry & Prose Series.
The manuscript was selected by poet and editor Lisa Williams, who oversees the annual series, which is sponsored by Centre College.
The University Press of Kentucky’s New Poetry & Prose Series is an annual open call for contemporary poetry and fiction. The series typically selects one poetry manuscript and one work of fiction each year, with selected manuscripts going on to publication. They seek works that demonstrate a strong attention to language, imagination, formal inventiveness and an awareness of literary roots.
Abukuri has had his work published or forthcoming in international literary journals and magazines including Poetry Wales, Prairie Schooner, Berkeley Poetry Review, Transition Magazine, The Malahat Review, Chestnut Review, Orion Magazine, Colorado Review, The Hummingbird journal and North American Review.
He is the winner of the 2025 African Writers Award for Poetry and Poetry Archive Now! Wordview 2025, and was a finalist for the 2025 Adinkra Poetry Prize and runner-up for the 2026 Cambridge Poetry Prize.
Abukuri has also received nominations for the Best of the Net, Pushcart Prize, BREW Poetry Award and the 2026 Caine Prize. He is an Obsidian Foundation Fellow and was featured in the Obsidian Foundation Showcase with The Poetry Society.
The 2026 series is edited by Lisa Williams, with an advisory board that includes Camille Dungy, Rebecca Morgan Frank, Silas House, Davis McCombs and Roger Reeves.