Ghanaian poet Gabriel Awuah Mainoo has been named the winner of the 2025–2026 Diann Blakely Emerging Poet Prize for his poem “A Pathogenesis of the First Slave Ship.” The prestigious award recognises outstanding emerging voices in poetry and is named in honour of American poet Diann Blakely.
The winning poem was selected by acclaimed poet and scholar Karla Kelsey, who praised the work for its depth and artistic ambition. In her citation, Kelsey described the poem as a “brave and haunting” exploration of histories that resist full comprehension, noting that it powerfully engages the enduring legacy of the past through vivid imagery and musicality. She emphasised that the poem’s layered and disjunctive structure responds to “a necessity of a higher order.”
Mainoo, a Ghanaian creative practitioner, has steadily built an international reputation for his work. He has received fellowships from institutions including Hong Kong Baptist University, Aarhus Literature Center in Denmark, the Library of Africa and the African Diaspora (LOATAD), and Wintertuin Curaçao. He is also a grant recipient of the Danish Arts Foundation through the South Gate Creative Writing School.
He is the author of Lyrical Textiles (Illuminated Press, U.S.) and We Are Moulting Birds (Light Factory Publication, Canada), and co-author of Hvor End Havet Skyller Dig Op (Forlaget Silkefyret, Denmark). His poetry has appeared in numerous international journals, including The London Reader, The New Orleans Review, FIYAH Magazine, The Michigan Quarterly Review, and Prairie Fire.
Mainoo’s accolades include the Africa Haiku Prize, the Singapore Poetry Prize, the Samira Bawumia Literature Prize, the Wanjohi Prize for African Poetry, and the Ghana Association of Writers Literary Awards. He also serves as a poetry editor for The Journal of African Youth Literature.
In 2024, he was featured as a headline poet at the Lyra Bristol Poetry Festival in England, under the auspices of Bath Spa University, Ashesi University, and the Arts Council of England.
This latest recognition marks a significant milestone in Mainoo’s career, further cementing his position as one of the leading emerging poetic voices from Ghana on the global stage.