The Funeral Director said h/is/er body didn’t check by Gabriel Awuah Mainoo wins the 8th Annual Singapore Poetry Prize!
In conjunction with Gaudy Boy’s April 1, 2022 publication of Jhani Randhawa’s TIME REGIME, the winner of the Gaudy Boy Poetry Book Prize, SUSPECT held the 8th Singapore Poetry Contest with a call for submissions inspired by the title of this extraordinary book of poems. ”What is the gender of leisure, of music? What is the performance of time? What is the preservation of a different kind of heart from the plush cab of a truck taking slow turns toward the lake? Wet brown ash of summer. I feel a tangle clotting my esophagus” (“Time Regime” by Jhani Randhawa). They looked for poems that used the chiming words “time” and “regime” together or separately in imaginative ways.
The Funeral Director said h/is/er body didn’t check by Gabriel Awuah Mainoo wins the 8th Annual Singapore Poetry Prize! Gabriel Awuah Mainoo is a Ghanaian writer; poet, editor & lyricist raised by his father in soccer and racket-sport disciplines. Winner of 2021 Africa Haiku Prize, 40 Under Forty Awards for Authorship & Creative writing, special prize winner of Soka Matsubara international haiku contest, LFP/ RML/ Library of Africa and the African Diaspora chapbook winner. Prize winner in the 2022 Stephen A. Dibiase Poetry Contest & semifinalist of the Jack Grape International Poetry Prize. He pursues tertiary education at the University of Cape Coast. Recipient of the West Africa Writers Residency. He’s the Author of ‘‘Travellers Gather Dust and Lust’’, (Mwanaka Media and Publishing, Zimbabwe), ‘‘We are Moulting Birds’’, (Light Factory Publication, Canada), ‘‘Chicken Wings at the Altar’’, ‘‘60 Aces of Haiku’’, ‘‘Lyrical Textiles’’ (Illuminated Press, US) & ‘‘Sea Ballet’’, forthcoming. He edits poetry for Goat Shed Press, UK & WGM Magazine. Mainoo’s writing has appeared in Prairie Fire (Canada), The Cicada’s Cry (US), An attempt at exhausting a place in Leicestershire volume (UK), Writers Space Africa, Fireflies’ Light (Missouri Baptist University), aAH! Magazine (Manchester Metropolitan University), Wales Haiku Journal, EVENT (Douglas College), Best New African Poets Anthologies (2018, 2019, 2020), Black Bamboo, among others. Mainoo is a tennis professional in the morning, a student in the afternoon, and a writer in the evening.
Gabriel is represented by Chelene Knight and Chandler Crawford.
To see the full list of finalists, please visit: https://singaporeunbound.org/suspect-journal/2022/7/15/winners-of-the-8th-singapore-poetry-contest