Congratulations are in order for Romeo Oriogun, whose book ‘Sacrament of Bodies’ was recently named a finalist for this year’s Lambda Literary Award for Gay Poetry.
The 2021 finalists announced for the 33rd Annual Lambda Literary Awards are spread across 24 categories . They were selected by a panel of over 60 literary professionals from more than 1,000 book submissions from over 300 publishers.
“There is a liberatory instinct at the heart of Oriogun’s debut collection, Oriogun’s poems reveal a society that engages in violent acts such as burning and lynching gay people,” Naza Amaeze Okoli wrote in a recent review.
“It bears witness not only to the experiences of the poet, but to the lives of many others, a shared memory of pain and survival, as well as joy and desire.”
Shortlisted alongside Romeo Oriogun in the Gay Poetry category of the awards are the following authors and books.
‘Fantasia for the Man in Blue’, Tommye Blount, Four Way Books.
‘Guillotine’, Eduardo C. Corral, Graywolf Press
‘The Malevolent Volume’, Justin Phillip Reed, Coffee House Press.
‘Sacrament of Bodies’, Romeo Oriogun, University of Nebraska Press.
‘Thanksgiving: A Poem’, Ted Rees, Golias Books.
In ‘Sacrament of Bodies’, Romeo Oriogun fearlessly interrogates how a queer man in Nigeria can heal in a society where everything is designed to prevent such restoration. With honesty, precision, tenderness of detail, and a light touch, Oriogun explores grief and how the body finds survival through migration.
About The Lambda Literary Awards
The Lambda Literary Award for Poetry is an annual literary award, presented by the Lambda Literary Foundation to a gay-themed book of poetry by a male writer. At the first two Lambda Literary Awards in 1989 and 1990, a single award for LGBT Poetry, irrespective of gender, was presented.
Beginning with the 3rd Lambda Literary Awards in 1991, the poetry award was split into two separate awards for Gay Poetry and Lesbian Poetry, which have been presented continuously since then except at the 20th Lambda Literary Awards in 2008, when a merged LGBTQ poetry award was again presented for that year only
