Gboyega Odubanjo

Gboyega Odubanjo was a British-Nigerian poet born and raised in London. He was an editor at bath magg and Bad Betty Press, and his work includes the poetry pamphlets While I Yet Live (Bad Betty Press, 2019) and Aunty Uncle Poems (Smith | Doorstop, 2021), winner of the 2021 Michael Marks Award. The Michael Marks Award cited Odubanjo’s formal experimentation in the face of the displacements the poems are shaped by and the centrality of “kinship (as) the scaffolding for the poems and a constant reference for the reader.”

Odubanjo’s poems appeared in The Guardian, The New Statesman, SAND, and The Interpreter's House. He won the Eric Gregory Award from the Society of Authors in 2021 and the Poetry Business New Poets Prize in 2020. He was a student in the PhD program in creative writing at the University of Hertfordshire and had previously attended the University of East Anglia. His sudden death in August 2023 was met with mourning for the loss of both an inimitable talent and the support and mentorship he had offered many emerging poets and artists.