“In the haunting horrorscape of these poems, crying bones usurp the streets.”
—Niyi Osundare, author of Village Voices
“With exquisite sensitivity, Agarau writes a history in which the personal and lyrical necessarily run through its marrow.”
—aracelis girmay, author of black maria
“Evil is a question for God and beauty emerges despite what the politicians have ruined.”
—Remica Bingham-Risher, author of Starlight & Error
“In a world that clamors for universality, Agarau looks within—invested in bringing to mind the beauty and brutality of his community.”
—Michael Aderibigbe, author of Here is the Night and the Night on the Road Here we go
Coming September 2, 2025
Winner, Poetic Justice Institute Editors Prize for a BIPOC Writer 2024
Adedayo Agarau’s debut collection, The Years of Blood, won the Poetic Justice Institute Editor’s Prize for BIPOC Writers (Fordham University Press, Fall 2025). He is a Wallace Stegner Fellow ‘25, a Cave Canem Fellow and a 2024 Ruth Lilly-Rosenberg Fellowship finalist. He is the Editor-in-Chief of Agbowó Magazine: A Journal of African Literature and Art and a Poetry Reviews Editor for The Rumpus. He is the author of the chapbooks Origin of Name (African Poetry Book Fund, 2020) and The Arrival of Rain (Vegetarian Alcoholic Press, 2020).