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‘Poetry is true to the human story’: An interview with Ajibola Tolase

“Poems need two things: logical sentences and emotional truth,” says Ajibola Tolase, winner of the 2024 Cave Canem Prize, which celebrates the richness of Black culture. The award includes publication of his debut collection, “2000 Blacks,” from the University of Pittsburgh Press, and a featured reading at The New School in New York. Previous winners of the Cave Canem Prize include Natasha Trethewey and Tracy K. Smith, who served as poet laureates of the United States in 2012-2014 and 2017-2019, respectively. 

For Mr. Tolase, who immigrated to the U.S. from Nigeria, the award was a surprising affirmation of his unexpected journeys both personally and professionally. 

In a recent Monitor interview via video call, Mr. Tolase explained that studying poetry wasn’t an option when he applied for admission to the Federal University of Agriculture in Abeokuta, Nigeria. He was accepted into the statistics program, a discipline he believed would help him earn a good living and please his conservative father.

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