ALT graphic that reads: the 2025 CAAPP Book Prize / final judge: Cameron Awkward-Rich / winning manuscript will receive $3,000 award prize + publication with Autumn House Press / submission deadline: 2.15.25 / caapp.submittable.com / (opens 12.15.2024)

ALT the 2026 CAAPP Book Prize / final judge: Ladan Osman / the winnign manuscript will receive $3,000 award prize + publication with Autumn House PRess / submission deadline: dec. 15, 2025 / caapp.submittable.com / opens 11.5.25

ALT final judge: Ladan Osman / author of Exiles of Eden and The Kitchen-Dweller's Testimony

ALT text reads: the Center for African American Poetry and Poetics & Autumn House Press are thrilled to announce...Meredith Nnoka as the 2025 CAAPP Book Prize Winner. Meredith's manuscript Les Portes was selected by judge Cameron Awkward-Rich & will be published by Autumn House Press in 2025

ALT text reads: Meredith Nnoka is a Chicago-based poet, teacher, and prison abolitionist. She has a BA from Smith College and an MA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, both in Africana studies. She teaches poetry in carceral facilities and has received fellowships from Illinois Humanities, Lambda Literary, and the Prison + Neighborhood Arts/Education Project. Twice nominated for Best of the Net, her poems have appeared in Diode Poetry Journal, Four Way Review, The Massachusetts Review, and elsewhere. Her second chapbook, I Could Never Be Your Woman, was selected by Herman Beavers as the winner of the 2022 Derricotte/Eady Chapbook Prize from Cave Canem and O, Miami.

ALT text reads: 2025 CAAPP Book Prize Runner-Up: Kami Enzie...River of Love 2025 CAAPP Book Prize Finalists: Joshua Aiken…ground-glass Kailah Figueroa…Before the Bull Dreams Me Grace Gaynor…Part of Your World E. Hughes…Another Way to Say Dying Jason Hill…Up a Hill the Heart Quinton Okoro…PLEASE LEAVE THIS DOOR OPEN Vincente G. Perez…Narrating Otherwise darlene anita scott…Invitations Not to Be Denied Shakeema Smalls…Sweetwater Mass Samantha Stevens…Rituals for the Living