Migwi Mwangi wins Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize 2026

Migwi Mwangi was announced the winner of the Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize 2026 on Wednesday, January 28, 2026.

Agnes Lynch Starrett (1893–1983) was an educator, author, and the first director of the University of Pittsburgh Press. A Pitt alumna and English professor, she compiled the university’s sesquicentennial history, Through One Hundred and Fifty Years (1937), and led the Press from 1954 to 1964. In 1981, the Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize, which awards a first full-length book of poems, was set up and administered by the University of Pittsburgh Press. It carries a cash award of $5,000 and publication by the University of Pittsburgh Press as part of the Pitt Poetry Series.

The 2026 winner of the award was selected by US poet and educator Terrance Hayes, who has published seven poetry collections. Hayes selected this year’s winner as Migwi Mwangi for his collection, Desire Path, a sweeping exploration of nationhood and small communities across cultural landscapes and national boundaries. Against imperialism and in praise of community, these poems are invested in examining everyday life through personal narratives, oral tradition, and mythology. In this collection, history is intimate and personal. There is eros, spirituality, and unabashed joy in the wake of individual and communal disquiet.

“Migwi is going to be a significant poet not only because of his poetic intelligence but also because of the background enriching the poems: a rich experience in the world, a rich curiosity, a rich sense of empathy, and a richness of humility,” said Terrance Hayes. “Throughout Desire Path, the poems scale outward toward nationhood and community and inward toward the beloved, the body, and belonging. Always with dexterities of diction and perception. All of this poet’s reading and living is metabolized in a voice that feels unmistakably personal, elegant, and assured.”

Migwi Mwangi is a storyteller from Nairobi, Kenya, who lives in New York City, whose work has been featured in Adroit Journal, The Bombay Literary Magazine, Qwani, Prairie Schooner, among others. He has received a Pushcart nomination, awards from the Poetry Society of America and Prairie Schooner, as well as a fellowship from the NYU MFA program.

The University of Pittsburgh Press will publish Desire Path as part of the Pitt Poetry Series in September 2026.