ST@NZA 15.3 | Fall | September 2018

15.3 | Fall | September 2018

In this issue: 2 2 3

6

News From the League

Heartwood: Poems for the Love of Trees

Sheri-D Wilson Golden Beret Award now accepting submissions (for the first time!)

League book awards now open for submissions

Bookish Bits and Industry News

7 9

News from the Feminist Caucus

Action Committee Report - On Laughter

11

Reviews

12

New Members

14

Member News

19

Writing Opportunities

22

In Memorium

4

4 Heartwood

News From the League

4 Book tour reservation requests 4 Book awards submission season 4 Sheri-D Wilson Golden Beret Award 4 Jessamy Stursberg Poetry Prize for Canadian Youth 4 Volunteer Reader Opportunities

Heartwood: Poems for the Love of Trees Join local poets and poets across Canada in celebrating the launch of Heartwood: Poems for the Love of Trees - the League’s newest poetry anthology. With over 100 poems and contributions from poets all over the country, Heartwood is a tribute to and celebration of the timeless impact of nature on Canadian poetry.

Available through Amazon.ca (also as an e-book) and directly from the League for $20, proceeds from online sales of Heartwood will help the League help poets and poetry in Canada. All poems in the anthology were contributed by members of the League of Canadian Poets.

Launches across Canada will also support the Call of the Forest initiative, an educational initiative that aims to look at the irreplaceable roles trees play in protecting and feeding the planet. Interested hosts can organize a joint screening and launch for Heartwood: Poems for the Love of Trees and the 1-hour documentary Call of the Forest: The Forgotten Wisdom of Trees.

Heartwood launches: Winnipeg, MB Date: September 19, 2018 Time: 7PM – 10PM Place: McNally Robinson Booksellers, Grant Park Store (in the Atrium). 1120 Grant Avenue, Winnipeg Toronto, ON Date: September 20, 2018 Time: 6PM – 9PM Place: High Park Nature Centre. 375 Colborne Lodge Dr., Toronto Calgary, AB Date: October 5, 2018 Time: 5PM – 8PM Place: Unitarian Church of Calgary. 1703 – 1 St. N.W., Calgary If you’re a #HeartwoodPoet and would like to organize a launch in your area, contact you Regional Rep from National Council to express interest! The League will happily assist with creating graphics and social media advertising for the event.

more news...

Poets in the Schools: Back to School Special!

For a limited time, teachers submit an application to bring a poet to school through our Poets in the Schools program & the League will fund 100% of the fee!

First-come, first-serviced basis. Applications must be submitted 3-4 weeks in advance of the scheduled visit. We are currently accepting applications for visits taking place before April 1, 2019.

Eligible only for elementary and secondary school visits in Ontario. Thanks to the Ontario

Arts Council for funding our Poets in the Schools Program!

Click here for more information and to apply!

Book Tour Reservation Requests Members with books forthcoming in 2019 may now submit requests to reserve Canada Poetry Tours readings to be used after April 1, 2019. Download the request form to view guidelines and more on how to request reserved readings. Requests must be received by December 1, 2018.

Call for Submissions: The Sheri-D Wilson Golden Beret Award for Excellence and Innovation in Spoken Word Poetry This fall, the League is thrilled to announce a new opportunity for rising and established spoken word poets in Canada: a literary prize crafted specifically to highlight the unique strengths and values of the genre.

We’re running the award a little differently this year! Open to submissions to members & nonmembers alike, no entry fee, and a cash prize of $2000! Get recording! We will be accepting poems in YouTube links, Soundcloud links, and word documents. For more information and to review the submissions guidelines please visit our website and email info@poets.ca with further inquiries. We’re still ironing out a few details: stay tuned for deadline and juror announcements!

Jessamy Stursberg Poetry Prize for Canadian Youth Attention teachers, parents, and any poet with creative young people in their life: we’re excited to announce that our annual Jessamy Stursberg Poetry Prize for Canadian Youth is now open for submissions!

Cash prizes to be awarded in 2 categories: -Junior (grades 7-9)

Po

-Senior (grades 10-12) in the following amounts: 1st place --> $400 2nd place --> $350 3rd place --> $300

lives of Canadians & provide an opportunity to poets to have their work read by many! Pause for poetry! Spare a few minutes each day for words that heal, inspire, and sustain.

All six of the winning poems will also be featured on the League of Canadian Poets’ website and distributed through our Poetry Pause subscription program. Submissions can be entered by the poet, by a teacher, or by a parent or guardian, but the poem(s) submitted must be original work by the poet.

A huge thank you to Leaguers Allan Briesmaster, Alison Dyer, Brian Henderson, and Bӓnoo Zan for their efforts in forming the first ever Poetry Pause selection committee volunteers.

Deadline: April 19, 2019

Call for Submissions: Annual League Book Awards Our book awards submission period is now open for books published in 2018! Debut books of poetry, books of poetry by women-identifying writers, and new books from League members are all eligible for the $2,000 prizes. Titles may be submitted by the author or publisher; self-published books and chapbooks are not eligible. Visit poets.ca/awards for guidelines and submission forms.

We are also in need of jurors for our 2020 Book Awards! Juries will be active from approximately November 2019 – March 2020. If you’re interested in volunteering for this opportunity, please email nicole@poets.ca.

Poetry Pause: Seeking Committee Volunteers

Selection

Not long now till our daily poetry dispatch, Poetry Pause, will deliver its inaugural poem to inboxes! Have you subscribed? Want to submit? Visit poets.ca/poetrypause for all you need to know. Special thanks to The Academy of American Poets & their incredible poem-aday project for inspiring us! With Poetry Pause we aim to augment the presence of poetry in the

We are now seeking selection committee volunteers for our second round of submissions!

This commitment involves reading approximately 20-30 poems over a 6-week period. If you’re interested in volunteering for this opportunity, please email madison@poets.ca.

Upcoming League Contests!

Our annual haiku and broadsheet contests will open for submission in late fall/early winter. Keep an eye out for these massively popular League programs and get your submissions ready!

Bookish Bits and Industry News Ontario Arts Council Aims to Meet More Access Needs

Lee Maracle Wins $10,000 Harbourfront Centre Festival Literary Award

We’re grateful to receive funding from the Ontario Arts Council - Conseil des arts de l’Ontario and SO proud to show our support for their new policies on alternative services for applicants with accessibility needs. Learn the who/ what/how of these application supports here.

Huge congratulations to celebrated poet & author Lee Maracle, the newest recipient of the $10K Harbourfront Festival Prize for contributions to literature! The award will be presented at the Toronto International Festival of Authors on October 22, 2018.

All Lit Up: LitRX Prescribes Poetry to Cure the Not-Enough-Time-To-Read Blues On the newest All Lit Up LitRx column, the prescription is poetry! To ease the pain of English majors across the country who aren’t getting enough (pleasure) reading time now that school’s in, poems are what the doctor ordered!

We couldn’t endorse this enough!

20 Questions for all Prospective MFA Students Got back to school on the mind? If you’re thinking about pursuing an MFA, Poets & Writers suggest 20 questions to ask before applying.

Show Me the (Grant Writing) Money!

Let Jessica Westhead walk you through the complex process of applying for grants to help fund your writing career on Open Book. “While the process of applying might seem daunting at first, it does get easier with practice. Plus, even if your application isn’t successful, you’ll benefit in the long run by learning to think critically and objectively about your work.”

News from the Feminist Caucus Become a Member of the Caucus If you would like to stay up to date on Feminist Caucus goings-on, including panel updates, submission opportunities, and general femme lit goings-on, sign up for the new feminist newsletter, Lit Feminist, here. All members of the League are welcome to join the Caucus! Members can volunteer to lead or be on Feminist Caucus panels, contribute to the newsletter, participate in Feminist Caucus business discussions and readings, and much more as we continue to grow this important committee of the League.

Find Monthly Reports from the Chair Online At poets.ca/feministcaucus, you can find a complete archive of monthly reports from the Feminist Caucus chair, Anne Burke. These reports include book reviews, event summaries, original poems from new members, and much more!

The 2018 Living Archives Chapbook: Feminism – Revisit, Revise, Revolutionize: A Two-Part History The essays in this publication discuss the history of the League’s Feminist Caucus, as well as a history of feminism in Canadian poetry, in order to look forward and reimagine how feminists and feminism can engage with and improve the Canadian literary landscape, within and outside of the League.

Includes: The Feminist Caucus Mission Statement as revised in 2017 as a result of the discussions and presentations that inspired this chapbook An introduction from editors Charlie C. Petch and Vanessa Shields “She/Her” by Janice Jo Lee “Feminism — In Living Colour” by Paulina O’Kieffe “Embodying Resistance/Riding the Wave” by Andrea Thompson Essays are based on the presentations and discussion of the 2017 League of Canadian Poets Feminist Caucus panel.

Purchase a copy for $10

Action Committee Update On Laughter

by Vanessa Shields As the summer shifts into autumn, I want to fall into laughter.

Full transparency: I’ve gotten to the point where I consciously avoid reading or listening to the news or if/when I engage, it’s in short bursts or quick and quiet conversations. There are so many terrible things going on in the world – in our country, in our province, in our cities and towns. I’ve slowed down my social media time to avoid the news and other hard things to read and take in.

I think I’m stuck between rage and apathy and exhaustion, and that is motivating me to be very aware of what I pay attention to and respond to concerning ‘news’. My goodness even the word ‘news’ is constantly being challenged – what’s real/what’s not? Who do you listen to? Who do you trust? What is ‘truth’? These are some intense, important and urgent questions that I think we’re all struggling to answer every day. Yes, there are loads of incredible, miraculous, extraordinary things happening in the world too. And there are news outlets, blogs, magazines, radio shows – all forms of media – that do an excellent job of disseminating all the goodness that’s happening (the League of Canadian Poets is one such outlet, thank you very much). We are each responsible for our own gathering of news, and we are each responsible for how we react and respond to it.

But what has become very important to me lately is a drive to answer these questions: How can I laugh today? Who do I listen to so I can giggle?

Who can I trust to make me smile? Laughter doesn’t rely on ‘truth’ to survive and exist.

I live in Windsor, Ontario. We’re a border city. I listen to the radio every day in my car. WDET 101.9FM is one of my favourite stations. It has local shows out of Michigan as well as many fantastic National Public Radio (NPR), Public Radio International (PRI/PRX) and other public radio streams/shows. I also listen to Windsor’s CBC station, 97.5FM. I can’t avoid the news (world and local) on either station. So sometimes I listen and see how my body feels as it takes in the information. My body does a great job of communicating how much I can handle.

Recently, these three topics have been on my mind: the anonymous op-ed piece in the New York Times (RE: The Trump administration/ politics - https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/05/ opinion/trump-white-house-anonymousresistance.html), the legalization of marijuana and all its implications (ie: driving whilst smoking - https://www.cbc.ca/firsthand/m_features/duidmarijuana), and how an Ontario judge restored the defence of extreme drunkenness in sexual assaults (https://www.theglobeandmail.com/ canada/article-ontario-judge-restores-defenceof-extreme-drunkenness-in-sexual/).

I’m sure each of you reading can offer a list with news, events or stories that you’ve been paying attention. Can you offer a list of things that make you laugh? How important is it to you to laugh every day? And how does striving to get, say, at least two belly laughs a day affect your creative process? How does it affect your ability to soldier forth as a social justice warrior? Can laughing help us stay connected as a diverse community of creative individuals?

There are things that make me laugh because they’re truly comedic, and there are things that

make laugh and think, and there are things that make me laugh because I’m devastated and if I don’t laugh, I’ll cry. What I love about laughter is that we all do it. What I love about laughter is that it helps me feel my body in a positive way. What I love about laughter is that I always feel good when I’m doing it. And sometimes (okay, a lot of times), I need a jolt of the good feels to get me through the day.

So the theme for this month’s Action Committee piece is laughter. Specifically, how we can keep the expression of happiness/joy/good things through laughter alive in our work, in our homes, communities, and in our selves. Let’s take action in connecting with each other through laughter, shall we?

The Definition (from https://www.merriamwebster.com/dictionary/laughter) Laughter: 1: a sound of or as if of laughing 2 archaic: a cause of merriment [no object]: to show that you are happy or that you think something is funny by smiling and making a sound from your throat What are you laughing about?

The audience was laughing hysterically.

I’ve never laughed so hard in my life.

2 [no object] a : to think or say that someone or something is foolish and does not deserve serious attention or respect — usually + at

People laughed at his predictions of disaster, but no one’s laughing now. b : to not be bothered by something — + at Sitting inside their tent, they were able to laugh at the weather.

He laughed at danger.

3 [+ object]: to say (something) in an amused way “I’ve never seen anything so ridiculous,” he laughed.

4 [+ object]: to cause (someone) to go, move, etc., by laughing The audience laughed the singer off the stage.

They laughed him out of town.

He laughed himself sick. [= he made himself sick by laughing too much] Origin and Etymology of Laughter Middle English, from Old English hleahtor; akin to Old English hliehhan Laughter Synonyms belly laugh, cackle, chortle, chuckle, giggle, g u f f a w, h e e - h a w, h o r s e l a u g h , l a u g h , snicker, snigger, titter, twitter I included the synonyms because, well, some of the words made me giggle. Chortle, especially.

And, we are lovers of words, are we not? I think it’s very interesting and cool that each definition of laughter fits the different motivations for

laughter that I wrote about earlier – simply laughing because something is funny; laughing because of something foolish/something that doesn’t deserve my respect (likely the thing that I want to cry about too), and laughing as a way to motivate someone to move or do something. Like, I hope reading this motivates you to laugh!

I’ve compiled some links to things and people that I hope will make you laugh.

Canadian Comedians: https://www.cbc.ca/ comedy/12-up-and-coming-canadian-comedianswho-will-be-everywhere-in-2018-1.4470519 Feminist Poets Everyone Should Know (some of whom write some really funny stuff!): https://www. makers.com/blog/6-feminist-poets-everyoneshould-know Nadia Bolz-Weber – Nadia Bolz-Weber is the founding pastor of House for All Sinners and Saints in Denver, Colorado. I’ve seen videos of her speaking on everything from ‘how to forgive assholes’ to ‘sex, shame and scripture’. You don’t have to be religious to appreciate her words: http:// www.nadiabolzweber.com/ Hilarious Women Writers: https://bookriot. com/2018/07/20/hilarious-woman-writers/ Canadian Festival of Spoken Word – This is an incredible resource/festival for spoken word artists and all the magic, laughter and change they motivate: https://cfsw.ca/ The new book: Laugh Out Loud: 40 Women Humorists Celebrate Then and Now... Before We Forget by Allia Zobel Nolan. I found out about this book because I follow the newsletter for the Erma Bombeck Writers’ Workshop at the University of Dayton. Erma Bombeck was an American humourist whose articles/columns and books have been making readers laugh out loud of decades.

The Washington-Centreville Public Library holds

an annual writing competition in Bombeck’s name and honur for humour writers. Could you be the next winner? https://www.wclibrary.info/ erma/ Did you know there’s a National Tell A Joke Day? There is! (You’re welcome.) It’s August 16, and here’s a link to Reader’s Digest Canada for a list of 50 Corny jokes to tell. (You can tell them anytime, of course!) https://www.readersdigest.ca/culture/funnyjokes-national-tell-joke-day/ So maybe this write-up is a bit different than the others. I hope you don’t mind the shift in theme.

I hope it inspired you to laugh or help make someone else laugh. There is scientific proof that laughter helps us from our brain to our bellies, and I believe that if we can laugh together, we can love together. That’s what we need to do to work together to continue to keep our feminist goals alive and thriving on the page and off.

I recognize that there are a lot of times that my privilege allows me to turn off, stop reading, or shut my eyes: when my strength wavers, there are holes I can crawl into to avoid it. These—a crawling hole, a safe refuge, a chunk of time free of hardships—are privileges that allow many of us to use positivity, laughter, as a cure, but not everyone has this option. If your privilege today has allowed you to smile, to laugh, that is perhaps one of the simplest and kindest gifts we can share with each other. May laughter be the pandemic we catch this fall season - and forever.

Reviews

Sisyphus: Haiku Work of Anna Vakar Ed. Vicki McCullough “This book truly is a legacy project, as stated on the cover. Here is an overview of the poet’s life, their haiku, & their contributions to the English-language haiku world. How many books are there like this one? About Canadian haiku poets? About a woman?.”

Reviewed by kj munro.

Fox Haunts

By Penn Kemp At her best, Kemp’s narrative and poetry are transparent. She has variance in her voice: sometimes she addresses her images directly to the fox:” I come upon your prints on/muddy path, neatly, deliberately splayed.” Sometimes, she drops into a journalistic mode and addresses the reader directly in what sounds to me like chopped prose: “Like Canada Geese, Fox may/be adopting city life to avoid/ hunters, the tough slog of/country life. Clever fellow.”

Reviewed by Stanley Fefferman

Interested in reviewing for the League? As it stands, we are currently looking for volunteer reviewers.

It’s a small, small poetry world out there, and we know there’s a large chance reviewers have met the poet they’re reviewing at least once, so we want to embrace that: friends, review friends! Publishers, review your own books! Discuss, discuss, discuss–as long as you disclose your connections and keep your writing transparent. We’re looking for reviews that speak to the reviewer’s personal experience with the book, but we’re also looking for reviews that can connect a book with other legacies, initiatives, and creators in CanLit. Submission guidelines: -we accept reviews of either new (published within the last 18 months) books of poetry or books of poetry written by League members (no publication date restrictions) -reviewers do not need to be members of the League -we accept previously published reviews -reviews for consideration should be in Word file format Please email madison@poets.ca with questions, queries, or submissions for consideration! We are also happy to facilitate review copy requests to publishers for interested reviewers.

New Members Solveig Adair ives, writes, and teaches in the community of Terrace in Northwestern British Columbia. Her poetry has been published in both literary journals and anthologies (most recently the upcoming Harbour Publishing anthology, Beyond Forgetting). She is a member of the poetry collective, Writers North of 54˚, who routinely perform and publish poetry in and about the Skeena region. While she has lived and written elsewhere, the people and lands of the North have always been at the heart of her writing.

Sue Bracken lives in Toronto in a house ruled by artists and animals. Her debut collection of poetry When Centipedes Dream was published

by Tightrope Books.

David Alexander is the author of After the Hatching Oven (Nightwood Editions, Spring 2018). His poems have appeared in Prairie Fire, The Malahat Review, The Puritan, subTerrain, The Humber Literary Review, the Literary Review of Canada and many other fine journals and magazines. David volunteers as a reader for The Puritan and works as Festival Director at The Word On The Street Toronto.

Lorne Daniel

Janet Barkhouse’s poems and stories have been published across Canada in such journals as CV2, TNQ, Riddle Fence, Room, and the Literary Review of Canada. Her debut collection of poems, Salt Fires, published by Pottersfield Press in the fall of 2018, follows on two chapbooks–Silence, and Sable Island Fieldnotes (with photographs by Zoe Lucas); a docupoem short screened at Lunenburg Doc Fest 2017; and three children’s books. In 2013-14 she was Artist in Residence with her daughter, singer-songwriter Alex Hickey, at Dalhousie’s Medical School, through their Humanities-HEALS program.

David Barrick Ariane Blackman

Nicholas Bradley is a poet, literary critic, and scholarly editor. He lives in Victoria, British Columbia.

Lauren Carter Lucas Crawford

Maureen Evans Shazia Hafiz Ramji received the Robert Kroetsch Award for Innovative Poetry for Port of Being, forthcoming with Invisible Publishing in fall 2018.

Her poetry is forthcoming in Best Canadian Poetry 2018 and her fiction has appeared in The Humber Literary Review. Her essays and criticism have recently appeared or are forthcoming in The Chicago Review of Books, Quill & Quire, Canadian Literature, and The Hamilton Review of Books. In April 2018, she founded the Intersections Reading Group, a series dedicated to discussing race, gender, class, and other intersections in writing and in life.

She is an editor for Metatron Press, Canadian Women in the Literary Arts, and continues to work as a developmental editor and consultant for various publishing houses across Canada. She has been the poetry editor for Prism international, book reviews editor for subTerrain magazine, and a guest editor for Poetry is Dead.

Shazia is also an independent scholar who focuses on postcolonial literature and theory. She

recently presented a talk on researching her first book of poems at the Canadian Writers Summit / CCWWP, and will be appearing at the 2018 Vancouver Writers Festival and the 2018 Surrey International Writers Conference, as well as the MLA conference and AWP in 2019.

Her first chapbook is Prosopopoeia (Anstruther Press, 2017). She is at work on a novel and a second book of poems.

Shazia has a BA in English and History from Simon Fraser University and is an MFA candidate in Creative Writing at the University of British Columbia. She is a graduate of The Writer’s Studio at SFU. Annick MacAskill’s debut collection is No Meeting Without Body (Gaspereau Press, 2018). Her poems have appeared in journals such as Grain, Prism International, Versal, Room Magazine, The Fiddlehead, and Arc. She has been selected as a finalist for the CBC Canada Writes Poetry Prize, the Ralph Gustafson Poetry Prize, and a Pushcart Prize. Originally from Ontario, she currently lives in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

M.A. Mahadeo is a 24 year old poet originally from Queens, New York. In Queens, M.A. worked as a writer for the prominent websites Huffington Post and Brit.Co. Her article, “Why Relationships Don’t Always Have To Take It Slow,” is featured in the book, Trying to Adult. Her debut as a Toronto poet can be seen in the second edition of Blood and Bourbon with her poem, “Reincarnation.”

She most recently has been featured in Man In The Streets Anthology, and the Rejected Lit Zine.

Cassidy McFadzean was born in Regina, Saskatchewan and earned an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. In 2015, she published Hacker Packer, which won two Saskatchewan Book Awards and was a finalist for the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award. Her poems have appeared in magazines across Canada and the U.S., and have been finalists for the CBC Literary Awards, The Walrus Poetry Prize, and the Canadian Authors

Association’s Emerging Writer Award. Her work has been anthologized in The Best Canadian Poetry 2016, The New Wascana Anthology, and In Fine Form 2. Her second collection Drolleries will be published by McClelland & Stewart in 2019.

She lives in Toronto.

Jennifer Murrin is a Mi’kmaq (Ktaqamkuk) and Settler (German, Irish, Scottish) spoken word artist. Her art is deeply rooted in her identity and tells stories of love and rage. She is a member of Seeds & Stardust, an Indigenous women’s poetry collective also a member of the Toronto Poetry Slam Team for the second year in a row.

Jennifer Alicia is also a professional artist hired on with One Mic Educators 2.0 Youth Program.

Alycia Primohamed is a Canadian-born poet living in Scotland. She is a Ph.D. student at the University of Edinburgh, where she is studying poetry written by second-generation immigrant writers. Her own writing is an exploration of what it means to be the daughter of immigrants; it grapples with language loss, cultural identity, and displacement. Her work has recently appeared, or is forthcoming, in Arc Poetry Magazine, PRISM International, Third Coast Magazine, Prairie Schooner, Glass: A Journal of Poetry, wildness and Vallum Contemporary Poetry. Her work was also selected for the 2018 edition of the Best New British and Irish Poets Anthology.

Alycia is the Creative Writing and Reviews editor at HARTS & Minds, and she co-edits the multilingual publication, The Polyglot. She received an M.F.A. from the University of Oregon in 2014 and is the recipient of two Calgary Artist Opportunity grants via Calgary Arts Development.

Kelly-Anne Riess Laura Ritland Cynthia Sharp thrives on interdisciplinary collaboration and peace education. She has been published and broadcast internationally. Her work

has appeared in many anthologies and literary journals including CV2, untethered, Toasted Cheese, Ascent Aspirations Magazine, Haiku Journal & Lantern Magazine, among others, and been nominated for the Pushcart Prize & Best of the Net Anthology. She’s on the board of directors for the Federation of BC Writers and loves taking part in diverse literary events through Canada and the world.

She trained as a high school language arts teacher and ESL teacher and is available to facilitate poetry and prose writing workshops in classrooms at all levels, from elementary school to college to community centres.

Kelly Shepherd’s second full-length poetry collection, Insomnia Bird: Edmonton Poems, is forthcoming from Thistledown Press in fall 2018. Shift, his first collection, was published by Thistledown Press in 2016 and longlisted for the Edmonton Public Library’s People’s Choice Award in 2017. Kelly has written six poetry chapbooks, and his poems and nonfiction writing have been published in numerous journals. He is also the poetry editor for the environmental philosophy journal The Trumpeter.

Kelly has a Creative Writing MFA from UBC Okanagan, and an MA in Religious Studies from the University of Alberta, with a thesis on sacred geography.

Born in Calgary, Alberta but raised an Island girl, P.C. Vandall grew up on Gabriola Island and resides there now with her husband two children. She was educated at Vancouver Island University where she studied Creative writing and then travelled to the Middle East to teach in Kuwait. Her work has appeared in numerous magazines in Canada as well as England, Ireland, the United States, India, and Australia.

Her poems have been shortlisted for prizes, nominated for pushcarts, and featured on radio.

She is currently a board member of the Gabriola Poetry Society and recently helped produce ‘The

Big little Poetry Festival.’ She has been a featured poet at various venues, is an active member in the poetry community and runs a small poetry group online. Some of her favourite poets include Susan Musgrave, Patrick Lane, Sharon Olds, P.K. Page, Elizabeth Bachinsky, Lorna Crozier, Alden Nowlan, and Mildred Tremblay.

Bernadette Wagner

Member News Rebecca Banks presents an announcement from Subterranean Blue Poetry: Subterranean Blue Poetry Announces! We are expanding our repertoire to include Articles of Poetic Interest – Biographies and Stories about Poets (alive and passed), new genres, literary criticism, Poetry Book Reviews and Introductions, Poetry Events Reviews (stories about poetry readings, poetry book signings, art installations with poetry) insightful Montrealais, Canadian, North American and International writings about Poetry and Poetry Events. In Themes and Style of The Paris Review. Minimum 500 words.

We Pay you $20 per Article. Paid in the month of publication by PayPal or EFT. Last Call!: The Golden Oracle: The Late Great Planet Rock Star Contest/Anthology.

Deadline: September 30th, 2018. www.subterraneanbluepoetry.com “all the poetry, everywhere” “for those subterranean blues” David Brydges (artistic director) presents the results of Ontario’s first painting poetry competition: Ontario’s

first painting poetry competition PoeARTry North sponsored by Spring Pulse Poetry Festival received 25 entries. League member Claudia Radmore’s painting poem Joseph’s Coat was given an honourable mention. John Di Leonardo was this year’s judge. Next competition will be in 2020 and is open to all Canadian painter poets.

Heather Cadsby has recently published her fifth book of poetry: Standing in the Flock of Connections (Brick Books, 2018). She will be touring Ontario presenting in Sarnia, Welland, Brockville, Barrie, Ottawa, Belleville, Kingston.

Fern G. Z. Carr’s debut poetry collection, Shards of Crystal, is slated for publication by Silver Bow Publishing for release in Fall 2018. For more information about Carr’s poetry, please feel free to visit www.ferngzcarr.com Louise Carson has 2 poems in the chapbook Our Willful Hearts (d’Iberville Press) and read them in support of refugee relief at Christ Church Cathedral in Montreal.

See Louise at the following events: Sat. Sept. 8 from 10 – 2, at Librairie Clio Bookstore, Pointe-Claire, QC, she’ll be signing copies of her latest book In Which, historical fiction, Broken Rules Press.

With the help of both guests and participants, over successive weeks we will explore some of the many links between poetry, textiles, documentary, photography, dance, architecture, sculpture, community organizing, film, sound and music. Confirmed guest presenters include Sue Goyette, Sylvia Hamilton, Lindsay Dobbin, Carrie Allison, Anna Heywood-Jones, Sol Nagler, Ursula Hendleigh, Ben Stone and Emma Allain.

Presentations, films, readings, performances and group challenges and exercises of various sorts begin at 6 and are open to the public.

Updates, featured guests and announcements will appear on the Art Bar + Projects Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/algartbar) and on the Dimensional Poetry Cafe Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/Dimensional-PoetryCaf%C3%A9-1305621826136448/) Linda Crosfield’s poem Tethered is included in Vancouver’s 2018/19 Poetry in Transit, launching at Word Vancouver on September 30. The poem originally appeared in Refugium—Poems for the Pacific (Caitlin Press, 2017).

FROM THE BLOG

Sun. Sept. 30 at 11 am at the 17th International Writers’ and Artists’ Festival, Val-David, QC, Louise will present ‘How to craft a cozy mystery’ and read from the second in the Maples Mysteries’ series The Cat Vanishes.

You are invited to join the first hour of the Poetry as Social Practice class with professor and poet Karin Cope and guests at NSCAD University this fall on Tuesday evenings at the Art Bar (1873 Granville St, Halifax, Nova Scotia B3J 1Y1) from September 11-December 4, 2018.

Class begins at 6; the Art Bar opens at 5:30.

Poetry as Social Practice is designed as an artsbased approach to poetry and poetic practice.

From October 3rd to 6th, 2018, Kelly Norah Drukker will be presenting from her poetry collection, Small Fires (MQUP, 2016) and its recent translation, Petits feux (Le lézard amoureux, 2018) at the Festival International de la Poésie in Trois-Rivières, Quebec. The festival runs between September 28th and October 7th, 2018, and the schedule can be found online at https://www.fiptr.com/program_conference2018. html. Most recently, Kelly participated in poetry events at LitLive Literary Readings in Hamilton, and at the Blue Metropolis Literary Festival in Montreal.

Alison Dyer’s book I’d Write the Sea Like a Parlour Game (Breakwater Books, 2017) was a finalist for the JM Abraham Poetry Award (May 2018). Allison gave readings from it in Bonavista, Cape St. Mary’s Performance Series, St. John’s AC Hunter Library, SPARKS Literary Festival, and

in Gander & Stephenville public libraries. You can read an interview with Allison discussing her work for the All lit up’s 2018 Poetry Cure: https://alllitup. ca/Blog/2018/Poetry-Cure-I-d-Write-the-SeaLike-a-Parlour-Game-by-Alison-Dyer. Alison has a poem in the League’s anthology, Heartwood: Poems for the Love of Trees.

Linda Frank’s fourth book of poetry, Divided, was published Spring 2018 with Wolsak & Wynn.

Judy Gaudet, editor for the anthology 150+ Canada’s History in Poetry, announced its release last month. It was launched to much acclaim and included many Canadian poets taking part in the readings. It is published by Acorn Press who says “the poets represent a wide variety of Canadian experience: Indigenous, immigrant, and people from every part of the country and period of our history providing a solid representation of Canadian diversity.” Judy has a poem in the League’s anthology, Heartwood: Poems for the Love of Trees. You can visit her website at judygaudet.weebly.com Keith Inman (Niagara) has over a dozen poems being published, or forthcoming in 2019, in the following anthologies from Canada, the U.S., Cuba/Canada and the U.K.: The Dream The Glory and The Strife from Hidden Brook Press; Transitory Tango from The Ontario Poetry Society; Lummox 7 from Lummox Press; Tamaracks from Lummox Press; Suffering and the Teaching Life from Palgrave-MacMillan; Heartwood: Poems for the Love of Trees, in association with the League of Canadian Poets; and finally, Resilience from Coteau Books.

Penn Kemp has two new poetry books out, Local Heroes (Insomniac Press) and Fox Haunts (Aeolus House).

Fiona Tinwei Lam will be presenting and discussing three of her poetry videos at the Vancouver International Writers’ Festival on Oct.

18. She also directed and produced an animated video poem, “Drunken Laundry Day with Charles Bukowski” based on a poem by Henry Doyle from Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside that was selected for screening at the biannual Zebra poetry film festival in Germany Sept. 27-30th, 2018. (This video was also screened earlier at Vancouver’s DOXA documentary film festival, the Film & Video Symposium in Los Angeles.)

Bernice Lever’s recent publications include poems in Delicate Impact (2018), an anthology of The Ontario Poetry Society and LUMMOX anthologies for Fall 2018 edited by RD Armstrong and James Deahl.

Gaspereau Press published Annick MacAskill’s debut collection, No Meeting Without Body, in April 2018. Annick has been reading from this book at events in Nova Scotia, Ontario, and Quebec, with more readings to come throughout the Maritimes.

Susan McCaslin’s Into the Open: Poems New and Selected (Inanna Publications, 2017) was recently reviewed by J.S. Porter, in Canadian Woman Studies, Vol. 12, Nos. 1,2 (2018), 149150.

Susan and J.S Porter have collaborated on a mixed-genre volume, Superabundantly Alive: Thomas Merton’s Dance with the Feminine (Wood Lake Publishing, Kelowna, BC), forthcoming in Oct. 2018. Susan is currently circulating a poetryphotograph collaboration she did with her husband Mark Haddock on the Cariboo Fires of 2017.

Diana Manole will read at the following events: 6 Oct. 2018: Panel Speaker at the Found in Translation: Romanian/ Canadian Writers across Borders panel and Featured Poet, TORO FEST – The Second Edition of the Romanian Book and Arts Festival, Toronto, 5-6 Oct. 2018 4 Oct. 2018: Panel Speaker and Featured Poet to Poet Translator at the Poetry Translation Summit: National Poetry Day. The Future of Poetry Translation: Pathways and Practices, organized

by the PoetTrio project, run by Newcastle University and the University of Roehampton. The Institute of Modern Languages Research, Senate House, London, UK. Alice Major presented at two conferences this summer. First, at Bridges, an annual conference that brings together an interdisciplinary group of mathematicians, scientists and artists in many disciplines. The 2018 conference took place in Stockholm, and Alice presented a paper about using mathematical concepts as the basis for metaphor. Her paper can be read here. She was also a speaker at “Our Place in the Cosmos?

Humanity, Spirituality and the Awesome Cosmos”, organized by the Saskatchewan Centre for Science and Religion.

There’s also a recent interview with Alice that was broadcast on Terra Informa — a weekly news program on environmental matters that gets broadcast in more than 50 communities across the country. Alice read her poems and talked about how a poet tries to come to terms with living in the Anthropocene. You can listen to it at https:// terrainforma.files.wordpress.com/2018/08/ terrainformaepisode-aug7.mp3 Chad Norman has had a busy Spring having traveling to N.S. schools and libraries to give reading and writing workshops including his “Seeing The Small” and “Glimpse. Gaze.

Gather.” Chad and I were featured readers at Governor’s Pub in Sydney where they run “The Book Pub”. Chad also presented and appeared as a headliner in Oxford’s first annual “Poetry At Large” festival. To top off the year he was been invited to the UK to give talks on Canadian poetry.

He will begin at the Galway University in Scotland on September 20. After a full week of events he will arrive in Wales on October 2 for three dates, then travel to Scotland, beginning at the Knights of The Round Table Reading Series. The tour includes universities, cafes, bars, and libraries.

Most recently, in July, Chad organized and hosted another successful “Riverwords: Poetry &

Music Festival” in Truro. Chad has a poem in the League’s new anthology, Heartwood: Poem for the Love of Trees.

Claudia Coutu Radmore, the League’s Ontario rep, is heading to Great Village, Nova Scotia, to take up a residency at Elizabeth Bishop House from September 16th to September 29th. She is taking a long route along the North Shore of the St. Lawrence to Baie Comeau where she will visit with Claude and Geralda Rodrigue, (Claudia is the President of Haiku Canada and Claude is Vice-President) then head to Fredericton to stay overnight with Ian Letouneau and his family before cobtinuing to Great Village. In Nova Scotia she will connect with Miriam McDonald, the Atlantic Region League Representative, and visit other poets in the province.

Shazia Hafiz Ramji’s first book, Port of Being, is available for pre-order. It received the Robert Kroetsch Award for Innovative Poetry and is forthcoming with Invisible Publishing in October 2018. Sonnet L’Abbé has said, “[p]lug this book directly into your cardiac rhythms.” Meredith Quartermain has said, “[i]ts politics bite back,” and Dani Couture has called it “[d]aring and intimate.”

Shazia will visit Ottawa, Kingston, Picton, and Toronto in November 2018, with readings at Pivot and Knife Fork Book. Look out for her cover story, a profile on the internationally acclaimed writer, Esi Edugyan, in the October issue of Quill & Quire, as well as a review of Flights by Olga Tokarczuk in The Chicago Review of Books.

She will be signing copies of her first book at Surrey Muse on Sept 28, will read at Russell Books in Victoria, BC, on Sept 29, and will launch at Massy Books in Vancouver, BC, on Oct 3.

In October, she will appear at the Vancouver Writers Festival and will give a workshop, Blue Pencil consult, and reading at the Surrey International Writers Conference.

D.C. Reid’s 8th book of poems, These Elegies, was published in August. He has received news

that a large UK publisher is interested in him writing a book on the environmental damage of fish farms on a global scale.

Al Rempel is pleased to announce that his new book of poetry, Undiscovered Country (Mother Tongue Publishing), is now available.

Mona Fertig, publisher and founder of Mother Tongue Publishing, says that “Undiscovered Country is filled with soulful accomplished writing.” These poems are a journey through the grieving process, exploring loss, death, and the “dark night of the soul” in a variety of lyrical modes, including a longpoem and a poem sequence. Copies of his book (see attachment for full cover) can be ordered directly from Mother Tongue Publishing at http://www.mothertonguepublishing.com/ He’ll be launching his book in Vancouver with four readings: Twisted Poets at Hood 29 (formerly Cottage Bistro) on September 27th, Dominion Reading Series at the Sun Wah Centre on September the 28th, a private kitchen party with Kevin Spenst and Daniela Elza on September the 29th, and at WORD Vancouver on September the 30th. He’ll also be launching in his home town, Prince George, on October 11th at Theatre NorthWest.

Steven Ross Smith was named the second poet laureate in Banff’s history, and will serve as such from July 1 to June 30, 2019. “It’s great to be so chosen so early in the history of the position,” he said. “I feel honoured to be engaged in what I see as a longer lineage of the literary arts in Banff.”

Glen Sorestad’s poetry will be featured in The Journal of Italian Translation (Vol. XII, No. 2).

In May of this year, an Italian literary publication, Il Foglio Letterario, published five poems from Water and Rock in both Italian translation

by Angela d’Ambra and in English. The latest edition of Grain (Summer 2018) includes three of Sorestad’s poems.

In September, the University of Alberta Press will publish the anthology entitled Waiting:

An Anthology of Essays which includes one of Sorestad’s memoir/essays.

Also in September, Acorn Press of Prince Edward Island is publishing 150+ Canada’s History in Poetry, edited by Judy Gaudet, which includes three of Sorestad’s poems.

Sorestad also has two poems included in the anthology, Saskatchewan Hockey: The Game of Our Lives, appearing in October from MacIntyre Purcell Publishing of Lunenburg, N.S. and edited by Allan Safarik.

Also, in October, one of Sorestad’s poems will appear in Beyond Forgetting: Celebrating Al Purdy on his 100th Birthday, an anthology of poems edited by Emma Skagen and Howard White and published by Harbour Publishing/ Douglas & MacIntyre.

Finally, three poems of his will appear in an anthology of Canadian poetry entitled Tamaracks: Canadian Poetry for the 21st Century, edited

by James Deahl and published in California by Lummox Press in early 2019.

Naomi Bet Wakan offers a workshop: Introduction to Writing Japanese Poetry. Are you a poet looking to expand your use of poetic forms? Do you want to explore the possibilities within poetry? Learn about two time-honoured forms of Japanese poetry: haiku (the poetry of the senses) an tanka (the poetry of the heart). Participants will be introduced to an understanding of both of these wonderful ways to express one’s self in poetry and will receive supportive critique from the instructor.

Suitable for both experienced and emerging poets. This will be Naomi’s third time teaching this popular workshop… be sure to register early.

Instructor: Naomi Beth Wakan Four Weeks Starting September 24, 2018 Fee: $160 Enrollment Limit: 8

To Register: info@shantiarts.com Bӓnoo Zan presents: Mark your calendars for Shab-e She’r (Poetry Night) LXVI on September 25, 2018.

Take this opportunity to listen to the poetry of Jennifer Alicia and John Nyman . You can also sign up for our open mic available for poetry, spoken word, music, and other three-minute performances in any language or accent.

Shab-e She’r is Toronto’s most diverse and brave poetry and open mic series. We strongly encourage participation by minorities of diverse ethnicities, nationalities, religions (or lack thereof), genders, sexual orientations, ages, (dis)abilities, and poetic styles, voices and visions.

Time: Tuesday, September 25, 2018 Place: Tranzac Club (main Hall) 292 Brunswick Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, M5S 2M7 Doors open 6:15 p.m.

Open-mic sign-up 6:30 p.m.

Show 7-10 p.m.

Admission: $5 Much love, Bänoo Zan Twitter: @BanooZan & @ShabeSherTO Instagram: @banoo.zan https://www.facebook.com/ events/270625573763865/

Writing Opportunities Calls for Submission Arc Poetry Magazine Arc is now accepting submissions for their Winter 2019 issue! Submissions can be unpublished poetry in English OR translations of poetry into English. Submit up to 3 poems. Payment of $50 per page for selected works. Deadline: September 30, 2018.

Canthius: Transformative Kinships Issue Canthius invites you to submit your best unpublished poetry & prose to their first ever themed issue on “transformative kinships”!

Payment of $15 per poem and $50 per work of prose for those chosen for publication. Deadline: October 1, 2018.

Humber Literary Review General submissions are now open for the Humber Literary Review’s Fall/Winter 2018 issue! Authors may submit 3-6 previously unpublished poems. Deadline: October 1, 2018.

Refugium: Poems for the Watershed Caitlin Press and editor Victoria Poet Laureate Yvonne Blomer are accepting submissions for an anthology that explores our impact and reliance on the watershed, expected to be published Fall 2019. “A watershed is an area where water - the necessity of life second only to air - falls, filters, and collects.” Poets may submit up to two poems. Deadline : October 15, 2018.

Vallum Magazine: Connections Issue Vallum Magazine is now accepting submissions for their upcoming “Connections” issue! “What, in a poem, makes us feel close to another human, especially one we’ve never met? How do we connect?” Deadline: November

15, 2018.

Point Petre Publishing: Call For Manuscripts Point Petre Publishing is accepting poetry manuscripts of ~100 pages by a December 31 2018 deadline for Spring 2019/Fall 2019 publication.

Poetry is Dead Magazine: The Drama Poetry Is Dead Magazine is seeking poetry for their upcoming THE DRAMA issue in tribute to poetry’s theatrical origins! “Theatre and poetry grew together, like a helix, winding and supporting each other forming the basis of all strains of literature and the performing arts.”

Deadline: January 1, 2019.

Voicing Suicide: A Poetry Anthology Voicing Suicide: A Poetry Anthology forthcoming from Ekstasis Editions and editor Daniel G Scott is seeking intimate, courageous, and honest poems exploring suicide while acknowledging larger social, political, and cultural contexts.

“Poetry offers an opportunity to understand some of the difficult aspects of suicide. Poetry allows us to meet grief, give it voice; allows memory, and elegy. In poetry we can give voice to suicide and enter the difficult spaces of loss and sorrow.”

Deadline: January 15, 2019.

Grain Magazine Grain Magazine – the Journal of Eclectic Writing is now accepting poetry submissions! Work must be unpublished – individual poems, sequences, or suites up to a maximum of 6 pages. Payment of $50 per page for selected works. Deadline: May 31, 2019.

Awards and Contests

Thomas Morton Memorial Prize The Puritan’s 7th annual Thomas Morton Memorial Prize is open for submissions!

Accepting poetry and fiction from writers all around the world. First prize is $1000 and publication in the Puritan (+great runner up

prizes). Deadline: September 30, 2018.

Pacific Spirit Poetry Prize PRISM International is now accepting entries to the Pacific Spirit Poetry Prize - to be judged

by Billy-Ray Belcourt! Grand prize of $1500.

Note that PRISM is offering free entries for self-identifying Indigenous writers! Deadline: October 15, 2018 CV2 Young Buck Poetry Prize CV2 Magazine’s annual Young Buck Poetry Prize is now accepting submissions. Writers under the age of 35 are eligible. The prize will be awarded to the single best poem submitted and each entrant may submit 1-3 poems. $1000 + publication in CV2 for the winner. Deadline: November 1, 2018.

Open Season Awards The Malahat Review is now accepting submissions for its annual Open Season Awards in poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction! A winner will be chosen in each category and awarded a prize of $2000 + publication.

Deadline: November 1, 2018.

2018 Banff Centre Bliss Carman Poetry Award Prairie Fire Magazine is now accepting entries for the 2018 Banff Centre Bliss Carman Poetry Award! Accepting unpublished poems (1 entry = 1-3 poems, max. 150 lines). 1st prize of $1250 in cash, publication + more! Deadline: November 30, 2018.

Mentorship Opportunities Diaspora Dialogues’ Short-Form Mentorship Program Diaspora Dialogues announces the launch of their Short-Form Mentorship program for emerging writers of short stories, creative nonfiction, and poetry living in - and writing about - the Greater Toronto Area! “Diaspora Dialogues

is committed to supporting a literature of Toronto that is as diverse as the city itself. Writers are encouraged to keep this mandate in mind, but addressing this theme directly is not essential in the submission. The setting of the works must be, at least in part, the greater Toronto region.

Diverse and Indigenous writers are especially welcome.” The writer-in-residence will offer feedback on submissions and completed pieces of writing can be submitted for consideration to TOK Digital, a new digital magazine by DD with an up-coming launch in April 2018. There are no hard deadlines as the program will accept work on a continuous basis. For more information: https://diasporadialogues.com/ mentoring-program/

Guernica Editions Poetry Mentorship Program Guernica Editions has announced the launch of a diversity-focused Poetry Mentorship Program!

Emerging poets yet to publish a full-length collection belonging to historically marginalized communities can apply to work with Eduardo C. Corral to hone their craft! Deadline: October 14, 2018.

QWF 2019 Mentorship Program The Quebec Writers’ Federation 2019 Mentorship Program is open for applications, for prospective mentors AND mentees. Mentorships run 4 months (approximately Feburary – May 2019). Applications in fiction, nonfiction, poetry, screenwriting, playwriting, and YA fiction will be considered. Deadline: November 21, 2018.

Residency Opportunities Al Purdy A-Frame Residency Call for applications for residencies from July 2019-June 2020 at the Al Purdy A-Frame Residency are now open!

“There is surely no house in Canada so strongly

connected with an important poet and his literary community.”

Poets may apply for a residency term of 2-12 weeks. The selection committee will also consider proposals for a 1-4 week project in critical writing about Canadian poetry. Travel to Ameliasburgh is paid + a stipend of $650 a week while living in the A-Frame. Residents will be asked to participate in one public event for each 4 weeks of residency or complete a communitybased project (ex. a reading, lecture, workshop, or other literary activity).

Deadline: October 12, 2018.

In Memoriam Anthony “Tony” Valuch With warmth and sincerity, the League wishes to acknowledge the passing of Anthony, “Tony” Valuch, a member since November 2016.

Tony passed away after a heroic fight with several health issues on July 13, 2018 at the Lakeridge Health Centre, Oshawa, at the age of 63. Beloved son of Sylvia and the late Miro Valuch. Dear friend of Lynn Ayers. Cremation and burial were private at Holy Cross Cemetery, Thornhill, ON. May he rest in peace. Obituary published in the Toronto Star on July 31, 2018.

Tony Valuch was from Toronto, Ontario. He held undergraduate and graduate degrees in English Literature and Education. Being an English teacher since 1986 gave him the opportunity to teach in some very interesting places: an isolated First Nations community deep in the embrace of Northwestern Ontario; the cold, beautiful landscapes north of the 50th parallel in the Yukon Territory; the beautiful, lake-laced, forest-filled lands of small-town Eastern Ontario; the sprawling urban expanse of major cities like Toronto and Vancouver; and the far-eastern lands of South Korea.

Our deepest sympathies to Tony’s loved ones.