Issue 19 Vol. 1
Spring 2022
19.1 | Spring 2022
In this issue: 2–6
News f rom the League
7–8
National Poetry Month 2022
9–11
Bill Arnott’s Beat: Unexpected Beauty
11–12
Membership Engagement Challenge
13–15
Book Review: Cattail Skyline by Joanne Epp
16–21
Poetry Parlour
22-27
New Members
28-32
Member News
33–36
Writing Opportunities
News f rom the League Poetry Pause Themed Call: INTIMACY (National Poetry Month 2022) The LCP asks for poems around the theme of Intimacy to showcase in Poetry Pause throughout National Poetry Month in April 2022. Submissions for this special theme do not count towards our annual Poetry Pause submission limits. The LCP encourages poems that expand the understanding of what intimacy is, have unique and creative perspectives on the theme, and move the concept of intimacy beyond “sexy” poems (although “sexy” poems are welcome too). Deadline is March 18, 2022. Find out more. LCP Membership Engagement Challenge Complete a series of poetry and LCP membershiprelated challenges over 10 weeks and win! Winners are drawn each week and three grand prizes will be awarded. The LCP is a wide-reaching organization with many different programs and benefits available to discover. The Membership Engagement Challenge will reward you while you learn more about the League and make most of your membership. Three grand prize winners will receive free LCP membership for the 2022-2023 year as well as a $125 bookstore gift card. Learn more about the challenge.
Special Member Meeting - April 2022 On Wednesday, April 20, 2022, we will be hosting a special member meeting to appoint a new auditor for the League of Canadian poets. This meeting will be very brief, likely under 30 minutes. Learn more or register to attend. LCP Funding: applications are now open for Events taking place after March 31, 2022 Reading Series and Festival reservations for April 1, 2022, and beyon. We are currently acceptiing applications on a rolling deadline. Learn more about LCP Funding programs Annual General Meeting The 2022 League of Canadian Poets Annual General Meeting will once again be virtual, and is scheduled to take place on Monday, June 27, 2022. Registration is open– register today! Call for Nominations and Volunteers If you are interested in becoming more involved with the League, now’s your chance to let us know! Starting in Spring 2022, we will be gathering nominations for our book award jurors, prize judges, and incoming council and committee
members. Council, committee, judge, and volunteer roles all run on different timelines, but nominees would be contacted in Spring 2022, and elected at the AGM in June 2022. Nominate yourself or another poet. Guide to LCP Communications for Members Are you a member of the League who may need a refresher on what the LCP can do to help promote your poetry and build a bigger and better poetry community? We love to support our members in every way we can! Check out this webpage for a low-down of 12 great ways to get involved. The LCP Chapbook Series Order a chapbook today and know that you are supporting the continued success of the Series that brings publication opportunities to underrepresented poets as well as
some new, top-notch poetry for your bookshelf. Available now for order: LEAP: a chapbook in memory of Lesley Strutt – An anthology of emerging writers over 40, edited by Claudia Coutu Radmore and Joan Conway in memory of Lesley Strutt. Book Reviews The LCP is proud to share that we can now offer payment ($25 per review) for select reviews each month, as well as continuing to accept reviews from other publications, or without payment. Check out our new reviews page, including our titles gallery and simplified request form. Learn more. Land Acknowledgements The League is seeking poets to create a series of powerful and poetic land acknowledgements to share at our digital poetry events.
your poems, your releases and events, and chat about all things poetry. Exclusive to LCP Members. Join us today in The Neighbourhood!
This opportunity will pay $250, and we are particularly interested in working with First Nations, Inuit and Métis poets with knowledge in the history and culture of many Indigenous groups. Fill out this form if you are interested in helping with this opportunity. Member News The League has simplified the process to submit member news for St@nza and social media promotion. If you are a member and have news you would like shared, fill out this quick form. The next issue of St@ nza will be out in September. Suggestion Box Do you have a great poetry-related idea that you think the League might be interested in? Do you have any ideas that may broaden or enhance our current programming and projects? Let us know via the Suggestion Box! Let us know about your suggestion LCP’s Poetry Neighbourhood Facebook Group Won’t you be our neighbour? Share
In Memoriam When we lose a member of the poetry community, that loss is felt deeply and with great love. The LCP has created a webpage where all are invited to remember, reflect and share memories of those from the poetry community who have recently passed. Visit our In Memoriam page. Poetry Pause Poetry Pause is the League’s daily digital poetry dispatch program and it’s growing every day! We deliver a daily poem an audience of over 1200 subscribers and we are always accepting submissions of published or unpublished poems! Poetry Pause is a great way to introduce new readers to your work. Submit your poetry today! Tell your poets and poetry-loving friends to subscribe Donate to the League Support poets and poetry in Canada. Please consider donating monthly to the League of Canadian Poets. Donate via Canada Helps
NATIONAL POETRY MONTH INTIMACY APRIL 2022 This National Poetry Month, we invite you to celebrate with the theme of INTIMACY. We crave it. We fear it. We are ready to build walls against it and dive headfirst into its open arms. Intimacy is the closeness we feel with those who love us, given freely through warm hugs or tender passions. Its a shared laugh or glance between strangers, a moment of comfort in an anonymous world. Intimacy is a-la-carte: romantic, platonic, aromantic, familial, spiritual: order up what you need, and intimacy will take you there. Let’s get intimate with poetry this April for National Poetry Month 2022. The official NPM22 poster and bookmark is designed by the talented Megan Fildes. Download the NPM 2022 Poster. We are now accepting orders for poster and bookmarks! Order yours today to celebrate NPM22 in your classroom, home, workplace or community space! Order a poster and/or bookmark today!. If you are designing your own poster for an event or project, or if you want to share in the NPM22 fun on social media, the LCP also has a variety of social media graphics for NPM22. Check them out.
Bill Arnott’s Beat Unexpected Beauty
in conversation, click-purr-caws of general assembly. Two sparrows singsong back and forth, melodic two-tone music penetrating everything, the white noise hum of traffic, long-abandoned mental illness shouts, a beep of backing trucks and endless buzz of newbuilds being born. A tufted flicker flashes, feathers sunset orange, its flight a chain of rhythmic upbeats, child’s rendering of waves, unending rows of upper case U. Beyond, above an inlet, the duck-like flap of cormorants, their bodies darts, resembling failed supersonic Avro Arrows or a Concorde BAC. Unexpected beauty. From a highrise, cloud-scraping tower copse, nature abounds. Gulls soar, fixed-wing on thermals pumped from rooftop HVACs. Springtime settles into place, reluctantly, with every shade of green, Eire hues in streetscapes, courtyards, boulevards, while deciduous and conifers sprout tender shoots begging to be brewed in campsite tea. From my concrete aerie a swath of ornithology, gulls now in a gang, squawking, diving, pestering a lone bald eagle flapping broad extended juvie wings, its flightpath east to west. The local crow clan’s deep
But wait, all hell has broken loose and something’s up, up here. From our tiny deck a solitary bird wings straight toward me from a distance. Maybe a pigeon, but the fuss! Every other bird has joined the dogfight protest, dodging, bobbing, weaving. Still, the visitor gets closer. Now I see that it’s a raptor. Almost out of place, but not. Not quite. Here, in this downtown aviary. The predator swoops in, alights on a patio one floor down, a pandemically-conscious two metre distance. The others scream, hurl insults, while the big-eyed raptor ducks its head and watches, cautious, an overhang, our balcony, serving as a shelter.
It’s a falcon. Peregrine. Not the last thing I’d expect to see in the city CBD but rare. By the time it flies away the flock of protestors has dissipated. A few disgruntled calls and chirpy shouts. Which leave me curious but mostly feeling good. Whether these bursts have happened due to COVID and a slightly dampened city I can’t say. Wildlife inching back to where it ought to be; jaguars, boars, black bears and coyotes meandering in streets around the globe. Perhaps it’s just another sign of how we’ve messed things up. Those same HVAC compressors seagulls seem to love, exuding heat for inside air-conditioned comfort, all of it confounds, compounds our weather systems, temperatures and storms. Some of these birds, migrators, simply stopped, residing where
they are, yearround. First time in twenty years of seaside running I’ve seen swathes of shoreline paved in guano. Geese are staying put and every gosling (all named Ryan) lives, survives and grows to adulthood where they were born, with us now overrun by longnecked icons. But enough from the soapbox. You can read my global warming rant in stanza-form in Califragile Magazine. The fact remains we live in beauty. All around, abounding. Never more than what I witnessed on a quiet statutory holiday at six AM. I’d finished running and was cooling down, strolling home across a bridge. Where one lone individual was out, apart from me. A sobbing young man clambering over the midspan bridge railing, in the process of making his final decision. Oh, I thought, this is happening. And so, with this pleasant-faced and crying man clinging to the outside of the bridge rail, I began to talk. Spanish was his language, our communication halting, one-way mostly, me to him and simply talking, lacking
playbooks to refer to, just empathy and openness and a slender slice of raw, first-hand experience. “I’m just … so … tired,” he managed to say. To which all of us, I’m certain, can relate. After a bit of time, uncomplicated monologue then dialogue, we knew each other. In some ways, somewhat. In other ways, completely. While we spoke, with gradual encouragement, my new friend crawled back on to the inside of the railing. I suppose someone made a call, because with some surprise we realized a crescent of police, all silent, patient, slowly, slowly, closed in on the two of us. Eventually with tears and thanks our group disbanded, the young man taken to a hospital, me, I headed home for one more cry and quiet gratitude, reflecting on a world of unexpected beauty. Bill Arnott is the award-winning author of Gone Viking: A Travel Saga, Gone Viking II: Beyond Boundaries, and the #1 bestseller, Bill Arnott’s Beat: Road Stories & Writers’ Tips. For his expeditions Bill’s been granted a Fellowship at London’s Royal Geographical Society. When not trekking the globe with a small pack, journal, and laughably outdated camera phone, Bill can be found on Canada’s west coast, making music and friends. @billarnott_aps
LCP’s Membership Engagement Challenge! Complete a series of poetry and LCP membership-related challenges over 10 weeks and win! The League has crafted a handy Bingo Card listing the challenges. Track your progress by printing it off at home or follow along digitally. If you have completed the Golden X of challenges, found on the Bingo Card, by the end of the 10th week, you are eligible to win one of three grand prizes! These grand prize winners will receive free LCP membership for the 2022-2023 year! Visit the Challenge Homepage to learn more and track your progress to win FREE LCP membership for 2022-2023!
Review of Cattail Skyline by Joanne Epp Reviewed by Michael Edwards
Joanne Epp’s Cattail Skyline (Turnstone Press, 2021) is her second poetry collection. The book is an attentive and intimate poetic treatment of the Canadian prairie landscape. Her poems are immediate and mindful and often steeped in a sense of nostalgia. Though some of the work deals with other locales, it is the prairies that call out most strongly. Many of the book’s pages are populated with up-close looks at the intricacies of berries and wildflowers. The poet also takes time to make broader comments and investigations of the wider world, thinking about these important spaces and landscapes in relation to their social and historical contexts. Across the collection, strong, vivid imagery stands out, especially in
the realm of the visual. Pieces like “Star Lake” are worked in a painterly way. Landscapes and scenes bristle with the feel of brushstrokes and vibrant colour, and so explicitly in “Equinox” as “Summer empties its paint pots/A drip here, a splash there: vermillion.” Other poems take on a cinematic quality. “Park Valley” features the speaker and her choir performing in a church to its few unaffected parishioners, who sit almost motionless in a blend of apathy and inertia. Other poems, many in fact, are deeply mindful, like “Wild Strawberries,” evoking a sense of wonder, of awe, of the ordinary-made-extraordinary by attending fully to the minutiae of prairie fruits and flora. Several of the pieces, the berry poems, bring to mind texts like Seamus Heaney’s “Blackberry Picking” and Alden Nowlan’s “Picking Raspberries,” along with many other works of poets who have played in the trope of berry picking verse. In “Saskatoon berries,” the literal fruit of remembering becomes visceral and sensorial with a “mouthful of sweet purple/juice on the tongue.” The book itself is divided thematically into several sections. The “cemetery road” prose poems, serial pieces, appear throughout the collection and act as stopping points. They standout for their steadfast attention to place. After encountering them again and again, it seems like a poet’s perseveration, scenes of detail and beauty, often focussing on anything but the fact of the purpose of the cemetery itself.
Similarly, the “Omand Creek” poems, a monthly sequence, play with mood. The poet-speaker’s eye (or “I”) shifts in relation to flipping from one calendar page to the next. Each month comes with its own response, its own thematic focus. In July’s piece, “Come closer,” with its “yarrow canopies; milkweed stars,” the speaker revels in the details, asks “Why return to the path?” Epp stays clear of “pathetic fallacy,” of the land speaking or carrying some type of human emotion. What is important is within the frame of the poet’s looking. Across the collection there is, of course, this personal, individual self speaking. There is also the self of a wider consideration, a self looking out at the larger world. In this mode, these poems, gentle in tone, rove with a critical eye over settler-colonial legacy and whiteness. Several pieces explore these political and social connections to land. Places of significance to the speaker are “revisited.” The poem “Bearings” is a reading of the political geography, of map and landscape. The speaker examines pages of the “Atlas of Saskatchewan” aware of the superimposition of its colonial features — a witness to the act of near-erasure. The poem describes areas inhabited by various ethnic-religious settler groups which are colour-coded vibrantly, but, as the poet writes, “…[f]or ‘Indian Reserves,’ the palest almost-pink. / Against the surrounding colours, it almost disappears.” Another poem, “Gabriel’s Crossing,” references the historical Métis leader Gabriel Du-
mont and the narrative of the Red River resistance in juxtaposition to the school-taught history of Canadian colonial identity and its dominant, over-written narratives. The subject of travel is also looked at, travel by train across Canada as well as travel to Cambodia. In “Vesak Day in Tram Kak,” the evident otherness of the speaker is recorded, along with the objective observances and descriptions made from a speaker who is outside of the culture. This experience of otherness is characterized by the speaker as “…the great joke/of my being here, winter-pale, /not understanding a word.” In these travel poems, as with the collection as a whole, place and small detail are upheld as the common thread of the speaker’s attention. Ultimately, where the collection finds most of its energy is in signing of the prairies. With Canadian poets, place and landscape is traditionally and often a muse, even a character. This collection does partake in that tradition, with a pastoral emphasis, with a pull toward description, but also moves far beyond that. The beauty of place, with its fraught social histories, is attended to with the poet’s careful and painterly eye. A reader might think of this volume alongside Tom Lilburn’s “To the River.” Though with very different musics and registers, both books share an equivalent level of devotion and attentiveness to the prairie-scape. Addressed in an unassuming way, to a friend, to an intimate listener, these poems are a
quiet reminder of how poets are often deeply linked to the places they inhabit. This book, with Epp’s signature, investigates this relationship with an artistry and a desire for the reader to come close and to revisit and remember. Cattail Skyline by Joanne Epp (Turnstone Press) Born and raised in Saskatchewan, Joanne Epp has published poetry in literary journals including The New Quarterly, The Antigonish Review, and CV2. Her chapbook, Crossings, was released in 2012. Eigenheim is her first full-length poetry collection. Married with two sons, she spent several years in Ontario and now makes her home in Winnipeg. Michael Edwards is a writer living in Vancouver, BC on traditional, unceded territory of the Musqueam people. A graduate of The Writer’s Studio Online at SFU, his poems and prose have been published in various online journals. He is also the editor of Red Alder Review, an online publication focused on building connections between writers and the wider community. Blog: michaelwriter.home.blog Twitter: @michaelwrites1
Poetry Parlour See what Leaguers have to say coping with rejection, getting into poetry, and non-writing activities!
Thank you to everyone who responded to the most recent Poetry Pause questions! Check out our new batch of questions.
own anxieties. Anxiety is the engine that drives my practice.
When you’ve had a successful writing day/session, are you worn out, relaxed, or are you pumped up and excited and have trouble settling down?
Hilary Clark: I’m tired but pleased to have done some writing.
Stephen Kent Roney: Generally the latter. Hypomanic.
Louise Carson: As my poems seem to come in clumps, definitely pumped up. During these periods of creativity, on walks I bring paper and pencil in my pocket, so I don’t have to remember all the lines and images until I get home. I rarely feel creative behind the wheel.
Ellen S. Jaffe: After a “successful” writing session -- i.e. I’ve written something that surprised me and gave me new insight when I write the first draft of a poem or do major rewriting, or when I do rewriting that finally put the missing “pieces (words, images, form) together in the right way, I feel both exhilarated and calm. As if the world has changed slightly. It takes me a while (half an hour or so) to come out of the writing “zone” into ordinary life. Some quiet time helps, rather than rushing back into the busy-ness of household and other tasks.
Francine Fallara: After a satisfying writing session, I feel completely content and at peace with myself. My writing on Medium is literally a daily escape for me to venture on my artistic inner self.
Kamal Parmar: Wow! I would be really happy and have a sense of selfworth and accomplishment. I am truly grateful to everyone and inspired to write more and raise the bar!
Chris Banks: I’m one of the poets who writes poems to reduce my
Tanya Standish McIntyre: When the muse is singing, I barely have
Anne Burke: All of the above but not necessarily in that order. This is a typical day for me.
time to sleep - in fact night is when words flow most profusely, so a spell of successful writing to me is usually a little exhausting. Amanda Earl: all of these are possible. Natalie Meisner: I almost never get a whole day, but when I have had a successful writing session I feel full of possibility. Generous, kind and full of life. Fareh Malik: I really think it depends on what I’m writing about. Sometimes I write about how love is like water, and how many different shapes it can take. I can go home and laugh in the shower about the water’s heat, or pressure; or I can get really bummed that my sink is broken, and my girlfriend lives far away from me. Poetry is just that to me. It’s beautiful, and it’s real life. It is often contextual, and that will determine whether I’m energized or drained by it at the end of the day.”
Is there a moment from your childhood, even a fleeting image or memory, that you think presages a life in poetry? Natalie Meisner: Yes. My grandmother always told me (in response to triumphs over adversity that I won’t regale you with here) “You might as well laugh, as cry” the phrase let me know that both responses were possible, might even be coming from the same place... and that’s poetry, baby! The life of the mind and poetry can be with us
at all times. Even the most trying ones. Reading and writing have given me that other life to keep on living alongside the everyday one. I am forever grateful. Hilary Clark: I remember moments of intense enchantment in childhood reading, which involved crossing thresholds into ambiguous and often uncanny worlds, as in *The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe*; *Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass*; “Hansel and Gretel” and other witch-tales. In “real” life, these were moments of watching the light turn green before a thunderstorm, watching clouds, sunset--sky as moving canvas. Pursuing something beyond one’s reach: one way of describing poetry. Anne Burke: Mother Goose rhymes which I later learned are actually satiric squibs about the ills of society and more. “Ring Around the Rosie” is actually about the 1665 Great Plague of London. The “roses” are a euphemism for deadly rashes, the “posies” a supposed preventative measure; the “a-tishoos” pertain to sneezing symptoms, and the implication of everyone falling down is, well, death. (The London Bridge actually falling down was in 1014). The “London Bridge Falling Down” rhyme refers to the use of a medieval punishment known as “immurement”, which is when a person is encased into a room with no openings or exits and left there to die. “Jack and Jill” are actually France’s Louis XVI and his wife, Marie Antoinette, who were convicted of treason during the French Revolution, otherwise known as the Reign
of Terror, and beheaded. Humpty Dumpty was the name of a cannon used by English Royalists in the English Civil War of 1642-1649. During the war, Royalists placed several cannons on walls surrounding the city of Colchester. Stephen Kent Roney: Yes. Composing poems at age 4. Louise Carson: Exploring a ruined house, its walls insulated with crumbling newspapers, and trying to read some of the history there. Francine Fallara: At a very young age, I read Honoré de Balzac as a child, not really understanding the proses and verses but remembering having an inexplicable spiritual attraction to his words. Chris Banks: Well, I was the only person in my Grade 11 class who was riveted by the Earle Birney documentary my English teacher showed to the class. I learned two things that day: 1) Poems can tell stories 2) There were Canadian poets. Ellen S. Jaffe: 1. About age 4, sitting in a “nest” where four branches of a white birch tree separated, leaving a space, like a lap, where I could sit, dream, look up at the leaves and the sky. In the same place, an area just outside a playground in Central Park (NYC), I turned over stones and picked up worms to look at them -- somehow, I knew that I wanted to really see what was there, no matter what, rather than deny or judge (“icky worms!”) 2. Writing poems and stories in 5th and 6th grade: my teacher for those 2 years seriously encouraged my
writing and made me feel it was something I could share, not just keep private (I had already been writing poems for a few years at that point.) Kamal Parmar: Well, in school my essays were always different as I was called a very ‘imaginative ‘ child. Unlike my classmates, I would devour poems by Wordsworth and other Victorian poets , as if I had something in common with these Nature poems. I had this vague feeling that I loved to read and write. It gave me a lot of comfort and I felt connected! Tanya Standish McIntyre: I remember being maybe 8, riding through the woods in a small red trailer behind my grandfather’s old tractor, with a notebook and pencil in hand, trying to record the changing beauty of everything we passed, hearing the words in one long poetic stream in my head, and regretting it all went by too fast to write down. I also remember trying to listen to his stories in such a way that I would always remember and be able to tell them myself one day. Amanda Earl: my penchant for inventing words and coming up with my own laguage Fareh Malik: I took an aptitude test in school at lunch once that said I would be suited to a job in writing or literary professorship. The thought was quickly dismissed when I failed my English essay in the next period.
What do you think the role of a poet is in today’s society? Stephen Kent Roney: A voice drying in the wilderness. Amanda Earl: i don’t like to speak for other poets. my own role is to write so that kindred misfits know they are not alone. i also want to work on community building. Ellen S. Jaffe: I think the poet is an active witness to what is going on in “society” -- whether this is world or national events, or local, more personal community life. The poet can express these stories (sometimes traumatic and/or hard to think about) in language that can to the heart of the emotions and “feeling” of the story, rather than cite statistics or rant about evil, and sometimes can write about one person or situation to tell the wider story in more intimate terms -- thus reaching the reader/listener more directly. Metaphors and images can help make events and experiences more “real,” able to be sensed. not only thought-about. In addition, the poet can also express her/his/their personal feelings, memories, and experiences (e.g. love, grief, observation of nature, etc.) in a way that reaches other people and makes them more aware, able to relate to these experienes, and perhaps more able to express and think about their lives. Fareh Malik: I think the poet’s job is to say things that are unheard or hard to say, beautifully. If you aren’t saying something new or something that needs to be said, I feel like a poet is not doing what they should be.
Louise Carson: I think the role of any person is to be compassionate, so that must also be the poet’s role. Perhaps also to be a critic of those who seem not to be compassionate. Chris Banks: I think we hold up a mirror to society, or the internet, or to the moon and we try to make sense of what is sitting in front of us, Anne Burke: More important than ever. For example, during the pandemic lock-down, we communicated by email and text with essential poetic statements; it felt like the end of the world (or of the world as we had known it). Then the carnage, with the nursing homes and disadvantaged, now it is the homeless in the dead dark of winter. Poetry is fueled by outrage, injustice, and compassion. Hilary Clark: Not the role of the poet--the role of the POEM* is to hold the ear captive and follow the trace of thinking, finding meanings that cannot be conveyed by everyday prose. *including the prose poem Tanya Standish McIntyre: The poet ‘s role today is first of all to remind the world to slow down - Roethke said “poetry undoes the damage of haste; to acknowledge that the need for beauty is a universal need of the human soul, which is an idea that the modern world had gotten away from, and that through the arts it is not only possible but the only way we have to transform suffering into gifts. The poet, like other artists, is the closest thing we have to a shaman - creating storytelling
this other world that making and reading poetry can give them. xo
medicine as antidote to the ills of our age of materialism. More than ever, the poet must make people believe in the powers of imagination, inspiration and intuition, and use language as a magician uses spells, lest we forget that words really matter. Kamal Parmar: The role of a poet in these turbulent times is to provide a platform to heal the body and the mind. It is the most effective media in connecting with one’s inner self as well as to an Infinite Power.” Natalie Meisner: To provoke wonder at the power of words. To acknowledge the devastation they can cause too. To save very specific words and use them frequently. Open the door for others toward
Francine Fallara: Until I started writing my own poems, I never understood poets and their poetry. Nowadays, there is not a day that goes by without me writing some kind of poetry and reading a bucket of poets daily. Honestly, I think poets offer one of the most beautiful forms of writing. Poets are profound writers presenting life’s inexplicable abstracts as accessible thoughts wrapped with delicately chosen words. Poets’ talents are to write poetry seeking authentic feelings deep down in their souls. Poetry is unique for all of us and reaches out in various ways.
JUST FOR FUN: If you could only write in one poem style (ex. haiku, sonnet, glosa) for the rest of your life, which would you choose and why? Amanda Earl: hybrid because no one form is ever going to suffice.
the idea is claustrophobic making. Anne Burke: The epic, which you did not mention, because it is the pinnacle of achievement, inspired by the Muse, godlike, riding on Pegasus. The genre was said to be praised by Aristotle as second only to tragedy and by many critics as in the highest order. Of course, it is an impossibility. Chris Banks: I have already written a manuscript of unrhymed sonnets so I guess I would continue to write in that particular form. Ellen S. Jaffe: “I would write haiku short, to the point, diving deep into mystery.” Fareh Malik: Prose poetry. I love it so much, and find it really fun to be able to play with sentence structure and a metaphorical writing style. Francine Fallara: “I am offering Poetry Parlour, my new and never published 30-words One-line poem explaining why it is my favourite form of poetry: Flawlessness perfection of thirty-word One-line poetry through each and every one of the poet’s worthy chosen words offers readers a natural passing liaison to their purest emotional flux.” Hilary Clark: Cut-ups. Louise Carson: As I have only dabbled in formal poetry, with the exception of haiku, I would have to say the lyric narrative. Manahil Bandukwala: Golden shovel! The golden shovel is a form cre-
ated by Terrence Hayes that takes a line of poetry and uses each word at the end of your own line. I used this form in my collaborative chapbook with Liam Burke titled “Orbital Cultivation.” The entire chapbook is a golden shovel of Phyllis Webb’s poem, “And In Our Time.” The form allows for a beautiful engagement with the poetry that excites, shocks, and affects me. Kamal Parmar: i love haiku for tis subtle and everlasting images . However, writing in blank verse is my forte’ and I intend to strengthen it further. Natalie Meisner: oooooo ouch. so hard. Limericks would be fun. Sonnets would be proper. Vilanelles probably suit me best! I cheated and got 3. Stephen Kent Roney: Epic. It would allow the most scope. I could be happy for lifetimes, generations. Keep me occupied. Tanya Standish McIntyre: I suppose my specialty is eligies of one kind or another, and lyrical narrative poems, but as much as I want to learn and experiment with every possible form, the freedom to dip into any medium as suits my mood, is one that I would never willingly give up. I might say the epic poem, if I was forced to choose, as that way maybe I could find a way of including everything I wished to.
New Poetry Parlour questions are now available! Click here to share your thoughts
New Members Kelsey Andrews is best known for her poetry, though she writes short fiction too. Recently published in Prism, The Dalhousie Review, The New Quarterly, and Prairie Fire, she writes first drafts in cheap notebooks so she doesn’t feel like she’s ruining a fancy one. She’s written about birdwatching when you can’t see the birds, suicide, snails, and two separate poems about turning into rock. Kelsey grew up in the country near Grande Prairie in Northern Alberta, then moved to the West Coast, and these two landscapes anchor much of her work while she travels her past and various possible presents. She loves, in no particular order, the moon, crows, getting a line exactly right after many drafts, and chocolate. Her first book, Big Sky Falling, came out with Ronsdale Press in November 2021. Manahil Bandukwala (she/her) is a writer & visual artist. She is currently Coordinating Editor for Arc Poetry Magazine & Digital Content Editor for Canthius. She is a member of Ottawabased writing collective VII. Her collaborative chapbook with Conyer Clayton, Sprawl | the time it took us to forget (Collusion, 2020), was shortlisted for the bpNichol Award. Her first full length poetry collection is MONUMENT (Brick Books, 2022).
Chris Banks is a Canadian poet and author of six collections of poems, most recently Deepfake Serenade out with Nightwood Editions (Fall 2021). His first fulllength collection, Bonfires, was awarded the Jack Chalmers Award for poetry by the Canadian Authors’ Association in 2004. Bonfires was also a finalist for the Gerald Lampert Award for best first book of poetry in Canada. His poetry has appeared in The New Quarterly, Arc Magazine, The Antigonish Review, Event, The Malahat Review, GRIFFEL, American Poetry Journal, Prism International, among other publications. He lives and writes in Kitchener, Ontario. Erin Bedford is a poet and novelist. Her short work has appeared in The Temz Review, Juniper, Map Literary, Train, GUEST, the lickety split & Catamaran Literary Reader. She is the founder and chief editor of Pinhole Poetry, a digital poetry journal. Vilma Blenman Jacqueline Bourque Originally from Belfast, Northern Ireland, Gavin Bradley has been working and writing in Edmonton, Canada since 2012. His poetry and short stories have been published
on both sides of the Atlantic in venues including The Irish Times, The North, Glass Buffalo, and The Open Ear. He has been included in Black Springs Press’ Best New British and Irish Poets 2021 anthology, and in 2020, won the inaugural Edmonton Poetry Festival Prize for Poetry. His first collection of poetry, Separation Anxiety, is upcoming in March 2022, from the University of Alberta Press.
New League Members
Jay Yair Brodbar Simon Brown (he/they) is a self-taught poet and translator from the traditional territory of the Peskotomuhkati Nation, in southwestern New Brunswick, now based in Wendat and Abenaki traditional territory, in the Québec City area. His poems have been presented in interdisciplinary artworks and
collaborative performances, and via platforms such as Lemon Hound, Train, Estuaire, Vallum, Poetry Is Dead, Watts, filling Station, and the Fiddlehead. As a translator, he has adapted texts by Lisa Jarnot, Maude Pilon, Angela Carr, Huguette Gaulin and Nicole Raziya Fong, among others. His collections, chapbooks and artist’s books have been published in Québec, Canada and France by Le laps, Vanloo, squint, Moult, Frog Hollow, and above/ground press. Sandra Bunting writes poetry, fiction, non-fiction and journalistic articles. She grew up on the east coast of Canada but lived for many years in Ireland and other parts of Europe. She holds an BA from Ryerson in Radio and Television Arts and an MA in Writing from the National University of Ireland, Galway and has taught creative writing at third level.
Kevin Bushell Maria Caltabiano Montuori Simon Constam Adrian De Leon Candace de Taeye Trynne Delaney is a writer currently based in Tiohtià:ke. Their writing consists mostly of musings about how we got here, where we are, who “we” encompasses, how to care in a violent world, and how to exist in spaces that are hostile to multiplicity. Their debut specfic novella the half-drowned is out Spring 2022 with Metatron Press. Trynne holds a Master of Arts in English Literature and Creative Writing from the University of Calgary where they completed a cli-fi hybrid form novel as their creative thesis. Their work was most recently published in CV2, Carte Blanche, GUTS Canadian Feminist Magazine, WATCH YOUR HEAD, and the League of Canadian Poets’ chapbook These Lands: a collection of voices by Black Poets in Canada edited by Chelene Knight. They currently work as an administrative assistant for Drawn & Quarterly. nina jane drystek Mallory Eaglewood Brianna Ferguson is a poet and educator from the Okanagan Valley in British Columbia. She is the author of the poetry collection, A Nihilist Walks Into A Bar, published by Mansfield Press in December, 2021. Her
poems and short stories have appeared in various anthologies and publications across Canada, the US, and the UK since 2015, including Minola Review, Jokes Review, and Dusie. She has been a contributing writer with Vancouver Weekly since 2016. She is a current MFA candidate at the University of British Columbia, Okanagan campus, under the supervision of Michael V Smith. Since earning her BA in Creative Writing in 2016 and her B Ed in Secondary Education in 2018, Ferguson has worked in various educational roles with School District 83 in the North Okanagan/Shuswap. Ben Gallagher Susan Haldane’s first full-length poetry collection, Hard Bargain Road, was published by Gaspereau Press in 2021. Her work has also been published in a number of Canadian journals, in the anthology Desperately Seeking Susans (Oolichan 2012) and in the chapbook Picking Stones (2018) also with Gaspereau. She lives with her husband on a farm near the northern border of Ontario’s Algonquin Park. Heather Hendry KP Heyming KPH is a bilingual Canadian writer with deep roots, a full heart, and a yearning to set her soul in ink and paper with the help of an old, dusty typewriter. In her poems she displays the most fragile emotions through the exploration of an ordinary life. Moments of love, loss, and selfdiscovery, captured at their rawest on the typewriter, resonate with readers from all ages and walks
of life as they speak of universal experiences and truths. Fiercely driven to ensnare all of life’s little moments, she works tirelessly for her passion so that she may someday lead others to find their own meaning in her words. Justyna Krol Nellie Le Beau Anna Lee-Popham Zachari Logan Marion Lougheed grew up in Canada, Benin, Belgium and Germany. Her poetry won the Prime 53 Poem Summer Challenge (Press 53, Prime Number Magazine, 2021) and was featured in the LCP’s Poem In Your Pocket Day series (2021). She holds a diploma in professional writing and a BA (Hons.) from Memorial University and a MA in anthropology from Simon Fraser University. When not working on her own writing, she works as a freelance editor and publishes other people’s poetry and prose at Off Topic Publishing. Jane Macdonald Fareh Malik is a BIPOC man from Hamilton, Ontario, as well as a seasoned spoken word artist and emerging written poet. He was the winner of Hamilton Art’s Shirley Elford Prize and MH Canada’s 2020 Poetry Contest. Fareh’s debut book, Streams That Lead Somewhere, is forthcoming in 2022. Fareh was recently named a finalist for the 2021 Best of the Net anthology, and was honoured with the 2021 Garden Project
grant. His individual works have been published by literary presses such as Brave New Voices, 86 Logic, Lucky Jefferson, Chitro, Twyckenham Notes, and many others. Select work of his has even been on exhibit in San Antonio’s McNay Art Museum. Fareh’s work has been described as critical, yet sanguine; poetry that often explores the intersection of racialization and mental illness, while maintaining a silver lining on its horizon. He loves to tell the story of his struggle, and of his community around him, in the hope that others can find inspiration and companionship in it. Fareh is currently a freelance poet and author represented by Devon Halliday and Transatlantic Literary Agency. Callista Markotich Jessica Lee McMillan is an emerging poet with a Masters in English and training in the visual arts. Her writing has appeared in magazines and journals in the US and Canada. When not writing, doing front-line legal work or teaching, she spends time with her little family and buries herself in books and records. Jessica’s work explores architectures of perception and she is currently working on a full-length poetry collection. A first generation Canadian, Jessica is a settler who lives in New Westminster, British Columbia on stolen and unsurrendered lands of the Coast Salish and Halkomelem-speaking Peoples, in particular the QayQayt and Kwikwetlem First Nations.
Lisa Nackan Janelle “ecoaborijanelle” Pewapsconias (she/her) is a nehīyaw Spoken Word Poet, Community Engaged Researcher, Social Innovator, and Public Speaker based in the Treaty Lands now known as Little Pine First Nation, Treaty 6 Territory on Saskatchewan. As a single mother, Janelle has studied and graduated from the University of Saskatchewan in Indigenous Peoples Lands Management and Renewable Resource Management, as well as, from the Saskatchewan Indian Institute of Technologies in Business Administration. During her postsecondary journey, she became integrated in environmental and social justice grassroots and youth movements in and around Saskatoon, which has informed her of how to step in community and practice care for all our
relationships. As emerging professional artist, ecoaborijanelle has competed in three national poetry slam competitions, has self-published her first chapbook, “kikawiynaw askiy: Mother Earth”, is completing her second chapbook, and had several of her poems in Canadian and American publications. Since taking part in the Saskatoon Poetic Arts Festival Ensemble in 2019, she has been launched into her career as an Indigenous Artist continuing the oral tradition in the arts. The many arts projects include 4 broadcasted and recorded spoken word classroom lesson plans with LIVE Arts Saskatchewan in 2019, a weeklong teen writing camp experience for Sage Hill in July, 2020 and a spoken word vignette in The Trespassers Waltz in the Fall of 2020. Including several other local arts performances, workshops, and creations, she had her first Spoken Word Residency
at the prestigious Banff Centre for Arts in Creativity in March, 2020. As a reserve-based artist, she practices, organizes, and builds her spoken word practice that continues the oral tradition and celebrates narratives of Indigenous survivance and strength*. She believes in ahkamemowin (“ahhgkaa-mey-moo-win” 5 syllables) – meaning: having resilience and never giving up. Impassioned and determined, Janelle “ecoabori janelle” Pewapsconias brings the message: “your words are alive, your words matter, let us tell our stories with care”. *ecoaborijanelle speaks from the experience of a Nehīyaw woman, but reminds everyone that her perspective does not represent all Indigenous people to Turtle Island. Matt Rader Lisa Reynolds Jessica Anne Robinson is a Toronto writer and, more tellingly, a Libra. Her poetry is featured or forthcoming with filling station, Minola Review, untethered, and Room magazine, among others. Her debut chapbook, OTHER MOTHERS’ FUNERALS, was published with Frog Hollow Press in late 2021. You can find her anywhere @hey_ jeska. Ellie Sawatzky Misha Solomon Sylvia Symons Gordon Taylor Fefe Toussaint was born Fedana
Toussaint, A Haitian poet with revolutions dancing off of her tongue. She is a published author who released her Debut poetry book Counting Bodies in 2019. She is a world renowned Spoken word artist. Fefe is the first and only International Poet inducted into the Lucrative Poetry collective known as the Deadly Pens Inc. She is the First and Only International Poet Inducted into the Honey Dripper Erotic Poetry Collective, Fefe has performed in Denver Colorado, Tampa Florida, Miami Florida, and more. She is passionate, unique, a student of her craft and a master at conveying emotions with just a pen and pad. Fefe hopes to release more books in the future, hold events for poets, hold space for women to practice self love with poetry and Hold space for the emotions that most people have a hard time conveying. Sheryda Warrener Richard Weiser Jaeyun Yoo The LCP would like to extend a big welcome back to our members who have returned to the League this quarter: Paola Canale, Garry Gottfriedson, Johnathan Hart, Richard Stevenson, Harry Thurston and Shoshanna Wingate.
Member News Alvy Carragher Recently, 8 of my poems were archived by the National Poetry Archive in Ireland. This is a permanent collection that includes handwritten copies, as well as a video reading of each piece. See the readings. Louise Carson has poems in: Strawberries Journal; Poetry Pause; The Best Canadian Poetry 2021; Haiku Canada Review; The Literary Review of Canada; Queen’s Quarterly; The Autumn Moon Haiku Journal; JONAH Magazine; and a book review in Montreal Serai. She has recently read via zoom at Le XXIV festival des écrivains a Val-David, and at the Lawnchair Soirée. George Elliott Clarke 3rd edition of “George Elliott Clarke Presents: 5 Poets Breaking Into Song,”” ran on December 10, 2021, in cooperation with the East and West Learning Connections of Toronto. By Zoom, hosts Giovanna Riccio and Jovial Si presented songs commissioned by GEC from poets Leonard Cohen, Amatoritsero Ede, Luciano Iacobelli, and Paul Zemokhol, as well as GEC, with composer James Rolfe singing each selection and pianist Juliet Palmer accompanying. Future presentations will feature songs commissioned for poets Boyd Warren Chubbs, Louise Bernice Halfe, Anna Yin, etc., as well as composi-
tions by DD Jackson for poems by GEC, Iacobelli, Riccio, Yin Xiaoyuan, Zemokhol, etc.vGEC has also published his 5th “colouring book” miscellany, White (Gaspereau Press), and an essay in poetry, J’Accuse...! (Poem Versus Silence) (Exile Editions). Both works appeard in late, late November, 2021. Amanda Earl THE BEFORE, an excerpt from Welcome to Upper Zygonia by Amanda Earl is now available from above/ground press. Gratitude to the City of Ottawa for funding WTUZ. new from above/ ground press: Report from the Earl Society. Vol. 1 No. 1, edited by rob mclennan. an assemblage of writing in response to the work of Amanda Earl including poems, critical writings and philosophical transactions with contributions by: Sacha Archer, Gary Barwin, Gregory Betts, Richard Capener, Johanna Drucker, Kyle Flemmer, rob mclennan, Christine McNair, Joakim Norling, Imogen Reid, Sandra Ridley, Petra Schulze-Wollgast, Kate Siklosi, Dani Spinosa, Eileen Tabios, Terri Witek. published in Ottawa by above/ground press, February 2022. Veronica Eley “The best poetry book of the year is from a 71-yearold debut writer on healing from trauma.” Morgan Mullin, arts critic for the Halifax news & entertain-
ment weekly, The Coast. See the article. The Miramichi Reader includes The Blue Dragonfly among its seven picks for “Best Poetry of 2021.” See the list. This is fair sailing for a debut poet of 71. Veronica Eley was accepted into the League of Canadian Poets on October 18, 2021. Joanne Epp won second prize in Naugatuck River Review’s annual Narrative Poetry Contest. Prize winners took part in an online reading Feb. 27, which was recorded and is available to view on YouTube. Francine Fallara’s book Inkling Whispers has received 4/4 stars and is eligible for the 2022 Book of the Year from the Online Book Club. Meg Freer recent work appears in Blue Mountain Review, Queen’s Quarterly, Consilience, Months to Years, Eastern Iowa Review, and an anthology titled Inspired Heart for Teens: Identity and Diversity. She is a volunteer reader for The Sunlight Press. Carole Giangrande’s delighted to announce that her first poetry chapbook, The Frailty of Living things (Aeolus House) has just been published. This is a limited-edition work; for more info and purchase, go to www.carolegiangrande.com. Penn Kemp Sunday, January 9, 2022, 2:00 PM. Penn Kemp is the first feature, in the new Open Mic Reading Series, Mykonos Restaurant, 572 Adelaide St. N., London ON. Reading from my play, THE TRI-
UMPH OF TERESA HARRIS, which is based on Teresa Harris, an explorer raised in London’s oldest home, Eldon House. And Penn will read from my new book, A NEAR MEMOIR.: NEW POEMS Contact: Joan Clayton, director Open Mic Reading Series, dr.jpclayton@rogers.com Penn Kemp’s collaboration of poems with Sharon Thesen is coming out in February from Gap Riot Press. New videopoem collaborations are up here! D.S. Martin Crossings: A Journey to Easter is an all-outdoor art exhibition featuring 16 art pieces and 16 poems depicting the scriptural stations of the cross. Set at sites throughout downtown and midtown Toronto, Crossings draws upon the centuries-old Christian spiritual practice of walking and praying the path that Jesus took on his way to the cross. In this exhibit, the Stations are captured through sacred art pieces and poetry expressing the dramatic moments of Jesus’ final hours. The exhibition’s 16 original poems were written by 16 Canadian poets, and curated by LCP member D.S. Martin. Through a QR code visitors will be able to read the poem associated with each station, or watch a video presentation read by the poet. (March 2 to April 14, 2022). This pilgrimage-style Journey to Easter will take visitors figuratively along the journey that Jesus took through unjust suffering leading to redemption. It will offer an opportunity to reflect on what the Jesus story offers as a way to respond to the contemporary social justice issues of today. For more information, visit the website.
Susan McCaslin A review of Susan McCaslin & J.S. Porter’s Superabundantly Alive: Thomas Merton’s Dance with the Feminine Wood Lake Publishing, 2018) by R. Zachary Karanovic for the American Academy of Religion, Jan. 26, 2022. Interview with Catherine Owen for her podcast series, Ms Lyric’s Poetry Outlaws, Episodes 23 & 24: Susan McCaslin: a conversation, Feb. 12, 2022, recorded in Fort Langley, BC: Susan McCaslin’s Heart Work, Barbara Nickel’s Essential Tremor, and Louise B. Halfe – Sky Dancer’s awâsis—kinky and dishevelled, reviewed by Al Rempel in Event: Celebrating 50 years, Douglas College, New Westminster, BC, Winter 2021/2022, 109-113. “Covid Art,” published on The League of Canadian Poets “Poetry Pause” site, Feb. 18, 2022. Susan McCaslin will be a featured
reader with Kyle Hawk at the Poetic Justice Reading Series, New Westminster, BC, Sun. March 13, 3-5pm, PST. Some thoughts on “How Poetry Matters: a Gathering of Poets in Perilous Times,” March 4, 2022. Reading with Penn Kemp and other poets for the Oh!Sound Reading Series and Open Mic!, “Poets in Response to Peril, April 2, 2022, host, Richard-Yves Sitoski. Natalie Meisner is in her second year serving as Calgary’s 5th Poet Laureate. She deploys the power of poetry in public art projects to fight social isolation in This Might Help. Her new project, in collaboration with SAGE theatre gathers stories from caregivers to highlight and celebrate their lives and work. carmelo militano I have a new poetry collection: Archeololgia Eros, a desire-themed collection of po-
etry and prose-poetry; illustrations by Quebec artist Francois Dubeau. Book can be ordered from McNally Robinson online or directly from me, adpoe@mymts.net and avoid the taxes and shipping costs. It is my third book of poetry and seventh in total. Check out my webpage for more info: carmelomilitano.com Marion Mutala Two new books Race to Finish my second poetry book and Baba Sophie’s Ukrainian Cookbook the 6th book in my Baba’s Babushka series and my 18th book. Please check out my website for more information or to order your copies. www.babasbabushka. ca Chad Norman My new collection, A Matter of Inclusion, is due out a bit later this year, from Mwanaka Media & Publishing (Zimbabwe). A
two-part radio show on my 2020 Guernica Editions book, Squall: Poems In The Voice Of Mary Shelley, was aired January and February. Also, 7 poems were translated into Portugese, and appeared in latest issue of Eufeme (Portugal). Gianna Patriarca launch of THIS WAY HOME, NEW AND COLLECTED POEMS, GUERNICA EDITIONS, April 12, 7pm, Columbus Centre 901 Lawrence Avenue (Dufferin). Richard-Yves Sitoski Poets in Response to Peril On Saturday, April 2 2022 at 2 p.m. Eastern Time, join Owen Sound Poet Laureate Richard-Yves Sitoski and former London, Ontario, Poet Laureate Penn Kemp as we bring together over 30 poets from all over Canada via Zoom in a special Oh!Sound National Poetry Month online celebration of poetry in re-
sponse to events in Ukraine. In his famous elegy for W. B. Yeats, W. H. Auden says, “poetry makes nothing happen.” Penn and fellow poet Susan McCaslin reflected on this in light of the current situation in Ukraine. McCaslin writes : “On Feb. 24, 2022, when the world woke to the shock of the catastrophic bombing of Ukraine, I asked myself and a few of my fellow poet friends how they would respond to Auden’s words, especially in these perilous times.” Many of Canada’s finest and most celebrated poets -- including Goran Simic, Robert Priest and Sheri-D Wilson -- answered the call, and we invite everyone to join us as we bring them together to read their reflections and their poems. Poets in Response to Peril via Zoom on Saturday, April 2 2022 2:00 pm Eastern (room opens at 1:30 pm) To register, please visit rsitoski.com > News & Events > Poets in Response to Peril Peter Taylor recorded two of his poems - “The Man Who Ate His Boots” and “Dresden, the Frauenkirche” - from his most recent chapbook, Hell-box, published in 2020 by Frog Hollow Press. The recording of 10 local writers for Culture Days 2021 was sponsored by the Writers Community of York Region. Eva Tihanyi’s ninth poetry collection, Circle Tour, will be published by Inanna Publications in fall 2022. Naomi Beth Wakan is pleased to let you know that her latest book, Now and Here has just been published by Shanti Arts. Now and Here
is a combined effort of Christine Cote’s photographs being matched by Wakan’s tanka. It is a joint East Coast (Cote’s photographs from Maine) and West Coast production (Wakan’s tanka from Gabriola Island, BC). More details. The book is available in Canada from mail@ pagesresort.com Erin Wilson So pleased to have my poem, “Emergence,” be a part of the latest edition of the Canadian journal, Columba. In March, Mason Street Review will publish my poem, “My Sister Wears Five Gold Barrettes and Smells of Mint and Cigarette Smoke.” Innisfree has just published my poem, “The Beginning of Winter.” And The Honest Ulsterman will have a beloved poem of mine up in March 2022, “Escaping into Glenn Gould.” (Thank you Glenn Gould for getting me, thus far, through the pandemic.) Liz Zetlin To view Grateful for Breath, new collaborative video/ poetry/song works by poet/filmmaker Liz Zetlin and singer/songwriter david sereda visit the Tom Thomson Art Gallery’s website. Grateful for Breath is a moving response to the themes of Facing It now at the Tom Thomson Art Gallery. Over the past year, as we rode the waves of the pandemic, Zetlin and sereda responded to the work in Facing It – the themes of social isolation, the power of kinship, and the ways in which art faces and embraces the unknown. Grateful for Breath features Zetlin and sereda performing together and alone as they explore the meaning of “together” and “alone.”
Writing Opportunities Please note: This is a curated list of opportunities. For a full list of all writing opportunities updated on a monthly basis, please subscribe to Between the Lines newsletter from the LCP.
Calls for Submissions
Submit YOUR Call to be included in Between The Lines and Stanza Newsletter. Let us know about a call for submission via this form From the LCP Chapbook Series: On the Storm/In The Struggle: Poets on Survival, edited by Adebe DeRango-Adem. Now open for submissions! Deadline is April 30, 2022. Find out more. Parliamentary Poet Laureate Poem of the Month Program In her role as Parliamentary Poet Laureate, Louise Bernice Halfe – Sky Dancer is highlighting the work of Indigenous Poets from Canada through the Poem of the Month Program. Each month, one poem from a published Indigenous poet will be posted to the Parliamentary Poet Laureate website. To apply, please send one original poem of any length and a short biography about yourself, along with your contact information to LOPPoet/PoetBDP@parl.gc.ca.
Subterranean Blue Poetry We look for Symbolist, Surrealist, Imagist, Beat progressions and the New Goth. If it bangs in the dance it’s in. Optional Pay-What-You-Can Reading Fee ($1 per Poem, up to 5 Poems). Everyone hears back from us. We pay $10 per Poem, $20 per Of Poetic Interest . . . article, and $20 per Masthead Art/Photo in the month of publication. Thank you to all Contributors, Readers, and Supporters of Subterranean Blue Poetry. Deadline: Open. Find out more Bywords.ca Current and former Ottawa residents, students and workers are invited to send their unpublished poetry to Bywords.ca for our monthly poetry magazine. We pay an honorarium. Published poems are considered for the John Newlove Poetry Award. No set deadline. Find out more. Antigonish Review Open to general submissions. The quality of the writing is the chief criterion. We also consider it our mandate to encourage Atlantic Canadians and Canadian writers - although excellent writing can come from anywhere. We also welcome new and young writers. No listed deadline. Find out more Collusion Books always welcomes submissions of chapbook manu-
scripts of collaborative poetry for print publication. Conceptual, formal, & speculative works are particularly welcome. Each manuscript (24 to 40 pages) must be a unified collaborative project. While individual poems or components of the project may be created solo, the manuscript as a whole should be conceived and composed by 2 or more actively & equally contributing authors. Publication is 75 perfect-bound print copies. Compensation is 20 copies (divided evenly among collaborators) and unlimited access to more copies at cost. No listed deadline. Find out more. The Fiddlehead open for general submissions of poetry. Deadline is March 31, 2022. Learn more. Counterflow is a new annual West Coast magazine for new, emerging and established poets. Submit up
to three poems. No submission fee. The theme of our first issue is “Beginnings”. Wordstorm’s new publication, Counterflow, is an annual anthology showcasing work by emerging, early career, and established writers, poets, and visual artists from across all of Vancouver Island and the surrounding Salish Sea Basin. Find out more. Wrongdoing Mag We are OPEN to submissions for our third issue, which is of the annual spring theme PETALS. Petals point to the sky— so, think mystical, think entrancing, & think seductive. Darkness is loved, but not a strict requirement. Please do not send us work about literal petals/flowers unless it is an excellent fit for the magazine. Our themes are intended as broad aesthetics. Deadline is March 31, 2022. Learn more.
Awards and Contests Jessamy Stursberg Poetry Prize The Jessamy Stursberg Poetry Prize for Canadian Youth was established to foster a lifelong relationship between Canadian youth and the literary arts, specifically poetry. The prize is supported through a generous donation from the Stursberg family and other donors in honour of Jessamy Stursberg. The prize accepts submissions from young poets all across Canada, with three prizes awarded in both the Junior (grades 7 to 9) and Senior (grades 10 to 12) categories: Winner: $400, Second Place: $350, Third Place: $300. Selected winning poems and runners-up will be published in a special edition of the League of Canadian Poets chapbook series! Learn more. Dr. William Henry Drummond Poetry Contest (Canada’s oldest
non-governmental poetry contest) Entry fee: $10 per poem. Cash Prizes: $1650: $300 first place, $200 second place, $100 third place, 8 honourable mentions of $75, 9 judge’s choices of $50. Complimentary anthology to all winners. Visit www.springpulsepoetryfestival.com for further info and rules. Deadline is April 29, 2022. Vallum Chapbook Award winner will receive $300 and publication as a part of the Vallum Chapbook Series. Selections from the chapbook will also appear in the print and digital magazine. Manuscripts must be between 12 and 30 pages, on any subject and in any style. We have published sonnets and experiments, fragments and images, but the best way to know what our editors are looking for is to read the work of past winners. Visit our online store
to purchase print and digital copies of winning chapbooks from previous years.Entry fee is $25 for Canadian entrants. Each entry fee includes a free one-year print subscription to Vallum! Deadline is April 30th, 2022. Learn more.
Job & Volunteer Opportunities Shab-e She’r, Toronto’s most diverse and brave poetry and open mic series, is looking for BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Colour) volunteers to join our team. Among the desired qualifications are: • Experience organizing and/or volunteering for literary events • Some poetry writing experience and/or publication • Familiarity with literary scene in Toronto and/or Canada • Familiarity with Shab-e She’r core values and format • Commitment to long-term consistent volunteering • Social AND Online skills • Professionalism Please send your cover letter and résumé to Bänoo Zan. In your application, please detail how many of the above-mentioned qualifications you meet. Please remember that you will be interviewed before being admitted to the group. And, depending on the case, you may need to present a VSS (Vulnerable Sector Screening) or police check. Don’t forget to spread the word. Thank you, Bänoo Zan, Founder of the Series
Residency, Fellowship, Mentorship & Grant Opportunities WOMEN OF WORDS Calling all members and associate members for an online women’s poetry workshop, “Change Artists”. Contact Sharon Goodier at vincent4don@gmail.com Supportive and nurturing feedback to get started in the new year. We will be on Zoom and the program is open to women from across the country. Amadeus Choir Choral Creation Program A residency for poets and composers to co-create original choral works led by composer Andrew Balfour and poet Luke Hathaway/Amanda Jernigan. We know that one of the greatest challenges facing emerging choral composers today is finding quality text and the permission to set it. Over the course of a full season, three composers and three poets will have the opportunity to collaborate on totally original choral work and forge lasting artistic partnerships with new colleagues while creating collaborative choral compositions. Participants will receive close mentorship from program faculty and the artistic team of the Amadeus Choir, guest presentations by high-profile artists, and access to the singers of the Amadeus Choir to workshop and record their work. There’s no fee. It’s a mentorship opportunity, but/and also, beyond that, a way into the world of choral music for a poet looking to make the leap. Open now to poets from coast to coast! Learn more.