John Newlove Poetry Award
2009 2008 2007 2006 2005 2004
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Marcus McCann - Noise (from “Busy”)
Marcus McCann has been involved with many Ottawa-based projects. He has published poems in Ottawa-based journals including Bywords, Yawp, The Moose & Pussy, Peter F Yacht Club and Ottawater; performed at the city’s reading series, including the Dusty Owl, Tree, Factory, Bywords and the Writers Festival; won the University of Ottawa’s 48 hour novella writing contest; built collaborative chapbook projects with Ottawa poets; worked with Chaudiere Books to put out his first trade collection, Soft Where; hosted CKCU’s Literary Landscapes; organized the Transgress Festival and the Naughty Thoughts Book Club. After eight years in Ottawa, he is moving to Toronto November 1st. |
This year's judge was Stephanie Bolster.
"The winning poem does what it means; it puts its money where its mouth is. From the startling metaphoric seize of the opening, the lines propel themselves full throttle, through sonic reverberations and imaginative mimesis. Like that loud kid at the pool, here's a poem that shouts and leaps boldly and compellingly, demanding - and deserving - our full attention."
The annual John Newlove Poetry award, launched in the fall of 2004, commemorates the honest, poignant and well-written poetry of John Newlove, an Ottawa resident for almost twenty years and poet who died in 2003.
The 3 poems receiving honourable mention in 2009 are
Each year the winner will receive a certificate, A Long Continual Argument: The Selected Poems of John Newlove, Edited by Robert McTavish (Chaudiere Books, 2007) and the opportunity to publish a chapbook through Bywords.
Poems published on bywords.ca from September 2009 to August 2010 will be eligible for consideration for next year's Newlove award. The judge for the 2010 award will be Jason Camlot.