“Poetry,” said English poet Thomas Gray, “is thoughts that breathe, and words that burn.”
It’s time again to take up your pen, or juice up your laptop, and discover what’s inside you that longs to breathe and burn. The Aspiring Canadian Poets Contest, a unique initiative to encourage and identify this country’s promising new poets, returns for its second year today, April 1, during National Poetry Month.
Poet Shannon Bramer will judge this year’s contest and also mentor the prize-winners. I’m honoured to have been asked back as editorial/media adviser.
Launched last April by Heidi Stock, with the support of Catherine Graham (inaugural judge) and Vancouver Poet Laureate Evelyn Lau (honorary patron), the Aspiring Canadian Poets Contest invites submissions of original poetry from unpublished writers between April 1 and June 1. The 2013 winners will be announced in October.
Shannon Bramer
First-, second-, and third-prize winners will be awarded private online mentoring sessions with Shannon Bramer, author of three books of poetry, playwright, and writing instructor. (She blogs at Poet in the Playground.)
Contest founder Heidi Stock reconnected to poetry when she was approaching a milestone birthday, and decided she would like “to help fellow aspiring poets in a small but meaningful way through this contest that both recognizes and develops talent.”
Says Heidi: “I believe the Aspiring Canadian Poets Contest is unique in the combination of its focus on submissions from unpublished writers (age 19 and older), its national scope, and its mentoring prize, so I’m thrilled for its success in 2012 and its return in 2013.”
Catherine Graham was impressed by the quality and quantity of last year’s submissions, which came from across Canada. The author of four books of poetry, and an instructor at the University of Toronto’s School of Continuing Studies, Catherine is currently mentoring last year’s winners.
Queen’s University student Ana Rodriguez Machado took first prize in 2012. You can read my interview with her here.
Ana Rodriguez Machado
Ana was inspired by poet and Queen’s University creative writing instructor Carolyn Smart, who Ana said encouraged her students to submit their writing to contests and publications. Carolyn Smart is also the founder of the RBC Bronwen Wallace Award for Emerging Writers, run by The Writers’ Trust of Canada.
Look for details about the Aspiring Canadian Poets Contest, along with submission guidelines, at www.aspiringpoetscontest.org.
And if you’d like a glimpse of what inspires this year’s judge to write poetry that breathes and burns, read my 2012 interview with Shannon Bramer.