Griffin Poetry Prize

An Evening with Warsan Shire
2022-03-14 14:00 - 17:00 (America/Toronto) | Contact, Oxford Rd, Manchester, M15 6JA, United Kingdom
Manchester Literature Festival is thrilled to present an evening with Somali-British poet and writer Warsan Shire.

Born in Nairobi and raised in London, Warsan was awarded the Brunel International African Poetry Prize and served as the first Young Poet Laureate of London. She has written two chapbooks, Teaching My Mother How To Give Birth and Her Blue Body, and wrote the poetry for the award-winning visual album Lemonade and the Disney film Black is King in collaboration with Beyoncé Knowles-Carter.
One of the most exciting poets of her generation, Warsan builds on the power of individual poems like ‘Home’ and ‘For Women Who Are Difficult to Love’ with her first full-length collection, Bless the Daughter Raised by A Voice in Her Head. Beautifully crafted and profoundly moving, it’s a collection that explores home and exile, migration and assimilation, faith and family alongside love, desire, trauma and womanhood. Join us to see Warsan discuss her work and perform some of her fierce and tender poems.
Hosted by Malika Booker. The founder of Malika’s Poetry Kitchen, Malika is a British poet and theatre-maker of Guyanese and Grenadian parentage. Her poetry collection Pepper Seed was shortlisted for the OCM Botas Prize and her poem The Little Miracles won the 2020 Forward Prize for Best Single Poem
Presented in partnership with Centre for New Writing, Creative Manchester and Waterstones Deansgate.
Copies of Bless the Daughter Raised by a Voice in Her Head will be available to collect before the event.

Canadian Literature Centre Poetry Contest - 2022
2022-03-14 08:00 - 17:00
The Canadian Literature Centre, MacEwan University, and Athabasca University are once again teaming up to bring you the 2022 CLC Poetry Contest! We’re looking for the best poem in English or in French from a University of Alberta, MacEwan University, or Athabasca University student on the theme of “Listening.”
Entrants should submit their poem in .doc, .docx, or .pdf format, without any identifying information in the document, to clccomm@ualberta.ca by March 14, 2022. Please include name, email address, phone number, mailing address, departmental and university affiliation in the body of the email, and use the subject line: “Last Name: CLC Poetry Contest.”

Writes of Spring Deadline for Submissions (Manitoba)
2022-03-14
For the 7th year in a row, the Winnipeg Free Press will be publishing poetry by Manitoba writers for National Poetry Month in partnership with the Winnipeg International Writers Festival. As always, we’ll be taking a page from the League of Canadian Poets, which means that this year’s theme will be?Intimacy.?
However you interpret the theme, editors Ariel Gordon and Duncan Mercredi are looking forward to reading your poems!
Eligible writers: Manitoba poets, working in English and French. Writes of Spring is committed to a diversity of voices: emerging, PoC, urban, spoken word, Indigenous, established, rural, Black, 2SLGBTQ+, newcomer, and page poets.

Submit a maximum of 5 poems, English or French, on the subject of intimacy. Each poem should be no more than 25 lines.

Submit a short bio (max 30 words).
Questions? Email WritesofSpring@thinairwinnipeg.ca.
Enter your submission materials at THIS LINK.

The DEADLINE for submissions is Monday, March 14, 2022.
Twelve poems will be selected, and each poet will receive a $75 honorarium as well as publication in the Winnipeg Free Press on Saturday, April 23.
Co-editors Ariel Gordon and Duncan Mercredi are looking forward to reviewing all submissions, and will provide thoughtful editorial engagement with all poets accepted into this year’s group.

“The future lives in our bodies”: Poetry & Disability Justice
2022-03-13 18:00 - 20:00
“The future lives in our bodies”: Poetry & Disability Justice, a virtual reading and discussion, will feature Meg Day, Cyrée Jarelle Johnson, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, and Travis Chi Wing Lau, who will also host and moderate.
Lambda Literary and Woodland Pattern Book Center are partnering to host this pre-recorded poetry reading and conversation as part of the Poetry Coalition’s shared programming around a theme of social importance. The readings will be followed by a discussion among presenting artists on the topic of Poetry & Disability Justice. The broadcast will feature ASL interpretation and captioning, as well as a PDF pamphlet of each reader’s poems for attendees to view. A commemorative chapbook with poems from each participant will be designed and printed by pitymilk press, and made available free by mail to all who tune in live on March 13th.
The title “The future lives in our bodies” is taken from the poem “Femme Futures” by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha

In/Verse Monthly Poetry Reading (BC Federation of Writers)
2022-03-12 17:00 - 19:00
Join us for In/Verse on Saturday, March 12 at 1:55 pm PT by registering here (bcwriters.ca/events-for-writers) and a Zoom link for the event will be sent to you. When it’s time for the event you can click on the Zoom link to join the event.
Speakers:
Chantal Gibson is an award-winning artist-educator living on the ancestral lands of the Coast Salish Peoples. Working in the overlap between literary and visual art, her work confronts colonialism head on, imagining the BIPOC voices silenced in the spaces and omissions left by cultural and institutional erasure. Her visual art has been exhibited across Canada and the US. Her debut poetry collection, How She Read (Caitlin Press, 2019) explores the representation of Black women in Canadian history, art, literature. It won the 2020 Pat Lowther Memorial Award and the 2020 Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize and was shortlisted for the 2020 Griffin Poetry Prize. Her follow-up collection, with/holding (Caitlin Press, 2021) brings a critical lens to the representation and reproduction of Blackness across digital media. Recipient of the 20213M National Teaching Fellowship, she teaches in the School of Interactive Arts & Technology at Simon Fraser University.
Barbara Pelman is a retired high school English teacher, and poet. She is a frequent participant and assistant at Planet Earth Poetry. She has three published books of poetry: One Stone (Ekstasis Editions 2005), Borrowed Rooms (Ronsdale Press 2008) and Narrow Bridge (Ronsdale Press 2017) and a chapbook Aubade Amalfi (Rubicon Press 2016). In 2018 her glosa, “Nevertheless” won the Malahat Open Season Poetry Contest. Previously, in 2004 and in 2014, she won the BC Federation of Writers’ poetry contest. Her poems can be found in literary journals and the anthologies “Refugium” and “Sweet Water” (Caitlin Press), and “In Fine Form” (Caitlin Press).
Marc Perez is the author of the poetry chapbook, Borderlands (Anstruther Press, 2020). His fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry have appeared in decomp journal, CV2, PRISM international, Vallum, TAYO, and Ricepaper. He has a BFA from the UBC School of Creative Writing, and he has received support from BC Arts Council. Originally from the Philippines, he lives in unceded Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh territories, where he currently works on a full-length poetry collection. He writes in English as a Second Language.
Host:
Susan Alexander is the author of two collections of poems, The Dance Floor Tilts and Nothing You Can Carry and a former journalist. Her work has won multiple awards, including the Mitchell Prize for Faith and Poetry in 2019. Susan’s poems appear in anthologies and literary magazines in Canada, the U.K. and the U.S., have ridden Vancouver buses as part of Poetry in Transit and even shown up in the woods around Whistler. She lives on Nexwlélexm/Bowen Island, the traditional territory of the Squamish people.

Translation Talks: Ani Gjika and Dunya Mikhail
2022-03-10 19:00 - 20:30
In January 2022, the Griffin Poetry Prize launched Translation Talks, a series of conversations about translation and poetry where past shortlisted and winning authors are invited to discuss their craft.
Join us on Thursday, March 10th at 7pm ET on Zoom for our second Translation Talks, featuring Ani Gjika and Dunya Mikhail.
Ani Gjika is an Albanian-born poet, literary translator, and author of Bread on Running Waters (Fenway Press, 2013). Her translation of Luljeta Lleshanaku’s Negative Space (Bloodaxe Books/New Directions, 2018) was shortlisted for the 2019 International Griffin Poetry Prize. She’s a recipient of several awards and fellowships including from the National Endowment for the Arts, English PEN, the Robert Pinsky Global Fellowship and, most recently, Restless Books’ 2021 Prize for New Immigrant Writing for her forthcoming memoir.

Dunya Mikhail is an Iraqi American poet and writer. She has received a United States Artists Fellowship, Guggenheim Fellowship, Kresge Fellowship, Arab American Book Award, and UN Human Rights Award for Freedom of Writing. She is the first contemporary Iraqi woman poet translated into English. Her book The War Works Hard (New Directions, 2005), translated by Elizabeth Winslow, was shortlisted for the 2006 International Griffin Poetry Prize. New Directions published three of her other poetry books and her non-fiction book, The Beekeeper, which was a finalist for the National Book Award and for PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award. Her debut novel, The Bird Tattoo, shortlisted for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction, is coming out on December 6, 2022 from Pegasus. She currently works as a special lecturer of Arabic at Oakland University in Michigan. Visit Dunya Mikhail’s website here and read her recent piece on self-translation.

Translation Talks will run for approximately one hour on Zoom and will be hosted by Griffin Poetry Prize editorial director Adriana Oni??, and social media director Mirene Arsanios. You will receive the Zoom link via Eventbrite after registering.

Our first event, held on January 27, 2022, featured Khaled Mattawa and Sarah Riggs, which you can listen to here.

If you have any questions, please contact Adriana Oni?? at editorialdirector@griffinpoetryprize.com.

Poetry for Ukraine: An International Poetry Fundraiser
2022-03-09 14:00 - 17:00
All money from the event is going to The Ukranian Red Cross & The Refugee Council
Featuring readings from
Charlotte Shevchenko Knight
Oleh Shynkarenko
Tetyana Denford
Joy David
Valya Dudycz Lupescu
Stephen Komarnyckyj
Julia Kolchinsky Dasbach
Nicola Yurcaba

Banff Centre - Literary Journalism Deadline
2022-03-09 08:00 - 17:00
This two-week residency encourages the exploration of new ideas in journalism and experimentation in writing. Designed to challenge and stimulate, the program aims to inspire creative pieces of nonfiction and to assist the writers in their completion. A preeminent space for long-form journalism, this residency emphasizes the strengths of thorough and articulate reporting, distinctive storytelling, and literary devices. Work created in this program has been published in many outlets including The Globe and Mail, The Walrus, and The Atlantic, and pieces have gone on to win National Magazine and National Newspaper Awards.
What does the program offer?
This 13-day residency provides mentorship from faculty members and one-on-one workshopping. Instructors will discuss ideas, experiences, and obstacles that participants may be encountering with their literary journalism. Writers will have time to work on their manuscripts, receive individual consultations with faculty, and participate in group discussions.
Successful applicants will receive 100% scholarship to cover tuition, on-site accommodation, and on-site meals.

Billy-Ray Belcourt delivers the 2022 Shirley Greenberg Annual Lecture in Women's Studies
2022-03-07 18:30 - 20:00
Acclaimed writer and academic Billy-Ray Belcourt will deliver the annual Shirley Greenberg Lecture hosted by the Institute of Feminist and Gender Studies at the University of Ottawa. Dr. Belcourt’s talk is titled: What is an Anti-Colonial Notion of Literature?
Register here.
Billy-Ray Belcourt is from the Driftpile Cree Nation in northwest Alberta. He lives in Vancouver, where he is an Assistant Professor of Indigenous Creative Writing in the School of Creative Writing at the University of British Columbia. His books are This Wound is a World, winner of the 2018 Griffin Poetry Prize, NDN Coping Mechanisms, longlisted for Canada Reads, and A History of My Brief Body, winner of the 2021 Hubert Evans Prize for Non-Fiction and finalist for the 2021 Governor General’s Literary Award for Non-Fiction. His novel, A Minor Chorus, will be published in September 2022.
Dr. Tricia McGuire Adams (from Bingwi Neyaashi Anishinaabek), Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Ganandawisiwin/Good Health Sovereignties at the University of Ottawa, will introduce Dr. Belcourt.
The event will feature ASL (American Sign Language) and live, translated captioning from English to French.

She, The Rock (Poetry + Panel Discussion)
2022-03-07 17:30 - 19:00
She, the Rock is a braided poetic event followed by a panel discussion, showcasing the voices of Rayanne Haines, Dwennimmen, Emily Riddle and Dawn Carter, four of Edmonton’s celebrated poets and storytellers. Happening March 7 at the ATB Financial Arts Barns in Edmonton, Alberta.
Hosted by acclaimed author, Jacqueline Baker, She, the Rock is the highly anticipated follow up to She, the River, a 2020 film featuring eight powerhouse Edmonton poets of varying ages and cultural backgrounds. She, the Rock, explores the poets’ upbringing, truths, and family journeys. Together, they share with us the embodiment of their personal stories as they intertwine in this city. By interweaving their journeys together in story on the stage, they invite you to embrace and celebrate the collection of their diverse histories and present realities.

C.U.E.: Readings from Asian, Black, and Indigenous Writers
2022-03-06 15:00 - 17:00 | CoLab Community {Arts} Laboratory, 9641 102A Ave NW, Edmonton, AB, T5H 0G3, Canada
Let us enrich and encourage each other with an afternoon of poetry reading from Asian, Black, and Indigenous communities in Edmonton. The writers are: Shima Robinson, Sandra Ngo, Naomi McIlwraith, Mubarik Adams, Mila Philipzig, Kehrl Reyes, Lisa Dublin, Daniel Poitras, Carley Lizotte, and Candice Joy Oliva. Music from Marianela Adasme. The venue follows vaccination protocols for indoor events.
Happening at the CoLab Community {Arts} Laboratory in Edmonton

Writers for Ukraine (Lyric Theatre)
2022-03-06 14:30 - 17:00
Standing in solidarity with our peers in Ukraine, local Northern Irish writers are coming together to read excerpts from contemporary Ukrainian works.

Organised and hosted by Jan Carson, the night will include:
Glenn Patterson reads Oksana Zabuzhko (novelist and short story writer)
Dara McAnulty reads Myroslav Laiuk (poet)
Anna Burns reads Olena Stiazhkina (novelist)
Leontia Flynn reads Oksana Lutsushna (poet)
Jan Carson reads Haska Shyyan (novelist)
Stephen Sexton reads Ilya Kaminsky (poet)
Kabosh direct a short extract by Natalya Vorozhbit (playwright and filmmaker)
All proceeds from the evening will go to the Red Cross Ukraine appeal. The venue, staff, performers, promotional materials, photography and streaming facility have all been donated through people’s time and generosity.
When purchasing a ticket donations begin at £12. You can buy a donation ticket at £12, £25 or £50 and also top up the donation in the basket.
If you can’t attend the show in person, click here to purchase a ticket to the livestream.

Words out Loud
2022-03-04 19:30 - 21:00
Mark Fishbein and Nancy Pagh read from their poetry. Includes a literary trivia quiz and a brief open mic.

About this event

Mark Fishbein and Nancy Pagh read from their poetry. Includes a literary trivia quiz and a brief open mic.
A native New Yorker, Mark Fishbein graduated CCNY in 1971, followed by a maîtrise from the Sorbonne in Paris. He has published in several magazines and has six collections of poetry available, including Reflections in the Time of Trumpius Maximus, a four-year poetic journal (Atmosphere Press, 2021). He is Chancellor of the Poetry Academy of the Global Poetry Network, a virtual international poetry hub for news and events. Currently living in Michigan, he was a resident of Washington, DC for 12 years, where he hosted two writers’ workshops, Poets on the Fringe and DC Poets which now continue weekly on Zoom. He is also a classical guitarist.
Nancy Pagh burst onto the literary scene as a teenager, publishing Is a Clam Clammy, Or Is It Just Wet? in a local boating magazine. Tim Seibles selected her first volume No Sweeter Fat for the Autumn House Poetry Prize. She has authored three collections of poems and the creative writing textbook, Write Moves from Broadview Press. She has been the D. H. Lawrence Fellow at the Taos Summer Writers Conference and received an Artist Trust Fellowship. She teaches creative writing at Western Washington University in Bellingham.

The Voiceful Eight - An Evening of Literature and Music
2022-03-04 19:00 - 20:30 | Romanian Cultural Institute, 200 E 38th St, New York City, NY, 10016
As the pandemic seems to be on the wane, we escape our digital exile to return to in-person events with a celebration of Romanian-American women authors who have been the focus of one of our most successful online programs, set up in partnership with Bucharest Inside the Beltway. Come and meet some of the female writers who have appeared in the “Romanian Women Voices in North America” series for an evening of readings, conversations, music and pure joy after months of isolation and boredom. Featuring Raluca Albu, Cristina A. Bejan, Clara Burghelea, Adina Dabija, Mihaela Moscaliuc, Claudia Serea, and Adela Sinclair. With a live performance by fusion pianist Mischa Blanos.

Voices of Ukraine: Readings in support of Ukraine
2022-03-04 14:00 - 16:00 | Zoom
As Ukraine faces a fight the likes of which it hasn’t seen since WWII, writers across the US joined by their Ukrainian colleagues will read in solidarity with all Ukrainian people. Paul Auster, Siri Hustvedt, Jennifer Haigh, Richard Ford, Ha Jin, Carolyn Forche and others will be accompanied by Ukrainian authors including Serhiy Zhadan, Victoria Amelina, Halyna Kruk, and Ostap Slyvynsky. Julia Fiedorczuk will join from Poland. The reading is organized in cooperation with Askold Melnyczuk, Jennifer Haigh, and Oksana Lutsyshyna. The event will last for 2 hours and will be conducted via zoom. Please register by following the link below.

Canisia Lubrin: Discussing her forthcoming book, Code Noir
2022-03-02 14:00 - 15:30
Please contact Paul Barrett for Zoom link at barrettp@uoguelph.ca

Horizons Writers Circle Public Reading
2022-03-01 20:00 - 22:00 | Online
You are invited to the Horizons Writers Circle public reading, presenting writers Gian Marco Visconti, Meghan Eacker, Diana Gaviria, Poushali Mitra, and Candice Joy Oliva.
We want to thank Horizons Writers Circle Mentors Uche Umezurike, Rayanne Haynes, Jumoke Verissimo, Jana Pruden, and Adriana Onita for sharing their talent with our cohort.
Special thanks go to Ellen Kartz, and the Edmonton Arts Council for their support, as well as our private donors.

Voices for Ukraine
2022-03-01 12:30 - 15:30
Amid the current catastrophe in Ukraine, a brutal invasion of a sovereign nation, it is more urgent than ever to listen to the voices of its people. While media provides overwhelming coverage, literature, poetry, and art are just as important for processing, coping, and surviving trauma.
Julia Kolchinsky Dasbach and I bring Ukrainian poets and their translators alongside US poet-allies in Voices for Ukraine–a transatlantic reading spanning from Kyiv, Odesa, and Lviv, to LA, Atlanta, Philly, and Little Rock, as well as recordings Ukrainian poets have sent in the event they are unable to join us live due to internet outages and air raids. Poetry will be read in English translation as well as Ukrainian & Russian language originals.
***Please note that registration is required. You can register here: https://upenn.zoom.us/…/tJwkdemvqT4oG9ehw8PpmPKcN…
Watch recording of the event here:

2022 SWHNM Mentorship Program: Call for Applications
2022-02-28 08:00 - 17:00
She Who Has No Master(s) is initiating a creative writing mentorship program led by and designed for Vietnamese and SE Asian diasporic women and nonbinary writers. The centering of this perspective is important because in most educational settings the focus on subject matter and perspectives of women/nonbinary SE Asian diasporic women is marginal, if not totally unaddressed. In creating educational spaces that center those viewpoints, we create a nourishing space in which aspiring writers can see themselves, explore, and embrace their own particularities, and create more expansively. These mentorships will address both creative and professional aspects involved in the writing life. These offerings fulfill a dire contemporary need in our nation’s current environment for creative writing education.
Mentorship courses will be formatted in a “low-residency” style, of monthly mentorship “packet” exchanges (via email and online i.e. video chat correspondences) between mentors and mentees/writing students, from May to August 2022. For our inaugural year, in order to work within limitations and uncertainties presented by public health concerns, this will be a remote-only mentorship course. Applicants may be located anywhere in the world (but must be willing to schedule with a mentor based in US and Canada time zones).
Mentorship is designed so that each student receives intensive one-on-one guidance from their mentor. Mentees and mentors will also convene online in several group sessions, where mentees will get to interact, share creative work, and discuss aspects of craft with their peers and the other mentors. Mentees should be passionate and committed to exploring creative writing, ready to generate new creative work, engage in revision processes, and capable of working both independently as well as from writing prompts given by mentors. Mentors will work with mentees to tailor creative writing guidance that meets the mentees’ specific interests and needs.
The mentors for our inaugural 2022 mentorship program will be: Diana Khoi Nguyen, Hoa Nguyen, Lily Hoang, and Vi Khi Nao.
If you are selected for a mentorship, you will receive 4 months of tuition-free mentorship, an extremely unique opportunity for mentees to work closely with distinguished, award-winning women writers of the Vietnamese diaspora. Our first cohort will engage 4 students and 4 mentors.

February Poetry Prompt Prize Deadline (Poetry in Voice)
2022-02-28
Another month, another chance for students in Canada to win $100 in Poetry in Voice’s monthly Poetry Prompt Prize! The prompt for the month of February is “Respond to art”, by Karen Solie.

Real Vancouver 12th Anniversary Literary Showcase
2022-02-27 19:00 - 21:00 | Crowdcast
Live on Crowdcast
Readings by
Shashi Bhat
Jason Purcell
Zoe Whittall
Troy Sebastian | Nupqu ?a·k? am?
ryan fitzpatrick
Naben Ruthnum
Hosted by
Dina Del Bucchia
Sean Cranbury
Sponsored by
BC Arts Council
Canada Council for the Arts
Poster Design
Jérôme Berthier

Reflections on Etel Adnan
2022-02-27 14:00 - 17:00
Once I was asked in front of a television camera: “Who is the most important person you ever met?” and I remember answering: “A mountain.” I thus discovered that Tamalpais was at the very center of my being. — Etel Adnan

Join us for a conversation on the person, writer, artist, publisher, correspondent, and friend—Etel Adnan.
Etel’s presence in Bay Area poetry communities, international networks, and throughout the visual art world, is a force as gentle and moving as Mount Tamalpais. Denise Newman describes this mountain as being so central to her work—a body of work that is vast, always expanding outward—while holding onto this central focus, always returning to the mountain.
Deena, Brandon, and Denise will discuss Etel’s life, work, and continuing influence. There will be time for open discussion among participants.
Sunday, February 27
11am pacific / 2pm eastern

The New Embassy: Hope and the Human Spirit (Curated by Canisia Lubrin)
2022-02-25 19:00 - 20:30 | Online
Inspired by Toronto’s renowned, historic Bohemian Embassy, meet a new generation of artists inspiring Canada’s ever-evolving literary scene at The New Embassy: a digital mini-series of spoken word, poetry, prose, theatrical readings, music and dance.
Curated by author Canisia Lubrin, The New Embassy’s opening event features a lively and provocative programme of music, theatre and poetry. Experience the rhythms of Joy Lapps, leader of the Afro and Latin-Caribbean Jazz ensemble The Joy Lapps Project; a gripping monologue about the Springhill mining disaster of 1958, by Beau Dixon, presented as a selection from his one-man show Beneath Springhill: The Maurice Ruddick Story; as well as appearances from Cree poet, musician and artist Erica Violet Lee; and Griffin Poetry Prize-shortlisted poet Aisha Sasha John. This event is presented as part of Kuumba, which is supported by TD Ready Commitment and the Government of Canada.
This event will take place virtually. Please return to this page on February 25 at 7pm ET to watch the event.
Curated by Canisia Lubrin Produced by Toronto International Festival of Authors Co-Presented with Kuumba Supported by TD Ready Commitment and the Government of Canada.
The New Embassy event series is funded in part by the Canada Council for the Arts through the Digital NOW program.

Tartan Turban Secret Readings #33
2022-02-25 19:00 - 20:30 | Online
You are invited to the 33rd session of The Tartan Turban Secret Readings curated by Dr Amatoritsero Ede, featuring George Elliott Clarke, Lillian Allen, Clifton Joseph, Bertrand Bickersteth and H Nigel Thomas.
Curator
Dr. Amatoritsero Ede is an internationally award-winning poet born in Nigeria. He has three poetry collections, A Writer’s Pains & Caribbean Blues (1998), Globetrotter & Hitler’s Children (2009) and recently, Teardrops on the Weser (2021). His debut won the prestigious All Africa Okigbo Prize for Literature in 1998, the second was nominated for the Nigerian Literature Prize in 2013. In 2004, he won second prize in the first May Ayim Award: International Black German Literary Prize. He appears in 14 poetry anthologies locally and internationally. Ede is also a literary scholar and Assistant Professor of English at Mount Allison University, New Brunswick. He is the Publisher and Managing Editor of the Maple Tree Literary Supplement, MTLS .
Featured writers
George Elliott Clarke is the 4th Poet Laureate of Toronto (2012-15) and the 7th Parliamentary/Canadian Poet Laureate (2016-17). He was born in Windsor, Nova Scotia, in 1960. A professor of English at the University of Toronto, Clarke has also taught at Duke, McGill, UBC, and Harvard. His recognitions include the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Centre Fellowship (US), the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Fellows Prize, the Governor-General’s Award for Poetry, the National Magazine Gold Award for Poetry, the Premiul Poesis (Romania), the Eric Hoffer Book Award for Poetry (US), and International Fellow Poet of the Year, Encyclopedic Poetry School [2019] (China). His acclaimed titles include Whylah Falls (1990, translated into Chinese), Beatrice Chancy (1999, translated into Italian), Execution Poems (2001), Blues and Bliss (selected poems, 2009), I & I (2008), Illicit Sonnets (U.K., 2013), Traverse (2015), and Canticles II (MMXX) (2020).
Lillian Allen is a professor of creative writing at Ontario College of Art and Design University (OCAD). Two time JUNO Award winner and trailblazer in the field of spoken word and dub poetry, Allen artistically explores the aesthetics of old and new sounds in music to create her distinctive leading edge brand of Canadian reggae with new world sounds in her poetry recordings, with her powerful reggae dub poetry/spoken word recordings including her latest single Woken & Unbroken (2018), album ANXIETY (2012), her groundbreaking first solo Juno award-winning album Revolutionary Tea Party, a Ms. Magazine Landmark Album, followed by another Juno winner, Conditions Critical. Her third album, Freedom & Dance and her recording for children and young people, Nothing But a Hero, were released to critical acclaim.
Dubzz/poet/at/large Clifton Joseph is a poet and journalist living in Toronto. A founding member of the dub poetry movement in Canada, he has performed widely across this country, the US, UK, Europe and the Caribbean; & released Metropolitan Blues, a book of poems, and the CD Oral Trans/Missions. He has written for the Toronto Star, the Globe and Mail, This, Toronto life and Canadian Geographic magazines; and at CIUT, CKLN and CBC radio; movie reviewer for CTV’s Canada AM; at Imprint, TVOntario’s literary talk show; national reporter for CBC TV’s The National and investigative reporter for Undercurrents and Marketplace. Among his awards are two Gemini Awards; a Silver Fleece Award from the Chicago film festival; a Time-Warner Freddies Award for International health reporting; and the Peter Tosh Memorial Award from the Canadian Reggae Music Awards. his latest recordings are the single Where’re the politicians and not poem.
Bertrand Bickersteth is a poet, playwright, essayist and educator who was born in Sierra Leone and raised in Alberta. His collection of poetry, The Response of Weeds, was a finalist for multiple awards and won both the League of Canadian Poets’ Gerald Lampert Memorial Award and the Writers’ Guild of Alberta’s Stephan G. Stephansson Award for Poetry. His writing has appeared in many places including Geist, The Malahat Review, The Walrus, The Sprawl, and the CBC project Black on the Prairies. He lives in Calgary, teaches at Olds College, and writes about Black identity on the Prairies.
H. Nigel Thomas is a retired professor of United States literature and the author of thirteen books: six novels, three collections of short fiction, two collections of poems—Moving through Darkness (2000) and The Voyage (2021)— and two academic books. His novels Spirits in the Dark (1993) and Easily Fooled (2015) were shortlisted for the Hugh MacLennan Fiction Award. The French translation of Lives: Whole and Otherwise—Des vies cassées—was a finalist for the Carbet des lycéens award. He is the founder and English-language coordinator of Lectures Logos Readings and the editor of Kola. In 2000, he received the Montreal Association of Business Persons and Professionals’ Jackie Robinson Award for Professional of the Year; in 2013, Université Laval’s Hommage aux créateurs; in 2019, the Montreal Black Theatre Workshop’s Martin Luther King Junior Achievement Award; and, in 2021, the Quebec Writers’ Federation Judy Mappin Community Award.

Poems about Place: Writing Workshop with Vancouver's Poet Laureate
2022-02-22 22:00 - 23:00 | Online
The process of writing about place is an important way for us to explore in ourselves and to communicate with others our connections to a place. How can we begin to write evocative and meaningful poems about the historically, culturally or ecologically significant places in our city, those places that may represent generations of family and community stories? Or places that we have more modest connections to but nonetheless have come to mean something important to us.
Join Vancouver’s poet laureate, Fiona Tinwei Lam, during Heritage Week Heritage: Altogether Inclusive in its theme and explore an underemphasized way of making and sustaining connections to places. Fiona will lead this 1.5-2 hour online Zoom workshop commencing with a short period of grounding, stretching and meditation, a discussion of a few examples of site-based poems, and then lead into writing exercises and short rounds of timed writing and sharing with other participants. The writing generated during the session will provide participants with the raw material on which to build possible poems, essays, stories or more.
Please bring an object or photo (or map) relating to a place you wish to write about.
We thank UBC St. John’s College for their support in helping us deliver online programming.
Zoom link will be sent to you at a date closer to the event after registration.

Shab-e She’r (Poetry Night) LXXXIV: Toronto’s most diverse & brave poetry reading + open mic series
2022-02-22 19:00 - 22:00
Featured poets: Leslie Roach & Sam Cheuk
Host: Bänoo Zan
Leslie Roach is a Montreal-born poet, writer and lawyer. She is currently based in Ottawa, where she works for the Supreme Court of Canada. She previously worked for the United Nations, and has lived in Italy, Mali, Tanzania, Kenya and Senegal. Finish this Sentence, her debut collection of poetry, is about healing from the effects of racism, finding one’s voice and power, and claiming one’s human right to be happy. She has been featured on major media platforms, including CBC and CBC Books, and has partnered with national brands like DeSerres. She is an advocate for finding one’s power through practicing mindfulness.
Sam Cheuk is a Hong Kong-born Canadian author of Love Figures, Deus et Machina, and Postscripts from a City Burning. He is currently working on Marginalia, which examines the function, execution, and generative potential behind censorship. Cheuk lives in Vancouver.
About Shab-e She’r:

Shab-e She’r (Poetry Night) is Toronto’s most diverse and brave monthly poetry reading and open mic series. It was founded by Bänoo Zan in November 2012, two years after she immigrated to Canada. Since then, we have been bridging the gap among diverse Toronto poetry communities and have so far featured more than a hundred poets and musicians. And close to 2000 people have shared their poetry, music, songs and stories on our open mic. We have featured poets from different ethnicities, nationalities, ages, genders, sexual orientations, religions (or lack thereof), and poetic voices, styles and visions. Shab-e She’r core values are diversity and freedom of expression.
Attendance & Open Mic:

Dear poet, writer, lover of words,
If you join us to listen and enjoy, you are most welcome. You are the reason we create and run events. We are deeply grateful for your support.
During the event, the participants will be muted. You are encouraged to turn your camera off except during your performance. This is to allocate as much of the bandwidth as possible to performers.
The private chat function will be disabled to keep the online event safe. Participants can use the public chat function. They can also message the hosts and moderators.
Please do not record anyone without their permission.
Open Mic:
There is no pressure to perform or to join the open mic. Though it is a good idea to consider sharing a poem esp. if you are a woman, a refugee or an immigrant, a member of a visible minority, IBPOC, LGBTQ+, disabled, or if you have a unique perspective that is good to share with others. Shab-e She’r values are diversity and freedom of expression. We value peace, broad-mindedness, truth, and inclusion. We aim to build a community, not an exclusive club.
Open mic slots are 3 minutes or one poem (whichever is shorter), depending on the number of people who sign up. Open mic time includes all the introductory explanations, background information, and anything else you say.
If you wish to join the open mic, select your poem, rehearse and time yourself beforehand. On the day, join the online event no later than 6:45 PM. Turn your camera and audio on and message Bänoo Zan.
Then, turn your camera and mic off and wait to be put on deck or invited to share. The order of performances will not be the same as the order of sign-ups.

Kathleen Jamie: Poetry at the Heart of our Culture
2022-02-19 14:00 - 15:00
Kathleen Jamie, poet and essayist, was born in Renfrewshire in 1962. Her work concerns nature, travel and culture. Her poetry collections to date include The Overhaul, which won the 2012 Costa Poetry Prize, and The Tree House, which won the Forward Prize. Her non-fiction includes the highly regarded books Findings and Sightlines, both regarded as important contributions to the ‘new nature writing’. Her most recent poetry collection, The Bonniest Companie appeared in 2015, and won the Saltire Scottish Book of the Year Award.
She is presently serving as the Scottish Makar, or National Poet.
Winter Words welcomes you to a week-long celebration of all things literary. Our interactive festival brings together well-known and much-loved authors, playwrights, poets, adventurers, broadcasters and TV personalities to participate in interviews, Q&A’s and discussions – all Zoomed straight into your home from our virtual auditorium stage!

CLC Brown Bag Lunch with Bertrand Bickersteth & Karina Vernon
2022-02-18 16:00 - 17:00 | Online
We are excited to announce that on Friday, February 18, the CLC will host poet, playwright, and essayist Bertrand Bickersteth in conversation with literary scholar Karina Vernon. Vernon’s The Black Prairie Archives: An Anthology features poetry by Bickersteth, for whom Alberta is at once a “central source of inspiration” and an “unwilling muse.” Introduced by Uchechukwu Peter Umezurike, they will join us from 2 to 3 p.m. MST via Zoom.

Karina Vernon is Associate Professor of English at the University of Toronto Scarborough where she researches and teaches in the areas of Canadian and Black Canadian literature, Black aesthetics, archives, critical pedagogy, and Black-Indigenous solidarities. She is editor of The Black Prairie Archives: An Anthology, published by Wilfrid Laurier University Press in 2020 and a companion volume, Critical Readings in the Black Prairie Archives, which is forthcoming. With Winfried Siemerling (UWaterloo) she is working on a book project on the politics and aesthetics of relation of Black Canadian cultural achievement, including writing, music, film, and visual art.

Bertrand Bickersteth is a poet, playwright, essayist and educator who was born in Sierra Leone, raised in Alberta, partly educated in the U.K., and completely resident in the U.S. for several years. In 2021, CBC named him a Black writer to watch. His collection of poetry, The Response of Weeds, was a finalist for multiple awards and won the League of Canadian Poets’ Gerald Lampert Memorial Award, the Writers’ Guild of Alberta’s Stephan G. Stephansson Award for Poetry, and the 2021 High Plains Book Award in the category of First Book. He has been a contributor/columnist for CBC’s The Next Chapter as well as the CBC project Black on the Prairies. His most recent work was published in The Walrus (poetry) and The Sprawl (essay). His TEDx talk is called The Weight of Words. He is currently working on a new collection of poems highlighting the history of Black cowboys in western Canada. He lives in Calgary, teaches at Olds College, and writes about Black identity on the Prairies.

bpNichol Chapbook Award - 2022 Call for Submissions opens
2022-02-17 08:00 - 17:00
The bpNichol Chapbook Award recognizes excellence in Canadian poetry in English published in chapbook form within Canada. The prize is awarded to a poetry chapbook judged to be the best submitted. The author receives $4,000 and the publisher receives $500. Awarded continuously since 1986, the bpNichol Chapbook Award is currently administered by the Meet the Presses collective.
Chapbooks should be not less than 10 pages and not more than 48 pages. The chapbooks must have been published between January 1st and December 31st of the previous year (2021), and the poet(s) must be Canadian.
Interested authors or publishers should submit three copies of eligible chapbooks. Translations into English from other languages are eligible, as long as the translator is Canadian or a permanent resident of Canada. Chapbooks by two or more poets who are Canadian or permanent residents of Canada are also eligible.
Please include the Submission Form with your entry.
Submissions must be sent by Canada Post or courier (and not hand-delivered to a Meet The Presses collective member) and include a completed submission form or accurate facsimile, a brief CV of the author, including address, telephone number, and email address. Publisher contact information (contact person, mailing address, email address, and telephone number) must also be included. Incomplete submissions will not be considered.
The opening date for receipt of submissions is February 17, 2022, and they will be accepted until May 31, 2022. If submission confirmation has not been received by email by June 30, 2022, please send a query to Gary Barwin at himself@garybarwin.com.
Please send submissions to:
Meet the Presses / bpNichol Chapbook Award
c/o 180 Dufferin St. Hamilton ON L8S 3N7
The cash prize to the author has been generously donated by an anonymous donor. The prize to the publisher has been generously donated by writers Karl Jirgens and Michael Dean. All chapbooks submitted are archived at the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library at the University of Toronto.
Chapbooks written by members of the Meet the Presses collective are ineligible for the award. Authors of chapbooks published by members of the collective remain eligible for the award, but member-publishers forgo the prize money.

AfriCanLit: Contours & Conflicts
2022-02-15 19:00 - 21:00
The February Giller Master panel will celebrate Black History Month and will focus on writer’s craft, the relationship between art, community and politics, and some of the interesting debates/discussions happening within contemporary Black life.
Populating the panel are authors Donna Bailey Nurse, Francesca Ekwuyasi, Antonio Michael Downing and H. Nigel Thomas.
Scott Fraser, publisher and president of Dundurn Press, will moderate the panel.
