and announces Poem of the Year, Readers’ Choice
and Diana Brebner Prize winners!—

Arc also congratulates contributors appearing in The Best Canadian Poetry in English 2009.

Read in full

posted by Arc on December 14, 2009 permalink
cats: News | Press Releases | Diana Brebner Prize | Poem of the Year Contest | Readers’ Choice Award | Arc 63 Winter 2010

Call for Proposals

Read in full

posted by Arc on December 13, 2009 permalink
cats: News | Press Releases
tags: poet in residence | poetry jobs

DON’T CHUCK THAT STANZA: Arc has just the call for you:

The deadline for Poem of the Year is changing to February 1, 2010 and the Diana Brebner Award deadline is changing to March 1, 2010. This change was made in response to feedback from our readers, and also to help us accommodate the transition from two to three issues per year (which means no gaps or overlaps in subscriptions for those who make consecutive contest entries).

POET AS ART THIEF

Call it ekphrasis. Call it Vermeering. Call it stealing.
It’s a time-honoured tradition: poetry that responds to a work of visual art. Arc Poetry Annual 2011 will explore this poetic habit in-depth, with content exploring the lure, the payoffs, the pitfalls and the impacts of this poetic method; and a selection of new poems on works held in the collection of the National Gallery of Canada. Send us your new ekphrastic poems on works at the Gallery. The gallery collection can be viewed on line at CyberMuse: http://cybermuse.gallery.ca/cybermuse/home_e.jsp (more details)

deadline: December 31, 2009

THE COGS & WHEELS OF HARDY VERSE

Calling all students!
Arc is searching for the brightest and most insightful poetic minds in the country. Send us your “How Poems Work” essays and win a subscription to Arc, publication, and mentorship with our Poet-in-Residence. (more details)

deadline: February 1, 2010

OPUS MAGNIFICUS

Enter Arc’s Poem of the Year Contest!
1st Prize: $1500, 2nd Prize: $1000, 3rd Prize: $750
All award winning poems will be published in Arc and posted on the Arc website, including Honorable Mentions and Editors’ Choice awards. (more details)

new deadline: February 1, 2010

DIVINE EMERGENCE

Diana Brebner Prize
Prize: $500
Arc invites emerging Ottawa writers to be recognized for their talent through a special award for poets who have not yet been published in book form. The prize is named in honour of the late Diana Brebner, an award-winning, Ottawa-based poet who was devoted to fostering literary talent among new local writers. (more details)

new deadline: March 1, 2010

posted by Arc on November 27, 2009 permalink
cats: News | Diana Brebner Prize | Poem of the Year Contest

Tired of waiting for Canada Post? Running out of room on your magazine shelf? Want to reduce on paper use? Save a bit of money?
Why not subscribe to the digital edition of Arc?
For just $20 per year (33% off our newsstand price) you could have every complete issue of Arc delivered to your inbox instead of your mail-box.

Sample the Zinio reading environment for the Arc Digital Edition.

For updates, go to the Arc Digital Edition page.

Subscribe to the Arc Digital Edition

posted by Arc on November 27, 2009 permalink
cats: News

You can make a difference. Lend your voice to the Coalition to Keep Federal Support of Literary, Scholarly and Arts Magazines and collect signatures for the following petition.

***

Petition to the House of Commons in Parliament Assembled

We, the undersigned residents of Canada, wish to bring to your attention the following:

From policies pre-dating Confederation, the Government of Canada has supported programs to help Canadians both receive and create periodical publications about arts, literary, and scholarly matters created by Canadians devoted to enriching and informing our cultural and intellectual life at home and around the world.

On February 17, 2009, the Department of Canadian Heritage announced that existing periodical policy will be merged into a new Canada Periodical Fund (CPF) in 2010/2011. We understand that eligibility for CPF program may be set in such a way as to cause the majority of our arts, literary, and scholarly journals to lose a significant portion of what is already very modest financial support essential to their viability.

Proposed eligibility criteria, while apparently designed to achieve efficiencies, will cause long-term damage to the capacity of these important and unique periodicals to remain a source for readers and a vehicle for Canada’s writers, artists, and researchers.

THEREFORE, we petitioners are calling upon the Government of Canada to ensure that the criteria of the new Canada Periodical Fund sustain current federal funding investments in Canada’s vital arts, literary, and scholarly magazines.

download petition in English
download petition in French

Please mail all completed sheets to:
The Malahat Review, University of Victoria, P.O. Box 1700, Stn CSC, Victoria, BC, V8W 2Y2.

The Malahat will forward the collated petition to Parliament.

Deadline: June 8, 2009

***

posted by Arc on April 15, 2009 permalink
cats: News | Press Releases

Hello friends of Arc!

The Department of Canadian Heritage in Ottawa has recently announced the merger of the Canada Magazine Fund and the Publications Assistance Program into a single entity.

As a byproduct of this reorganization, it is possible that eligibility criteria may change, which could mean Canadian arts and literary magazines will lose their very essential Canadian Heritage funding.

Several important literary magazines across the country are now joining forces to guarantee that any adopted criteria for funding will not automatically exclude them.

Please show your support by joining our Facebook group, Coalition to Keep Canadian Heritage Support for Arts and Literary Magazines:

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=53103444468&ref=mf

Anita Lahey
Editor
Arc Poetry Magazine

Contact your English- or French-speaking Member of Parliament and speak your mind!

Note name change of coalition to Coalition to Keep Federal Support of Literary, Scholarly and Arts Magazines.

posted by Arc on February 27, 2009 permalink | comments
cats: News | Press Releases
tags: literary magazines

The launch for Arc 61, the Anonymous Issue, will take place Sunday, February 22nd 2009 at 2pm at Collected Works book store, 1242 Wellington Street West (at Holland), in Ottawa, and will feature readings by this year’s Brebner prize winner and much more. Everyone welcome. We hope to see you there.

posted by Arc on January 30, 2009 permalink
cats: News | Press Releases

[Correction: the 30th Anniversary Celebration on October 23, 2008 starts at 8:30pm]

October is an exciting month at Arc, with four very different literary events planned that promise to be stimulating, thought-provoking and entertaining: the Lampman-Scott Award Reading, the Ottawa Book Awards where the winner of the Lampman-Scott Award for 2008 will be announced, Arc’s 30th Anniversary Celebration, and the Montreal Launch of Arc 60—the 30th anniversary issue! (phew)

The Lampman-Scott Award, administered by the Arc Poetry Society, honours the poetry and friendship of Archibald Lampman and Duncan Campbell Scott. Their literary friendship helped foster Ottawa’s now thriving and diverse literary community. Like its predecessor, the Archibald Lampman Award, the Lampman-Scott award recognizes an outstanding book of English-language poetry by an author living in the National Capital Region with a $1,500 prize for first place.

The Lampman-Scott Award Reading will feature readings from a wide selection of the contenders for the 2008 award at on Wednesday October 15, 2008 at 7pm at Collected Works Book Store (1242 Wellington Street West, Ottawa). Everyone is welcome to join us for good cheer and some fantastic poetry!

The full list of contenders for the 2008 Lampman-Scott Award are:

Michael Blouin for I’m not going to lie to you
Stephen Brockwell for The Real Made Up
Anne Le Dressay for Old Winter
Nicholas Lea for Everything is Movies
Luis Lama for Alien Land
Nadine McInnis for Two Hemispheres
rob mclennan for The Ottawa City Project
Colin Morton for The Cabbage of Paradise
Shane Rhodes for The Bindery
Ian Roy for Red Bird
Asoka Weerasinghe for Mayan Love Songs

The winner of the Lampman-Scott Award will be announced three short days later at the Ottawa Book Awards. The Ottawa Book Awards celebrate literary achievement in Ottawa. Founded in 1986, this annual award shines the spotlight on outstanding books written by Ottawa’s finest authors in categories of English fiction, English non-fiction, French fiction, and French non-fiction. Arc is very pleased to join in this celebration by adding the Lampman-Scott Award to the evening’s program. Everyone is welcome to join us in celebrating the finalists and winners on Saturday, October 18, 2008, 8pm at Library and Archives Canada (395 Wellington Street, Exhibition Hall A). The MC will be Alan Neal, Host of CBC Radio’s Bandwidth and Canada Live, and Anne Michaud, cultural reporter for La Première Cha&icrc;ne, of Radio-Canada Ottawa-Gatineau 90,7 FM.

Arc would like to invite you to its grand 30th Anniversary Celebration. Thirty years of Arc Poetry Magazine will be celebrated at the launch of the Thirtieth Anniversary Issue at the Ottawa International Writers Festival on Thursday, October 23, 2008 at 8:30pm at Library and Archives Canada (395 Wellington Street, Ottawa). Canada’s top poets will commemorate three decades of Arc’s existence at a celebration that will include readings by some of Arc’s most notable contributors over the past thirty years: Roo Borson, Mary Dalton, Sonnet L’Abbe and Steven Heighton. For tickets and more information, please visit www.arcpoetry.ca.

The Montreal launch of Arc 60—which is Arc’s 30th anniversary issue —will take place Sunday October 26, at 7:30pm at Ye Olde Orchard Pub (20 Prince Arthur West, Montreal). This is a co-launch with Montreal publisher Biblioasis for Arc 60 and the already acclaimed anthology Jailbreaks: 99 Canadian Sonnets, edited by Zach Wells. The event will feature a musical set by the Montreal duo Orillia Opry, and readings by Montreal poets and Arc 60 contributors Stephanie Bolster, Asa Boxer, Susan Gillis, Robyn Sarah and Carmine Starnino—in addition to readings by select Jailbreaks contributors.

For more information on any of these events, coming attractions, or our next issue Arc 61 please see: www.arcpoetry.ca or email: arc@arcpoetry.ca.

posted by Arc on October 09, 2008 permalink
cats: News | Press Releases | Archibald Lampman Award | Arc 60 Summer 2008
tags: poetry events

Arc is introducing a totally new facet to its perennial Poem of the Year contest: the Readers’ Choice Award. This gives Arc readers and website visitors the opportunity to read through Poem of the Year shortlisted poems, and vote for your favourite. The author of the winning poem will be awarded a sum of $250.

The Readers’ Choice Award does not affect the process of selecting 1st, 2nd and 3rd place winners, which will be announced at the beginning of October along with all Honourable Mentions and Editors’ picks.

Note that this is a blind competition and that poets will remain anonymous to all judges until the contest results are decided.

Anyone can vote:

• view online or download the Poems for Readers’ Choice pdf, read through and choose your top three picks
• email your top three list with titles and page numbers to vote@arcpoetry.ca.
• only one vote will be accepted from each email address.
• DEADLINE FOR VOTES: September 30, 2008.
• Readers’ Choice Award winner will be announced with all other Poem of the Year Awards at the beginning of October 2008.

See Readers’ Choice Award page.

posted by Arc on August 30, 2008 permalink
cats: News | Press Releases | Poem of the Year Contest | Readers’ Choice Award
tags: Canadian poetry | international poetry | people's poetry | poetry contests | readers' choice

Contestants—

• You live in Ottawa or nearby within the National Capital Region.

• You’re busting poetry at the seams, maybe running out of hard drive or drawer room. But no book yet.

• Go for exposure. Get that lead out. Put the Capital Hill copywriters to shame. Enter the 7th Annual Diana Brebner Prize contest by October 1st.

• Recognition, plus a $500 bonus, to claim.

Backgrounder—

Born in 1978, Arc Poetry Magazine at 30 is still hip, mingling work of emerging poets and seasoned poets among its pages in a bid for the best contemporary poetry. Diana Brebner is a fondly remembered mentor of many Ottawa-area poets.

For full details, see the Diana Brebner Prize page.

posted by Arc on August 30, 2008 permalink
cats: News | Press Releases | Diana Brebner Prize
tags: Ottawa poetry | emerging poets | poetry contest | poetry prize