Press Release: September 17, 2007
2007 Poem of the Year winners announced
After months of deliberation Arc Poetry Magazine is pleased to announce the results of its 12th annual Poem of the Year Contest. A short list of 50 poems was ‘blindly’ selected (without knowledge of the author’s identity), by an editorial panel from submissions totalling 912 poems by 376 poets. Award winning poems were then selected from that short list by our contest judge. Arc was honoured to have renowned poet, author, and Canada’s Parliamentary Poet Laureate John Steffler as judge for this year’s competition.
The first prize of $1,500 was awarded to Susan Elmslie for her poem entitled “Box”. Susan Elmslie is the recent winner of the A.M Klein Poetry Prize, and was short-listed for the McAuslan First Book Prize, the Pat Lowther Award, and a ReLit Award. Her poems have appeared in several Canadian journals and three anthologies. Her first full-length poetry book, I, Nadja, and Other Poems, was published by Brick Books in 2006. John Steffler writes that this poem, which makes “use of a theatrical motif, including dialogue” is “risky and complex, both in its insights and in composition”.
The $1,000 award for second place went to “Winter” by Degan Davis. “Winter” John Steffler says “is resonant with emotion and taut—balancing imagery with concise exposition”.
The third place award of $750 goes to Aurian Haller for a selection from his long poem “Seamless”. The poems, photographs and translations of Mr. Haller are widely published in Canada, the US and Australia. He is a co-winner of the Malahat Review Long Poem Contest in 2007, and his collection of poetry entitled A Dream of Sulphur was published by the McGill-Queen’s University Press in 2000. This is a “fine, unusual poem”, says Steffler, “ranging into unexpected territory”. Steffler further explains that the poem achieves “great strength and richness…through striking imagery, careful selection of details and a deft use of fragments and juxtapositions”.
Of the poems of note, Mr. Steffler also included three honourable mentions: “To float, to drown, to close up, to open—a throat” by E. Alex Pierce, “Fieldmice” by Jamella Hagen, and “Sunday Morning” by Lorri Neilsen Glenn.
Editors’ Choice Awards, which are chosen by the Poem of the Year editorial panel following the judge’s results, were awarded to six additional poets this year as follows (in no particular order): Lisa Martin-Demoor for “Map for the Road Home”, Peter Norman for “Up Near Wawa”, Amy Evans for “I Sharpen the Knives”, Jeffrey Hsu for “Family Tree Haiku”, Marlene Cookshaw for “Heaven (Oregon, 1993)”, and Rhonda Douglas for “Dinner with the Pratts”.
The Arc Poetry Society would like to take this opportunity to congratulate all the winners, and to thank all the poets who submitted work to this competition. The Arc Poetry Society has published Arc Poetry Magazine since 1978, and in those thirty years has made a significant contribution to the literary culture of Canada in partnership with poets such as these. The poems of this year’s Poem of the Year winners, honourable mentions, and editors’ choices will be printed in Arc’s Winter issue (#59) in December of 2007.
The winners and the 50 short-listed finalists were announced on September 17, 2007.
