Poem of the Year Contest
Contest Guidelines
Arc: Canada's National Poetry Magazine invites entries to its International Poem of the Year Contest.
1st Prize: $1500
2nd Prize: $1000
3rd Prize: $750
Contest Entry: Entry fee is $32, in Canadian funds, which entitles you to a one-year subscription of Arc mailed to a Canadian address, beginning with the Summer 2010 issue. (If you already have a subscription, you can give your new one-year subscription to a friend. Please include their mailing address.) Alternately, you can choose to have one issue sent to a U.S. or overseas address.
You can pay your contest entry fee through the online poetry stand where we accept Visa, Mastercard, paypal, and e-cheques. Alternately, you can send a cheque or money order with your mailed contest submission.
Contest Rules:- All contest submissions must be submitted by post mail.
- All cheques or money orders should be in Canadian funds and made out to the Arc Poetry Society.
- Arc welcomes Poem of the Year entries from Canada, the United States, and around the world, but if you live outside Canada we still need to receive your entry fee in Canadian funds. It is easiest if you use the Poetry Stand to submit your contest entry payment. Otherwise, you should be able to obtain a money order in Canadian funds from your post office, if you are not able to write a cheque in Canadian funds.
- Entrants may submit up to two unpublished poems with your $32 fee. To include extra poems, add $5 per poem.
- No e-mail submissions accepted.
- Length of each poem must not exceed 100 lines.
- Entrant's name, address, e-mail and phone number must not appear on the poems, but instead on a separate sheet that also lists the titles of the poems entered. Judging is blind.
- No entrants (including winners, honourable mentions, or authors of Editor's Choice poems) may substitute, before, during, or after judging, a revision of any poem already submitted to the contest.
- No poems will be returned.
Next Deadline: Entries must be postmarked no later than February 1, 2010. All winners will be notified by April 15, 2010, and results will be published in the Summer 2010 issue of Arc.
Privacy Notice: Unless you indicate otherwise, Arc may share addresses of entrants to the 2010 Poem of the Year Contest with similar literary magazines or related organizations for promotional purposes. If you would like your address information kept private, write “Please don't share my address” near your address information on the sheet you include with your submission. Your request will be honoured.
Shortlist: 50 shortlisted poems, pending permission of their authors, will be eligible for the Readers' Choice Award. Visit this site between March 15 and April 15, 2010 to read poems contending for Readers' Choice and cast your vote!
Publication: Winning poems will be published in Arc's Summer 2010 issue (published June 2010).
Send entries to:
Poem of the Year Contest
Arc Poetry Magazine
P.O. Box 81060
Ottawa, Ontario
Canada, K1P 1B1
Previous Winners
| 2008 | ||
| 1st Prize: | Patricia Young | “The Hickock Girls in the Front Pew Address the Platypus” |
| 2nd Prize: | Karen Solie | “Prayers for the Sick” |
| 3rd Prize: | Moez Surani | “Chopping Wood on Ivan’s Farm” |
| Honourable Mention: | Aurian Haller | for an excerpt from “Speechless” |
| Reader's Choice: | Susan Stenson | “To See You Like This” |
| 2007 | ||
| 1st Prize: | Susan Elmslie | “Box” |
| 2nd Prize: | Degan Davis | “Winter” |
| 3rd Prize: | Aurian Haller | a selection from his long poem “Seamless” |
| Final Judge: | John Steffler | |
| 2006 | ||
| 1st Prize: | Bren Simmers | “Out Walking” |
| 2nd Prize: | Michael Reynolds | “Castor Gulo (poem of a beaver becoming a wolverine)” |
| 3rd Prize: | Heidi Garnett | “Water Rituals” |
| Final Judge: | Don Domanski | |
| 2005 | ||
| 1st Prize: | Sandra Kasturi | “Old Men, Smoking” |
| 2nd Prize: | Irene Livingston | “Open My Drawers” |
| 3rd Prize: | Karen Hofmann | “Cock Pheasant” |
| Final Judge: | Mildred Tremblay | |
| 2004 | ||
| 1st Prize: | Susan Stenson | “The Crazy Maps” |
| 2nd Prize: | matt robinson | “how we keep it together” |
| 3rd Prize: | Linda Rogers | “The Walled Garden” |
| Final Judge: | Lorna Crozier | |
| 2003 | ||
| 1st Prize: | Harold Rhenisch | “Tao Hill” |
| 2nd Prize: | Jannie Edwards |
“Blood Opera: The Raven Tango Poems” |
| 3rd Prize: | Deanna Young | “Swimming Lessons” |
| Final Judge: | Derk Wynand | |
| 2002 | ||
| 1st Prize: | Maureen Scott Harris | “Be the River” |
| 2nd Prize: | Alison Pick | “Infant Abandoned In High Park” |
| 3rd Prize: | Deanna Young | “Recent Sightings” |
| Final Judge: | Mary Dalton | |
| 2001 | ||
| 1st Prize: | Joelene Heathcote | “How the Dying Move to Water” |
| 2nd Prize: | Maureen Scott Harris | “The Drowned Boy” |
| 3rd Prize: | Pamela Swanigan | “How to Win at Rummy” |
| Final Judge: | Steven Heighton | |
| 2000 | ||
| 1st Prize: | Sue McLeod | “God of Pockets” |
| 2nd Prize: | Sue Wheeler | “Darkening” |
| 3rd Prize: | Michael V. Smith | “Particulars” |
| Final Judge: | Elizabeth Philips | |
| 1999 | ||
| 1st Prize: | Richard Lemm | “Rationed” |
| 2nd Prize: | Elizabeth Philips | “Reply to the Minister of Lilies” |
| 3rd Prize: | Jim Roberts | “Myth, Ritual and the Yorkdale Cloverleaf” |
| Final Judge: | Brian Bartlett | |
| 1998 | ||
| 1st Prize: | Wayne Tompkins | “Hidden Register” |
| 2nd Prize: | Anne Simpson | “Meanwhile, in Ithaca” |
| 3rd Prize: | Donna Langevin | “My Son, Improvising on the Violin to Fauré” |
| Final Judge: | Patricia Young | |
| 1997 | ||
| 1st Prize: | Marlene Cookshaw | “Open and Close” |
| 2nd Prize: | Barbara Schott | “Blue Snow” |
| 3rd Prize: | Linda Rogers | “Adagio in G Minor” |
| Final Judge: | Barry Dempster | |
| 1996 | ||
| 1st Prize: | Mildred Tremblay | “Astonishing Creations” |
| 2nd Prize: | Sue Wheeler | “Negative Space, 1980” |
| 3rd Prize: | Sophia Kaszuba | “Good Food” |
| Final Judge: | Robyn Sarah |
