Poem of the Year Contest
Arc ups the ante: more than three times the prize money!
In 2012, Arc will be awarding one $5,000 grand prize to the Poem of the Year!
Deadline: February 1, 2012
Contest Guidelines
Contest Entry:
Entry fee is $32 (Cdn), which includes a one-year Canadian subscription of Arc*
Contest entry fees may be paid online (Visa, Mastercard, Paypal, and e-cheques) or by cheque or money order mailed with contest submissions.
*or two issues to US entrants, or one issue to overseas entrants. Entrants who are currently subscribers may pass along their contest subscription or complimentary issues to a friend. Please include the name and address to which the contest subscription is destined.Rules:
- All contest submissions must be submitted by post mail.
- All cheques or money orders (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. Entrants outside Canada must submit entry fees in Canadian funds. Please include a cheque in Canadian funds, use the online payment option or mail a money order in Canadian funds.
- Entrants may submit up to two unpublished poems with each $32 fee (extra poems: $5 per poem).
- No email 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.
Deadline: Entries must be postmarked no later than February 1, 2012.
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, 2011 to read poems our Readers’ Choice selection cast your vote!
Publication: Winning poems will be published in Arc‘s Summer 2012 issue
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.
Send entries to:
Poem of the Year Contest Arc Poetry Magazine PO Box 81060 Ottawa, Ontario Canada, K1P 1B1
Read press releases and winning poems from past contests.
Past winners
| 2011 | ||
| 1st Prize | Anne Marie Todkill | Wash Day |
| 2nd Prize | Maurice Mierau | The impassioned ex-formalist Pulitzer Prize-winning womanizing alcoholic jumps off a bridge |
| 3rd Prize | Ian Williams | Please Print Clearly in Block Letters |
| Reader’s Choice | Barbara Pelman | Between the Heartbeats |
| 2010 | ||
| 1st Prize | Shane Neilson | New Year’s Day |
| 2nd Prize | Bren Simmers | Chickens |
| 3rd Prize | Lise Gaston | Fuse |
| Reader’s Choice | Susan Braley | Traces |
| 2009 | ||
| 1st Prize | Patricia Young | The Night of the Apocalypse Yahweh Tinkles the Ivories |
| 2nd Prize | Susan Buis | In alabastrine (Edith Lake) |
| 3rd Prize | E. Alex Pierce | Common Loon |
| Reader’s Choice | Jim Johnstone | Canadian Gothic |
| 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 | 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 | selection from 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 |
Derek 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 |