Editor’s Notes

Dear Readers,

This month's issue contains the poetry of four current and former residents, all of whom are emerging poets with publications upcoming from above/ground press or with poems published in journals such as the Antigonish Review and Yawp.

April is National Poetry Month and as you can see by the calendar, replete with events to help us celebrate. The Ottawa International Writers Festival features well known poet Nicole Brossard and innovative avant-gardist angela rawlings. The Ottawa Public Library in Old Ottawa South has numerous poetry readings this month and includes Bywords-published poets Barbara Myers and Stephen Brockwell.

The launch of the spring issue of volume four of the Bywords Quarterly Journal will be the final celebration of National Poetry Month, taking place on Sunday, April 30 at 2:00 pm at Chapters, 47 Rideau Street. Poets confirmed so far include Lynne Alsford, Ruth Bradley-St-Cyr, David Emery, Leannah Fidler, Jeff Fry, Gwendolyn Guth and Dean Steadman. Our musician this time will be John Kelly who is also a poet and recent student of Seymour Mayne's creative writing poetry workshop. He'll be performing solo at the reading, but he also belongs to the band Pagan Mary.

Let's take this time to celebrate poetry in Ottawa during National Poetry Month and remember that Bywords, along with many other literary publishers and organizations, showcases and celebrates Ottawa poetry year long. This month be kind to your local poets and take them out for a drink, a bite to eat and a drink, and a drink…

Thanks to this month’s selection committee:

Kelly Clarke, Jesse Ferguson, Kemisha Newman, Sarah Ruffolo, and Victoria Vernell.

If you have comments, dry wit or a good bottle of wine and conversation to share, please feel free to e-mail me at editor@bywords.ca. Happy spring!

Amanda Earl