Editor’s Notes

Happy New Year, Dear Readers.

The year has started off sadly for many, especially those in South East Asia. If any of you lost family or friends due to the disaster or for any other reason in 2004, our hearts go out to you.

Our poems this month transport us from the desert to the moon, and fittingly muse about life and death.

Our quarterly reading, Bywords Warms The Night 2, will take place on January 16, 2005 at 2pm at Chapters on 47 Rideau Street. Readers will include Rachel Abraham, Lynne Alsford, Jill Dolphin, Mike Heenan, Warren Layberry, Patricia Kathleen McCarthy, Laura McNairn, Chris Pitre, Sandra Ridley and Gary Robinson, with music by Jesse Ferguson.

Bywords requests donations of mitts, hats, scarves and anything to warm the nights of homeless women in Ottawa. A volunteer from the Cornerstone Women’s Shelter will be on hand to accept donations.

After the reading, be sure to join us over at the Dusty Owl, 5:00 pm. Swizzles Bar and Grill 246-A Queen St. The Owl is having an open hoot fundraiser to help raise money for Somalis affected by the tsunami. We will stop over and contribute and then celebrate the two-year anniversary of the new Bywords! I can’t think of a more fitting venue to rejoice and reminisce than the friendly Dusty Owl Reading Series. Not only does Dusty Owl welcome readers with beer and karaoke, but it also extends its generosity to the community through charitable fundraising.

January’s selection committee reviewed over 200 poems. Thanks go to

Joe Goski, Stéphanie Lafleur, Nicholas Lea, Megan McGrath, Sarah Ruffolo, Betty Warrington-Kearsley, Genevieve Wesley, and Christine Zadorozny.

I also warmly welcome new volunteer, Jesse Ferguson, another of the current students in Seymour Mayne’s poetry creative writing class. We are so fortunate to have such a wonderful group of caring and enthusiastic team members!

If you have comments, questions or kudos, please e-mail me at editor@bywords.ca. You can pick up a copy of the winter Bywords Quarterly Journal at the reading and at bookstores in Ottawa or order it from the Bywords Store.

Amanda Earl