Editor’s Notes

Greetings Dear Readers,

It is always an honour and a thrill when poets entrust us with their work, and when they do so over a period of several years, it is especially gratifying to me as an editor and also as a poet.

Manahil Bandukwala is a former Ottawa resident who we have published seven times on Bywords.ca, starting in 2017. We also published what I believe was her first review in 2018. Since I first heard her read at an In/Words reading at the Clocktower Pub several years ago, I have noticed that Manahil has taken an active part in Ottawa's community and the Canadian literary community at large. She has shared her art as well as her writing, and has been involved in fascinating and important projects that engage with Pakistan the country of her birth and her home for many years. She has co-written a compelling series called Border poem, an exchange of letters with Sanna Wani on the tensions between Pakistan and Kashmir. Manahil is doing important work, engaging with community, and creating effective and resonant poetry. I'm so pleased that Bywords.ca is part of this development and we have had the honour of sharing her work with readers over the years.

Her poem in this issue, "Describe a morning you woke without fear," is a haunting prose poem inspired by Bhanu Kapil's "The Vertical Interrogation of Strangers."

Joining Manahil are Masanda, Richard-Yves Sitoski, Amelinda Bérubé and Susan Johnston, all four of whom we are publishing on Bywords.ca for the first time. Some are established writers while others are fairly new to sending their work out for publication. I am grateful to all poets who entrust us with the publication of their work, whether they have never submitted poetry before or have multiple poems and books published.

One of the ways in which we celebrate the poetry of our contributors is through the John Newlove Poetry Award. This year's celebration took place over Zoom. It was an unusual way to host an event for me, but it was a lovely commemoration of the work of John Newlove and a great celebration of our contributors' poetry. Thank you to Sean Wilson and the Ottawa International Writers Festival, who have been constant in their support and care, welcoming us now for seventeen years since the award began in 2004, and this year for putting on a great festival during a terrible pandemic and managing to do the hard work of programing and giving audiences the chance to enjoy the festival again this fall.

Thank you to Alexine Marier and her colleagues at the Ottawa Public Library who patiently dealt with the complex technical issues of seven event participants. Thanks to Kimberly Sunstrum, our amazing musician for the event and to our poets: David Groulx, last year's award recipient, the honourable mentions: Ken Marchant, Judy Marks and Sonia Saikely, and this year's winner, Megan Misztal. Thank you to our judge, BC poet, Dina Del Bucchia, who had some tough choices to make. We are also grateful to the City of Ottawa for supporting Bywords.ca again in 2020, which helps us to fund this award.

Finally thank you to all who attended the event. I am especially grateful to the Writers Festival and the Library for recording our event and ensuring that those who weren't able to attend are able to watch it, and also for providing close captioning services. You can watch the 2020 John Newlove Poetry Award and find out more about this year and past awards via Bywords.ca by clicking on Newlove.

Thanks to our selection committee this month:

Jesse Aubin
Ellen Chang-Richardson
Robert Martin Evans
Margo Lapierre
Kemisha Newman
Jade Riordan
Helen Robertson
Marjorie Silverman
JC Sulzenko

If you have suggestions, comments, questions, creative breakfasts to offer, please e-mail me at amanda@bywords.ca.

Amanda Earl
Managing Editor

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