John Newlove Poetry Award
2024 - Mahaila Smith

2024 - Mahaila Smith

Ugly, Red: A Cento

 

Mahaila Smith (any pronouns) is a young femme writer, living and working on the traditional territory of the Algonquin Anishinabeg in Ottawa, Ontario. They are one of the co-editors for The Sprawl Mag. They like learning theory and writing speculative poetry. Their recent chapbooks include Water-Kin (Metatron Press 2024) and Enter the Hyperreal (above/ground press 2024). Their novelette in verse, Seed Beetle, is forthcoming with Stelliform Press. You can find more of their poems on their website: mahailasmith.ca.


This year's judge was Jim Johnstone.

"In this year's John Newlove Award winning poem word building becomes world building, a powerful meditation deftly stitched together with a seamless, serotonin-inducing hand."

The annual John Newlove Poetry award, launched in the fall of 2004, commemorates the honest, poignant and well-written poetry of John Newlove, an Ottawa resident for almost twenty years and poet who died in 2003.

The poem receiving honourable mention in 2024 is

Run - Dale Tracy

Each year the winner will receive a certificate and the opportunity to publish a chapbook through Bywords.
Poems published on Bywords.ca from September 2024 to August 2025 will be eligible for consideration for next year's Newlove award. The judge for the 2024 award will be Concetta Principe.