Editor’s Notes

Greetings Readers,

Winter is here prematurely and there's nothing better than reading poetry on a cold winter's night. So here's your chance.

This month's issue features Penn Kemp's review of Stanley Fefferman's The Heart of All Music: Poems about Music and Musicians (Aeolus House, 2018) and we have poems of grief, alcoholism, winter, Nietzsche, chocolate milk, defiance, war criminals, rotten apples, and sweet peaches. These are visceral, visual and humorous poems. I hope you enjoy the issue.

The John Newlove Poetry Award Reading and Celebration at the Ottawa Writers Festival was a great success. Thank you to all who participated. It is hard to believe that we've been giving out this award for fifteen years. It is a thrill to hear readers at the event read John Newlove's poetry, and in many cases this reading serves as an introduction to his great work. Fifteen years ago John Newlove died in Ottawa. He is still greatly missed, but his work lives on and I'm proud that we celebrate it every year.

If you have a connection to Ottawa, don't forget that you are eligible to send us poems. If they are published on Bywords.ca, they'll be eligible for consideration for the 2019 award. Our judge will be Wilfrid Laurier professor and poet, Tanis MacDonald.

Thanks to our selection committee this month:

Wes Babcock
Robert Martin Evans
Margo Lapierre
Tanya Mead
Kemisha Newman
Catina Noble
Jade Riordan
Carol A. Stephen
JC Sulzenko
Ben Toner
Rob Thomas

If you have questions, comments, suggestions or a little pot of crème brulée to offer, please e-mail me at amanda@bywords.ca.

Amanda Earl
Managing Editor

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