Editor’s Notes

Greetings Dear Readers,

This month's issue features poems by three poets we've never published before. Jessica Baille gives us small flowers by the side of the road and gin-fueled summer nights. A. Gregory Frankson writes of muffins and molars. FJ Doucet digs a grave. I hope you enjoy the poems.

As of the date of publication of the October issue, we are ten days away from the John Newlove Poetry Award reading and ceremony that will take place on October 25 at the Ottawa International Writers Festival. As part of the award celebration, we will launch "Death Is A White Balloon" by Tomasz W. Wiszniewski, the recipient of last year's award. The editing and publication of a chapbook by Bywords is one of the prizes offered to every John Newlove Poetry Award recipient each year. Winning the award sets off a year-long process that begins with accepting the award and ends with the chapbook launch.

In October, the winner attends the award ceremony, receives the award at the end of the event, and reads a few poems. The information about who the winner and honourable mentions are is a closely guarded secret by all but Bywords editors, winners and honourable mentions until the ceremony. In January, they submit their draft manuscript for comments and suggestions for Bywords editors. In summer a second draft is submitted. In late summer, a final draft is submitted and in early autumn, our designer does the draft layout and design, the chapbook is proofed and sent to the printer. Then in October, the chapbook is launched.

Editors are usually members of the Bywords.ca selection committee, including on occasion former selection committee members. It is a long and interesting process, a pleasure to work with both the poet and the editors. We all learn a lot from the experience.

The award commemorates and celebrates the poetry of John Newlove. As part of the ceremony, I and the other poets on the stage each read a John Newlove poem. Many of our award recipients and honourable mentions haven't heard of John Newlove until the award, the same goes for some of the audience members. I think it's important for Bywords to take the opportunity to celebrate an Ottawa resident (in the last twenty years of his life) and to introduce new readers to a poet who Michael Ondaatje described on the back of "A Long Continual Argument, The Selected Poems of John Newlove" (Chaudiere Books, 2007) as "the best of us, the great line, the hidden agenda, tough as nails and yet somehow with his heart on his sleeve."

I see the Newlove Award as drawling a continuous line between the struggle, experience and technical mastery of Newlove and the making of poems by Ottawa's emerging and established poets. The year-long work on the chapbook by the winning poet and the editors is an opportunity to struggle along together to make something resonant for the poet, the editors and the readers.

If you're in Ottawa, I hope to see you at nine p.m. on Friday, October 25. It's a free event at the festival at Christ Church Cathedral. If you're a current or former Ottawa resident, student or worker, I urge you to submit your poetry so that your work too can become part of this continuum.

Thanks to our selection committee this month:

Jesse Aubin
Wes Babcock
Robert Martin Evans
Margo Lapierre
Kemisha Newman
Catina Noble
Ashley Prince
Jade Riordan
Helen Robertson
JC Sulzenko
Rob Thomas

If you have questions, comments, suggestions, or an exquisitely baked New York cheesecake to offer, please contact me at amanda@bywords.ca.

Amanda Earl
Managing Editor

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