National Poetry Month is a month-long celebration of poetry established by the Academy of American Poets in 1996 and observed since 1999 in Canada. As the Academy of American Poets states, National Poetry Month is meant to widen the attention of individuals and the media to the art of poetry, to living poets, to the nation’s complex poetic heritage, and to poetry books and journals of wide aesthetic range and concern. National Poetry Month events and initiatives increase the visibility and availability of poetry in popular culture while acknowledging and celebrating poetry’s ability to sustain itself in the many places where it is practiced and appreciated.
Learn more about National Poetry Month via the Academy of American Poets, the League of Canadian Poets and UK Book Trade’s National Poetry Month.
Amanda Earl of AngelHousePress started NationalPoetryMonth.ca in 2009 as an alternative to institutionalized celebrations of poetry with the goal of expanding preconceived notions of what poetry is or means. NationalPoetryMonth.ca is a celebration of the nation of poetry. Poetry is a land of risk, play, meditation, provocation and delight. It cannot be contained within borders and should not be restricted by boundaries of any kind. Through the month of April, you will find poems that explore boundaries and break through barriers. The creators of these poems come from all over the world. Ideally the poems will inspire more poetry, will serve to continue the conversation that poetry creates, a conversation that is not limited by time, place, form, age, gender, sexual orientation, political orientation, religion or financial constraints. The site is free and all of the poets have graciously given their poems without payment in any type of currency except your reading pleasure.
Learn more here.
Submit one humor poem online to the 20th annual Wergle Flomp Humor Poetry Contest, sponsored by Winning Writers and co-sponsored by Duotrope. No fee to enter. $3,500 in prizes, including a top prize of $2,000. Top 12 entries published online. Final judge: Jendi Reiter.
Learn more here.
Fugue’s 2021 Writing Contest, judged this year by Leila Chatti (poetry) and Eloghosa Osunde (prose), opens February 1st.
$1000 prize in each genre and publication to the winners & runners-up. Submit your poetry and prose at www.fuguejournal.com from February 1 through April 1.
Learn more here.
Grain and the Short Grain Writing Contest have featured the work of such literary luminaries as Lorna Crozier, Xi Chua, Tim Lilburn, Guy Maddin, Patrick Lane, Miriam Toews, Zsuzsi Gartner, and Eleanor Wachtel. You could join them in the pages of Grain.
This year’s contest judges are Phil Hall (poetry) and Susan Olding (fiction).
Learn more here.
Pocket Lint is a new little lit magazine of short form poems/poetics: solo letter poems, one-word poems, pwoermd, monostich, 2-word poems, one-line poems, visual poetics, vispo, couplets, one-line poems, haiku, found, acrostic, pictograms, calligrammes, collage, concrete, short oulipo experimentations, letraset, cryptic, conceptual, plunder verse, photocopier manipulations, fragments, photos, et cetera.
Learn more here.
Win a vintage ‘object d’art,’ the 50/50 cash prize, and all the honour and clout that comes with being an Awesomeness Winner — by entering Arc Poetry’s March Award of Awesomeness!
The December contest will be judged by Arc’s Coordinating Editor, Manahil Bandukwala. The March prompt is: “love poems”. Who can inhabit desire, and who is part of this cosmic dialogue? For this month’s Award of Awesomeness, send your love poems about friends, history, cosmology, ecology, lovers, and more.
Learn more here.
The prize is for a single poem written by an adult for children (aged 7–11). The winner receives €1,000 plus publication in the summer issue of The Caterpillar.
Michael Morpurgo is the judge of The Caterpillar Poetry Prize 2021. He has written over 130 books for children, but is probably best known for his novel War Horse, which was made into a film by Steven Spielberg. He was Children’s Laureate from 2003 to 2005. The charity Farms for City Children, which he founded thirty years ago with his wife Clare, has now enabled over 90,000 children to spend a week living and working down on the farm. He was knighted in 2018 for services to literature and charity.
Learn more here.
Ottawa’s VerseFest is hoping to attract candidates for two part-time positions – Director and Artistic Director – and have them up and running by late spring.
Learn more here.
The VMI Betsy Warland Between Genres Award is for a book published in Canada in 2021 that is a hybrid genre, or straddles two or more genres. The winner will receive $500 at a ceremony at The Vancouver Writers Fest in Fall 2021, presented by judge Wayde Compton with Betsy Warland, special guest of honour. Two Honourable Mentions (no cash prize) will also be awarded.
Learn more here.
