The Writes of Spring poetry competition has named twelve winners to have their poems published and shared at their gala event this weekend.  

Poets from all across the province submitted their work into the 11th annual competition on the theme of “land and sea”. The winning poems by authors RYAN AD, Jody Baltessen, Janine Brown, Joanne Epp, David Jón Fuller, James Hargrove, Bertrand Nayet, Désirée Penner, proma tagore, Alexander Wiebe, Jess Woolford, and Chey Wright (aka IDIC Verse) were selected by contest editors Ariel Gordon and melanie brannagan frederiksen of Plume Winnipeg. 

“The deliberation is always hard,” says Gordon. “It gets hard because you know that people are sending you their poems, they’re trusting you with their work. But the way that we keep it joyful and fun for us as juries… is that we read the poems aloud to each other.” 

 

Winners use literal and liberal theme translations 

The theme “land and sea” came from the League of Canadian Poets, a practice that Writes of Spring has used most every year since the contest began. Gordon notes that one can read different senses of water in the poems depending on where the poets are in Manitoba, whether it be the rivers of Winnipeg or Hudson’s Bay up north. 

“We like to think of ourselves as landlocked, but we’re not,” she smiles, highlighting Manitoba’s large lakes and conversations about water when it comes to issues like Winnipeg’s drinking water originating in Shoal Lake 40 First Nation to concerns about spring flooding.  

“Sometimes a theme resonates with people, but sometimes it involves a shift in thinking, and I think we found a good mix of things that looked at our relationship with water in different ways.” 


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‘Poetry forever!’ 

The grand finale for Writes of Spring takes place at McNally Robinson Booksellers on Sunday afternoon. Audiences will be able to hear the poems read by the 12 chosen poets after they have been published over the weekend. 

One key feature of the readings that Gordon points out is that the poems are read twice – “to read, take a breath and read it again,” she says, “because audiences appreciate that ability to hear it and take it in… it’s hard to absorb everything on the first listen.” 

The audiences at the Writes of Spring gala are more than willing to make the reading concession as well as have a good time (a literary “love-in”, as Gordon describes it). “I make everyone heckle me (or not heckle),” she laughs, “put their arms in the air and say, ‘Poetry forever!’ at our events. I can’t help it – it makes me laugh – but it’s true!” 

The Writes of Spring gala presentation will take place at 2 p.m. on April 26 at McNally Robinson Booksellers’ Grant Park location. More information can be found at Plume Winnipeg’s website.