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Poetry

Congratulations to Poetry Contest Winner Emma Miao!

Posted on April 6, 2021

We're excited to announce that Emma Miao, a poet from Vancouver, BC, is the winner of the 2020 Ralph Gustafson Poetry Prize! Her poem “Rabbits on the Balcony” will appear in the Spring 2021 issue of The Fiddlehead. Born in 2004, she was commended in the 2019 Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award, won the 2021 Frog Hollow Press Chapbook Contest, and has been published in numerous literary journals. Check out editorial assistant Eliza Ives' interview with Emma about her prize-winning poem!

Thank you again to our judges Canisia Lubrin, Jenna Albert and Adèle Barclay and to all who entered the poetry contest! 

It is not the poem which closes : A Review by Anita Lahey of M. Travis Lane's "A Tent, A Lantern, An Empty Bowl" and "Keeping Count"

Posted on March 12, 2021

It is not the poem which closes


A Tent, A Lantern, An Empty Bowl and Keeping Count, M. Travis Lane. Gordon Hill Press, 2020

Let’s begin with rocks and mud.

The poem “May Rocks,” which appears nearly midway through Keeping Count, M. Travis Lane’s most recent collection, begins with a single-word sentence: “Spring.” This is followed by rocks that “butt and push” in a lawn “jagged with dragon’s teeth.” It continues:

Ralph Gustafson Poetry Contest Shortlist Announced!

Posted on March 12, 2021

The Fiddlehead is excited to announce our 2021 Ralph Gustafson Poetry Contest shortlist! The contest was judged by Jenna Lyn Albert, Adèle Barclay, and Canisia Lubrin. The winner of the $2000 contest prize will be announced in early April 2021 and the winning story will be featured in the Spring 2021 issue. Thank you to all who entered and congratulations to the following fifteen finalists!

Kate Cayley's Reading Recommendation

Posted on February 12, 2021

Kate Cayley is a fiction writer, playwright, and poet who's work has been featured in many issues of The Fiddlehead. She has written a short story collection, How You Were Born, two collections of poetry, When This World Comes to an End and Other Houses, a young adult novel, The Hangman in the Mirror, and a number of plays. She has won the Trillium Book Award, the Geoffrey Bilson Award for Historical Fiction, an O. Henry Short Story Prize, and a Chalmers Fellowship, and been a finalist for the Governor General’s Award for Fiction, the K. M. Hunter Award, and the Toronto Arts Foundation Emerging Artist Award, and long-listed for the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Prize and the CBC Prize in both poetry and fiction. 

Eleonore Schonmaier's Music Recommendations

Posted on February 10, 2021

Eleonore Schönmaier’s poetry has been published by The Fiddlehead many times, most recently in our 2020 Summer Poetry Issue. Her Field Guide to the Lost Flower of Crete is forthcoming in 2021 (MQUP). Her critically acclaimed Wavelengths of Your Song (MQUP) was published in German translation in 2020. In 2019 she won the National Broadsheet Contest. Her poetry has been widely anthologized including in Best Canadian Poetry. Find out more at eleonoreschonmaier.com!

"These Weeds" by Rose Maloukis

Posted on January 22, 2021

Rose Maloukis

These Weeds

Spasms trouble a tired body, little flesh, no hunger. 
Leaves cycle, vanish, more and more empty sky.

Dishes fallen to the floor. A mouthful of beaten rice — I cannot swallow! 

A purple balloon buffeted by slow circulation, no direct draft.
Surface highlights, rotations wobble, roll then lull, they are imbalanced.
Are you alive if your breath — the balloon, under the blouse, senseless —
         vacant.

New "Arrivals and Departures" chapbook launch!

Posted on November 10, 2020

We're so excited to announce the launch of Arrivals and Departures: Objects | Food | Memories, the second in the Arrivals & Departures chapbook series! Arrivals and Departures emerges from two Fiddlehead-sponsored "Writing for Newcomers" workshops. The Fredericton workshop, Eat, Drink, Write, took place at the Multicultural Centre on November 2, 2019, and was facilitated by Salar Ghatta. The Halifax workshop, Arrivals and Departures: Objects, Memories and Transitions, was at Pier 21, the Canadian Museum of Immigration, on August 2, 2019. It was facilitated by Anthazia Kadir.

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