Manahil Bandukwala is a poet, writer, editor, and visual artist. She has two solo chapbooks, Paper Doll (2019) and Pipe Rose (2018), and Sprawl (Collusion Books, 2020), authored with Conyer Clayton. She is on the editorial team of Canthius, and is Coordinating Editor for Arc Poetry Magazine. Manahil's poetry was featured in the Autumn 2020 issue of The Fiddlehead.
Rabbits on the Balcony by Emma Miao is the winning poem from our 2020 Poetry Contest:
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!
Boundaries
Gold Rush, Claire Caldwell. Invisible Publishing 2020
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:
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 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 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!
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.
Tanis MacDonald lives in Waterloo, Ontario, and is curious. She is most recently the author of Mobile (Book*hug 2019). Tanis MacDonald's poetry has appeared in several issues of The Fiddlehead over the years. Most recently, her poem Other Fish was published in our sold out autumn issue No. 285.
