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Poetry

Congratulations to Poetry Contest Winner Moni Brar!

Posted on March 31, 2023

We're excited to announce that Moni Brar is the winner of the 2022 Ralph Gustafson Poetry Prize! Her poem “Dispossession in Five Acts [or How to Be a Model Minority or Not]” will appear in the Spring 2023 issue of The Fiddlehead. 

Moni Brar was born in rural India and raised in northern BC on the land of the Tse’Khene. She is the winner of the 2022 Lieutenant Governor of Alberta Emerging Artist Award and a finalist for the Montreal International Poetry Prize. She believes art contains the possibility of healing.

Susan Haley: a collection of confessional poetry, Where the Sea Kuniks the Land, Ashley Qilavaq-Savard.

Posted on March 22, 2023
What is the source of joy we find in poetry? That thing that caused the prickle of A.E. Housman’s beard, that transfixed Anne of Green Gables in her desk when the teacher read Tennyson’s line, “The horns of Elfland faintly blowing.” It is what comes not from going about the woodland to see the cherry hung with snow, but evoking it in those very words, and with the delicate metaphor implied.
 

Gary Barwin: Not so much unfinished as continuing to arrive, Unfinishing, Brian Henderson.

Posted on March 22, 2023
I hesitate to say a book is wise — that seems dangerous — but this book is wise. However, the wisdom in Unfinishing comes not from marble-carveable or Instagram-shareable truisms but from careful attention not only to the world and life as it is experienced but to attention itself. The poems enact a deep mindfulness — to metaphysics and to the process of thinking. Henderson evokes the flux and fluidity of consciousness: our experience of time and memory.

Pre-Order the Winter Issue Today!

Posted on December 9, 2022

 

The forthcoming Winter 2023 issue of The Fiddlehead is now available for pre-order! 

The issue will feature the winning story from The Fiddlehead's 2022 Fiction Contest, as well as work from talented writers such as Alice Zorn, Abu Bakr Sadiq, Kate Cayley, Brian Bartlett and many more.

Pre-orders will be in the mail by the end of January. To order your copy click the appropriate link below: 

Canadian Addresses

Ellen McGinn's Reading Recommendation

Posted on November 14, 2022

Ellen McGinn lives on Saturna Island with her husband and their dog. A graduate of the University of British Columbia’s MFA programme, she has published a book of poetry, From Dark Horse Road and her essay "Tabernacle" was published in the 2022 creative nonfiction issue of The Fiddlehead. Her plays were produced in the Vancouver and Victoria fringe festivals. Her current play, Antarctica Welcomes International Women’s Year 1975 is in its third draft. One of her favourite things was volunteering with Students On Ice. 

John Barton: Gay Canlit Icon: A Review by KIRBY of John Barton's "We Are Not Avatars"

Posted on October 24, 2022

John Barton: Gay Canlit Icon

We Are Not Avatars, John Barton. Palimpsest Press, 2019.

When I told a friend I was about to write a review of We Are Not Avatars (Palimpsest Press, 2019), a collection of John Barton’s essays, memoirs, and manifestos, they looked at me quizzically and suggested I’d set myself on an unrealistic challenge, for how can anyone critique an icon? My friend gave me pause because I never considered John Barton to be one.

Poets as Observers of Space and Absence: A Review by Manahil Bandukwala of Gillian Sze's "Quiet Night Think"

Posted on October 11, 2022

Poets as Observers of Space and Absence

Quiet Night Think, Gillian Sze. ECW Press, 2022.

I first came to Gillian Sze’s work through her chapbook, Fricatives. Fricatives has lingered in the back of my mind for years, and Sze’s latest collection of poems and essays, Quiet Night Think, will no doubt do the same. Comprised of six personal essays interspersed with poems, Quiet Night Think meditates on poetry and motherhood. Where do these intersect, and where do they diverge?

Tanis MacDonald’s Reading Recommendations

Posted on October 5, 2022

Tanis MacDonald is the author of six books, including the forthcoming Straggle: Adventures in Walking While Female (Wolsak & Wynn). She has been awarded the Open Seasons Awards for Nonfiction and the Bliss Carman Prize for Poetry, and has had work appear recently in Atlantis, FreeFall, and Grain. Her essay "Ricochet: An Arcade" was featured in the all-creative nonfiction issue of The Fiddlehead. 

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