Contest Winners :: Arc Poem of the Year & Diana Brebner Prize
Arc Poetry Magazine #74 features the winners of the Poem of the Year Contest. Selected from over 500 submissions, one winner receives $5000 – a daunting process even the editors recognize the “craziness” of, beginning with: How were we going to agree on what was the best poem when we sometime can’t even agree on what a poem is? How can anyone just have one “best” poem when so much of what poetry does is question the very ideas of aesthetic hierarchies and commonly agreed upon truths?
Alas, the editors were able to sort, select and agree upon “Consider the Lilies” by Kristina Bresnen. Judges, editors, and e-poetry readers also helped select other poets worthy of “high accolades”: Nancy Holmes, Matt Jones, Michael Lithgow, Steve McOrmond, and Jennifer Zilm.
Additionally, this issue features winning poems of the annual Diana Brebner Prize, open to poets in the Ottawa area who have not yet published a book. Judge Pearl Pirie chose Anne Marie Todkill as the winner and Vivan Vavassis as the runner-up.
