January issue of Bywords.ca is now online

Greetings dear readers and happy new year.

What better way to mark the beginning of a new year than with poems that recount memories of those we’ve lost and treasured moments?

One of my treasured moments from 2022 was hosting the John Newlove Poetry Award at Christ Church Cathedral as part of the Ottawa International Writers Festival’s 25th anniversary last fall. If you’d like to relive the memory or if weren’t there, you can watch the video here:

It begins with a video of New Year Song, a song by dear poet, musician and fiction writer, Steven Heighton, who we lost in spring, 2022.

Sadly, 2022 also saw the loss of poet Robert Hogg and fiction writer Claire Latremoille, two Ottawa writers who many of you knew and loved. rob mclennan held a memorial reading for them and several other writers who died in 2022 at the Carleton Tavern as part of the Factory Reading Series 30th anniversary celebration on January 13, 2023.

Looking forward to 2023, I am grateful to have the opportunity to publish twelve issues of Bywords.ca’s monthly magazine. We began Bywords.ca in 2003, so this year marks our twentieth year. It has been a truly enriching experience to engage with the poetry of emerging and established locals and former locals, to work with our hard-working selection committee, the Ottawa International Writers Festival and the Ottawa Public Library, and the City of Ottawa. I am always pleased when someone tells me that they made their first poetry submission ever to Bywords.ca or when they’ve had numerous books out and still choose to send work to us.

I always end e-mails to poets who we are publishing with a thank you for supporting Bywords.ca. By submitting poetry to us, you are providing support. Poems are the currency of a poetry magazine. They keep the magazine in existence, and they keep it moving forward. If you are a current or former Ottawa student, resident or worker who writes poetry, I urge you to read our guidelines and send us poems. The deadline is the fifteenth of the month for the next issue. You are welcome to e-mail me if you have questions.

Thanks to our selection committee this month:

Jesse Aubin
Dan Boland
Chris Johnson
Sarah Kabamba
Stephanie Mason
Kemisha Newman
Jade Riordan
Sonia Saikaley
Jagjeet Sharma
Marjorie Silverman
Carol A. Stephen

If you have questions, comments, suggestions or a good poem to recommend for the long winter nights ahead, please contact me at amanda@bywords.ca.

Amanda Earl

Managing Editor, Bywords.ca

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