The Capilano Review is pleased to announce the winner of our 2026 Spring Writing Contest as selected by guest judge Bhanu Kapil. The winning work is “A place for birds” by iman ādam. 

“The 45 entries of the longlist I received were extraordinary. I was particularly struck by the number of poems that combined somatic and political engagement with new techniques and possibilities for what a poem might be.  Thank you for sharing your work, and trusting me to read it.

The winning entry is composed in epistolary, yet intensely verbal and condensed blocks.  These poems propose the face as a construction, but also portal: “When you see a face in such a state you can’t help but want to free it, to say something comforting, to open a door.” The sequence of poems unfolds as a series of questions and answers that work against embellishment even as the images they evoke are dream-like, occluded and intimate. I was moved by the world of these poems: the counterpoint of their vulnerability with a constraining yet mutable form.  Sometimes a question, for example, is unanswerable: 

"Where is your brother now?  

Can we just listen to the birds?"

– Bhanu Kapil

About the winner:

iman ādam is a Mombasa-born writer and artist who does not believe in borders. They grew up in kenya and france and received their MFA from Rutgers-Newark, where they now teach. Most recently, they received a 2026 Fellowship from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts.

The winning work will be published in The Capilano Review in 2027.

The Capilano Review would like to extend additional congratulations to the runner-up and shortlisted writers:

Runner-up:

Heather Simeney Macleod for “The Tactile Qualities of Nowhere in Particular”

Shortlist:

Rukan Saif for “Four Poems”

Kath Healing for “Score for Saying It (With Safeguards)”

Alexei Perry Cox for “[SPACE]making Texts”