Contest Statement
There is no chance that we will fall apart
There is no chance
There are no parts— June Jordan, from “Poem Number Two on Bell’s Theorem, or The New Physicality of Long Distance Love”
As civic selves we have been called upon to “do our part,” to distance from one another to slow the spread of a virus. We retreat and stock up in preparation for emergency measures even while, as a whole, we are reminded of the necessity of connection, relations, and community. We share stories, salt dough recipes, and homemade remedies. Anxiety, precarity, loss, and isolation are also common amongst us. How do we thrive? Evoking generational knowledge, what lessons, strategies of care, and innovations are your mainstays? What new qualities are being brung to the notion of “staying in touch”? In some ways slower, stiller, and more reliant on the dematerial—what is elegant; what holds; what is value IRL?
— Cecily Nicholson, contest judge
Submission Guidelines
Length: 4-page maximum submission / 450 words maximum per page.
Form: Your work may unfold as poems, prose, image or a combination thereof. As always, we’re keen to receive venturesome work that departs from standard narratives.
Fee: Sliding scale $5-$35 CAD, includes a complimentary digital or print subscription to The Capilano Review. 50% of all proceeds will go towards the DTES Support Fund, a coordinated effort to bring urgently needed supplies to Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside to help prevent the spread of COVID-19.
Note: If the entry fee presents a barrier for you, we still encourage you to submit. No one will be turned away for lack of funds.
Prize: Three winning entries will receive a $300 cash prize and publication in our web folio, ti-TCR.
Submit your work via Submittable here.
About Our Contest Judge
Cecily Nicholson coordinates public and school programs with the Surrey Art Gallery and is part of the Joint Effort prison abolitionist group. She is the author of Triage (Talonbooks, 2011), and From the Poplars (Talonbooks, 2014), which won the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize. Her most recent work, Wayside Sang (Talonbooks, 2017), won the 2018 Governor General’s Literary Award for poetry.
