2023 Priscila Uppal Memorial Award for Poetry Winners

We’re excited to announce the winners of this year’s Priscila Uppal Memorial Award for Poetry! Winners and honourable mentions were chosen by our judge, t. liem. Read t’s comments on their selections below.

Winners

First place: "[untitled]" by B.A. LeFrançois

B.A. LeFrançois is a poet, writer and educator, based in Mount Pearl, Newfoundland and Labrador.

“[untitled] meditates on place and how we place ourselves when we feel ‘the inability to speak.’ The poem captures how a map may express place through lines, yet we also remember the ‘raging river crying loud’ and how remembering is resistance. In a final gesture of tenderness, the poem offers a place in which to grieve. Its language is musical and gliding, somehow heavy and light. Mostly, I want to say nothing of it at all except listen, look.” — t. liem

Second place: “Letter to The Milkmaid” by Sneha Subramanian Kanta

Sneha Subramanian Kanta is a writer and academician living in Ontario, Canada. Her multi-genre work has been published in The Four Faced Liar, Prairie Schooner, UBC's PRISM international, Grain Magazine, and elsewhere. She is the author of the chapbook Ghost Tracks (Louisiana Literature, 2020). She is one of the founding editors of Parentheses Journal. Her website.

“‘Letter to The Milkmaid’ reminds us that a kitchen and a religious place are both sites of hunger and nourishment, but also need and refusal. The poem itself refuses ease with such a dynamic. Struck out and redacted words enact their own reckoning with the reader. I love being with this poet who questions the milkmaid and then reaches into the painting to take something from her.” — t. liem

Honourable Mentions

"Glossophobia" by Sam Bollinger

Sam Bollinger is a poet, editor, and reviewer. Her work has appeared in The Malahat Review, Canthius, Arc Poetry Magazine, and elsewhere. She is the co-Managing Editor of Portal Magazine and studies creative writing and English at Vancouver Island University.

"dyke genealogy / alt: a letter to my grandfather in this first year of silence" by [sarah] Cavar

[sarah] Cavar is an anti-genre writer, PhD candidate, and instructor of undergraduates on both coasts. Their debut novel, Failure to Comply, is forthcoming with featherproof books (2024). Cavar is editor-in-chief of manywor(l)ds.place, and has had work published in The Offing, Split Lip Magazine, Electric Lit, and elsewhere. More at their website, @cavar on BlueSky, and @cavarsarah on twitter.

You’ll be able to read the winning poems in Canthius 14, published in summer 2024. The poems of honourable mention will be posted on our website later in January 2024. Thank you so much to everyone who submitted their work, and we hope you’ll submit again next fall!

We’re so grateful to t. liem for their generosity in reading and judging. All poems were sent to t anonymously.