Tree Press Chapbook Competition

2013 WINNER

We have a winner! Winter Music, by Mary Lee Bragg  

 

With such restrained, tender endings, you might say that the poems in Winter Music are slentando: gradually slower. Beginning with the ode “Winter Saga”—where a squirrel crossing snow “swims with four splayed feet, / sculls with its tail”—the poet shows a deft touch with the painful particulars of the cold north, a “deep blue, / with outer space behind it.”There’s a constant battle in these poems between an inner tranquility and an outer chaos, a fight to make sense of an ambivalent world that leaks in through our best defences. “Nothing says luck / like lightning,” begins the poem “Good Luck,” and whether it’s a soldier in Kandahar, a revolutionary in Portugal, or a friend for whom life and love disasterizes, one can never predict whether you’ll survive the strike or not. In the meantime, intimates the poet, let your heart and mind rove, listen closely, and learn to “cherish your fears.” A thoughtful, subtle collection.

 

Mathew Tierney, judge

 

Honourable Mention: Elbow Grease, by Leslie Strutt

 

2012 WINNER

David Blaikie won the Tree Press chapbook competition, blind judged by Jason Heroux. His manuscript Farewell to Coney Island will have 50 copies printed by Tree Press.

 

Second place was Janice Tokar, third place was Jennifer Pederson, with honourable mentions to Lesley Strutt and Grant Savage.

 

Rules

Open only to those who come to tree regularly, whether to listen, to support, and/or to read at the open mics, or come to Tree workshops.  

Tree is holding its third annual chapbook competition, with publication early spring, 2013.

Manuscripts of up to 20 pages of poetry, single spaced, on white paper, paginated consecutively, with a table of contents and acknowledgments, bound with a clip. Include in addition to the poetry pages) two cover pages, one with only the title of the manuscript and a second with the title, your name, address, telephone number(s), email address.  The author’s name should not appear elsewhere on the manuscript. Please retain a copy for your records. 

Should your manuscript be chosen, Tree reserves editorial rights as to how much of the manuscript will be included in the chapbook.

The submissions will be recycled unless they have been accompanied by a self-stamped return envelope. 

The competition will be judged blind, and edited by a professional poet.

The winners will receive 10 copies of the chapbook, which will be published in an initial set of 25 – 50 copies for the Tree launch, more of which may be ordered privately at the author’s discretion. 

The judge will be announced closer to the deadline.

 

Entry details: 

Submissions will be accepted between October 30, 2012 until December 30, 2012. 

Entry fee, $10  (Check please, no cash, made out to The Tree Reading Series)

 

Send a collection of up to 20 pages of poetry, (more than one poem may be on each page, especially in the case of short poems such as haiku or tanka. (The chapbook will be in a simple 5 x  8 format, any form, any subject.  The collection may include previously published poems, as long as credits are given.

 

Email entries will not be accepted. Hard copies only.

 

Send your manuscript to:

 

Tree Press Chapbook Contest

c/o Claudia Coutu Radmore, Managing Editor

49 McArthur Ave

Carleton Place, ON  K7C 2W1

Canada