John Newlove Poetry Awards and the Ottawa Poets Laureate

with Nnadi Samuel and Princess Unlucky

Hosted by Amanda Earl

In Person Streaming Poetry Free

Admission

Free

Tuesday

Oct , 2024

6:30pm

Eastern

Club Saw

67 Nicholas St. • Ottawa

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John Newlove Poetry Awards and the Ottawa Poets Laureate

David O’Meara · Photo by Minihan Nnadi Samuel Sarah Dolan Véronique Sylvain · Photo by Richard Tardif

"In this year's John Newlove Award winning poem word building becomes world building, a powerful meditation deftly stitched together with a seamless, serotonin-inducing hand."

Jim Johnstone, 2024 John Newlove Poetry Award Judge

Join us for an unforgettable evening of community and poetry. For those unable to join us in person, the event will livestream from this page.

Our evening begins with the 2024 Bywords John Newlove Poetry Awards, followed by readings from the newly appointed City of Ottawa Poets Laureate. Don't miss the launch of Biblical Invasion BC by Nnadi Samuel, the 2023 recipient of the John Newlove Poetry Award. Hosted by Amanda Earl, the evening also features readings by this year’s award recipient and honourable mention—to be announced at the reading—plus music by Princess Unlucky.

Following the awards, Ottawa's new English and French Poets Laureate, David O’Meara and Véronique Sylvain, will take the stage to share their work.

Books are available from our friends at Perfect Books.

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The Authors

David O’Meara

David O'Meara is the author of four previous collections of poetry, most recently A Pretty Sight (Coach House Books, 2013). A past winner of the Archibald Lampman Prize and the Ottawa Book Award, David lives in Ottawa, Canada where he tends bar.

Nnadi Samuel

Nnadi Samuel (he/him/his) holds a B.A in English & literature from the University of Benin. Author of 'Nature knows a little about Slave Trade' selected by Tate.N.Oquendo (Sundress Publication, 2023). His works have been previously published/forthcoming in Suburban Review, Seventh Wave Magazine, NativeSkin lit Magazine, North Dakota Quarterly, Quarterly West, Common Wealth Writers, Jaggery, Foglifter, The Capilano Review, Lolwe, Arc Poetry, Poetry Ireland, New Orleans Review, Westerly, PRISM Magazine, Australian Poetry Journal, Ex-Puritan Magazine, The Spectacle Magazine, Maine Review, Existere Journal, Munster Literature, Carte Blanche, Lampblack Magazine, Trampset & elsewhere. A 3x Best of the Net, and 7x Pushcart Nominee. He won the Miracle Monocle Award for Ambitious Student Writers 2021(University of Louisville), the International Human Right Arts Festival Award(IHRAF) New York 2021, 2021 Penrose Poetry Prize Awarded for Excellence in Poetry, 2022 Angela C Mankiewicz Poetry Contest, River Heron Editor's Prize 2022, Bermuda Triangle Poetry Prize 2022, Betsy Colquitt Poetry Annual Award, 2022(Texas Christian University), the Virginia Tech Center for Refugee, Migrants & Displacement Studies Annual Award, 2023, the 2023 Stacy Doris Memorial Award(Fourteen Hills) San Francisco State University Review, the John Newlove Poetry Annual Awards(Ottawa, Canada), 2023, and recently won the Vera Manuel Poetry Awards, 2023 Surrey Muse Art Society(Vancouver, Canada). Second Prize for The Bird in Your Hand Contest 2022, The MONO Poetry Prize 2022, A- Zoetic Poetry Competition 2022, Bronze prize for the Creative Future Writer's Award 2022, UK London & 2023 Massachusetts Poetry Festival. A finalist of the Snarl Poetry and Prose Contest, 2022, The 2023 Orison Chapbook Prize and Unleash Press 2024 Book Prize. He is the recipient of the Bywords 2023 John Newlove Poetry Award. He tweets @Samuelsamba10.

Sarah Dolan

Sarah Dolan, (Princess Unlucky) makes music to cope with being an especially emotional human being. Her music is often unpredictable and passionately charged. At age 11, Sarah had a friend who played the violin. She adored this friend, and wanted to play something that would compliment her. She came across a small wooden harp called a harpsicle, which she called Merlin. From there they would play songs together, where Sarah would attend her friend’s violin lessons. But then Sarah had a fight with this friend, right before she moved out of the country, and their friendship was over. Sarah didn’t know how to handle that loss, but she picked up Merlin and started plucking out her emotions. Over the years, Sarah and Merlin, (now the electric Merlin II), would make songs whenever she felt alone or had something she couldn’t express. She began classically training under the harpist, Mary Muckle, and completed her Royal Conservatory examinations for lever harp. In 2021, she won a province wide ORMTA student composition contest for her sextet, When Comes the Night, and earn second place in the country. Today she enjoys being part of the music community, playing open mics regularly at Art House Café and Live! on Elgin. She is happy to be in Ottawa, which, despite having a small urban core, is rich with wonderful, talented artists. Sarah has a background in physics, which forms a large part of how she thinks. She has a second acoustic harp named Cecelia.

Véronique Sylvain

Véronique Sylvain lives in Ottawa where she holds the position of promotion and communications agent with Éditions David. Her poems have been published in À ciel ouvert Ancrages Femmes de parole Zinc and in the anthologies Poèmes de la résistance (Prise de parole, 2019) and Projet TERRE (David, 2021). Her first collection Premier quart (Prise de parole, 2019) won her the Prix de poésie Trillium the Ottawa Book Prize in 2020 the Prix Champlain and the Prix littéraire émergence AAOF 2021. A proud Franco-Ontarian with a passion for words music nature and travel Véronique also offers writing workshops for those aged 8 to 98. Her upcoming collection En terrain miné appears in September 2024.