2022 Jessamy Stursberg Youth Poetry Prize Winners

Congratulations to the 2022 Winners of the Jessamy Stursberg Poetry Prize. The jurors were incredibly impressed with the quality of poems submitted this year, and we thank everyone who shared their poetry with us— we know the future of professional poetry in Canada is in good hands!

The Jessamy Stursberg Poetry Prize for Canadian Youth was established to foster a lifelong relationship between Canadian youth and the literary arts, specifically poetry. The prize is supported through a generous donation from the Stursberg family and other donors in honour of Jessamy Stursberg. The prize accepts submissions from young poets all across Canada, with three prizes awarded in both the Junior (grades 7 to 9) and Senior (grades 10 to 12) categories: 

Winner: $400 Second Place: $350 Third Place: $300 


Senior winners

Jury: Michael Lithgow, Kathryn Gwun-Yeen Lennon, Winston Le 

First place, senior: birdbrained by Briana Lu

birdbrained by Briana Lu am i the red tint window pane or am i the bird that hit it? this summer, featuring awakened glare in the synthetic typewriter and feelings of awful electronity. i think she was dead before she even made contact but all i knew was the windshield crack when she struck gold. maybe she practiced radical self love. maybe she aimed for sunfire. body and environment is an extension of the mind and maybe that was fucking ominous. i’ve got her in my hands, gloved and all as if afraid to melt into a synthesis of prophetic carnage. it’s a symptom of psychosis, really— not know- ing how to wield the transhumanal ice pick despite having been raised by it. she’s weeping. maybe she doesn’t know either. cosmic infinitesimal feeling placebo in pianist hands, tickling ivories demanding to be freed. my skin is porcelain, cold to the touch and she is liminal warmth, heart beating out of chest and i’m wondering if her blood might just soar. it’s all wingless enormity in childhood shoebox crafts and prayers in secular mouthwash— encores in sewers and i think i’m going to be sick. crisis hotline sings “My Heart Will Go On”. i wash my hands and go back inside. this summer, featuring awakened glare in the synthetic typewriter and feelings of awful electronity. i think i looked up and felt her heart stop. From our jurors: “birdbrained” is an urgent and confident poem emerging from a crisis in subjectivity on the part of the narrator — a somewhat breathless momentum created linguistically around the singular arresting image of an encounter with an injured bird. There is an epistemically unsettled blurring of boundary between bird and poet as the language (and poem!) tumble headlong to startling conclusion. The poet’s inventive and energetic language push at the confines of rationality, not only reinforcing a sense of crisis in the poem, but building tension towards the outcome of the narrator’s failed attempt to save the bird and the bird’s/narrator’s stopped heart. 

Second place, senior: 99% by Grace Hu 

From our jurors: In 99% the narrator is wrestling with the limitations of a certain kind of knowing – academic learning – and how it can both deform human subjectivity and overlook and leave out critical kinds of wisdom and experience, especially the knowledge of how to navigate the difficulties of love. The metaphoric language and images work well to create poetic tensions reinforcing the somewhat dire outcome of the narrator’s humanity being partially or perhaps even wholly erased.  

Third place, senior: Colors in a new world by Maggie Yang 

From our jurors: Colors in a new world is a loving homage to an elderly relative in the context of geographic and cultural dislocation and the complexities of migration, race, and belonging. The poet does an excellent job of balancing the specificity of moments in time within wider geopolitical tensions, all of it culminating in a palpable sense of loss.   Maggie Yang is a poet and artist from Vancouver, Canada. She is a Foyle Young Poet of the Year, and her work has been recognized by the Scholastics Art and Writing Awards, The League of Canadian Poets, The Poetry Society of Virginia, and Poetry in Voice. Her work appears or is forthcoming in The Adroit Journal, Polyphony Lit and F(r)iction Lit, among others. An interdisciplinary artist, she is particularly intrigued by the intersections of the written word with the visual and performing arts.

Junior Winners

Jury: Mikko Harvey, Amy LeBlanc  First place, junior: Asian Girl by Kyo Lee  The tone in Kyo Lee’s “Asian Girl” is so memorable— the author utilizes the most striking parts of “Girl” by Jamaica Kincaid and puts a unique spin on the voice and narrative. Lee uses exceptionally descriptive language to express how the speaker feels pulled in different directions with the pressure to fit in. Lee has taken a great piece of literature and put their own mark on it.   Asian Girl
By Kyo Lee

Inspired by Jamaica Kincaid’s “Girl”

read more korean books; read more english books; memorise one hundred english words every-
day; don’t bleed out your mother tongue unless you want to be some white-washed gyopo; here’s
how to sculpt rice flour into crescent moons; here’s how to fold rice flour into bird eggs; always get
better grades than your friends; always get better grades than my friends’ children; always get
better grades because we don’t pay $20,000 for you to go to school here so you can be average; greet
your elders by bowing your head; get double eye-lid surgery; don’t wear eyeliner, you’re going to
look even chinkier; here’s how to whiten your skin with a cushion; here’s how to look the same as
everybody else; when you see something in the street, avoid eye contact and walk faster; rem-
ember, we don’t have the privilege of helping others; here’s how to cook rice in the steam pot; here’s
how to cook rice in the microwave; here’s how to cook rice in the rice cooker; here’s how to cook
rice with a kettle; here’s how to cook the perfect rice; here’s how to make a sandwich for school so
the white kids don’t think you’re too asian; sprout like a lotus blossom: beautiful and exotic and on
the verge of drowning; don’t hold your chopstick like that; here’s how to make kimchi; here’s how to
make kimchi for white people; here are all the different kimchis to make in each season: summer for
tender yeolmu leaves, the winter for snow-white radishes; always tap on the watermelon before you
buy it; memorise the names of bts members so white people accept that you’re a korean; but what
should the watermelon sound like?; don’t talk back to your elders; here’s how to stay quiet; here,
store all your anger in this moon-hangari and swallow it over and over again; here’s how to complain
about your husband to asian ladies; never speak well of your own life, people don’t want to hear about the good things; learn to give thanks to the bones of the turkey, we don’t get chuseok off as a
holiday; here’s how to say annyeonghaseyo to someone you don’t like; here’s how to say annyeong
-haseyo to your elders; here’s how to teach a white person how to say annyeonghaseyo; here’s how
to be a model minority; stop complaining, would you rather be dark-skinned?; here’s how to carry
the weight of your country on your shoulders; laugh politely when white people ask if you eat dogs;
laugh politely when white people ask if you have coronavirus; laugh politely if white people ask if
you’re related to kim jeong un; laugh politely when white people; always behave as if you’re repre-
senting all koreans; you don’t want white people to think koreans act asian; never use a dishwasher;
never buy things unless they’re on sale; here’s how to be more white; here’s how to be more asian;
sometimes be asian, sometimes be white; but which one am i supposed to be when?; you’ll know.

Second place, junior: The Land Bridge Theory by Angel Zhao 

From our jurors: Angel Zhao’s “The Land Bridge Theory” is so densely packed with memories that the reader feels immediately invited in. Zhao uses sensory details like taste and touch to help us understand “the telltale acceptance” that the speaker faces as they work with and against cultural pressures. This is a poem that readers will remember.   Angel Zhao is a Chinese Canadian poet whose work has also been featured in the ISABC’s Ariadne anthology, Pluvia literary magazine’s website, and BASA’s Firecracker anthology. Additionally, her short film Teenage Homage was a runner up in The New York Times’ 2021 Coming of Age multimedia contest. Third place, junior : Liquid Gold by Sofia Varma-Vitug  In Sofia Varma’s “Liquid Gold” we are introduced to a kitchen filled with scents and spices— the allure of this poem resides in the familiar smells of cardamom, cinnamon, and clove. This is a poem about family and tradition in the form of a sonnet that lulls us with its rhythmic tones and its rhymes.  

Honourable mentions

Senior: “Mari’s apartment” by Eryn McNamara “If You Talk to My Corpse, Bury It Well” by Gurleena Sukhija “Before we gave it some English” by Samuel Nnadi “Immigrant Tribes” by Avery E. Kats “Neither” by Ria Baxi “A finite infinity” by Angela Cen “Fragrant Harbour” by Sarah Ng Junior: “Greenhouse Gasses” by Catie Musselman “Plums” by Alison Wang “Out of Breath” by Sana Huang   Everard by Jasmine Hume: for its unique elliptical response to a tragic contemporary event  “Sub Rosa” by MiaoHan Wang: for its crisp and enigmatic delivery    “Seasons”by Sophia Zhang: for its linguistic and imagistic richness  “Looking Beautiful” by Sukrutha Jambur Sachin: for its compelling metaphysical sensibility