2026 Cold Moon Contest winners
Congratulations to the winners of the 2026 Cold Moon Contests!
The League of Canadian Poets is proud to present the winners of the 2026 Cold Moon Contests: Nicole Ardiel's "Hope" winner of the Very Small Verse contest, and Cassandra Myers' "Smash the Headlights Suite" winner of the Spoken Word Award.
Nicola Ardiel, winner of the Very Small Verse contest
"My poetry of late seems to slant toward melancholy, swirling between grief or mid-life anguish. When I wrote my entries for this contest, I did some self-talk: if, fingers crossed, I might have a poem printed on a t-shirt or tote bag, I’d better smarten up and write something hopeful! These days, it feels we could all use a little more hope in our lives. In a way, I am the beached oyster, waiting on the ever-reliable tide. I am overjoyed and honoured to be selected as the winner of this delightful contest and send waves of gratitude to juror Terrence Abrahams for choosing my little poem." — Nicole Ardiel
Cassandra Myers, winner of the Spoken Word Award
"To win this award is a recognition to the world of slam poetry in Canada and the US that nutured me for ten years. My 20's were spent in the family van, driving across state lines to poetry slams, marrying the person of my dreams who I competed against for 4 years, and being a part of slam teams and collectives with my best friends in the world. Though people and that world are gone, that memory-verse is a place I frequent hourly. That concentrate of belonging you only get once a lifetime. After four years travelling, finding new collaborators across genres and medias and border lines, it is spoken word that I owe everything to. Thank you to Lishai Peel, Charlie Petch, Ian Keteku, Patrick De Belen, Brian Milado, Alyssa Ginsburg, Dave Silverberg, T Neumeyer, Jillian Christmas, Amber Dawn, Rachel Camacho, and the hundreds of other US organizers, coaches, and volunteers that made my years as a performing poet possible. Sometimes you love something so much, you never consider it will end. I am so lucky to have experienced it." — Cassandra Myers (My’z)
"Hope" by Nicole Ardiel, winner of the Very Small Verse contest
Like a beached oyster
holding its small breath until
the tide comes back in.
"Smash the Headlights Suite" by Cassandra Myers, winner of the Spoken Word Award
Watch: Medusa Calls the Rape Crisis Line
Watch: Sapiosexuals are Sanguivores
Watch: Everyone Wants a Tight Pussy
Watch: Patient
Nicole Ardiel is a writer of poetry and fiction. After completing a degree in Creative Writing at UVic eons ago, she took a decades-long break from writing anything other than journal entries. Upon returning with gusto to her craft, she was astonished and thrilled to be longlisted for the 2022 CBC Poetry Prize. Since then, Nicole has also been longlisted for the Nick Blatchford Occasional Verse contest, shortlisted for the Federation of BC Writers contest anthology, and published in numerous literary journals. Nicole lives, works, creates and plays on the shores of the Salish Sea, on the traditional territories of the lək̓ʷəŋən or Songhees people. She watches the ocean every day and goes through an enormous number of pen refills. Nicole can be found on Instagram at nicole_ardiel_the_writer.
Cassandra Myers (My’z) (they/she/he) is an award winning poet, performer, dancer, illustrator, and counselor from Tkaronto, Ontario. As a queer, non-binary, South-Asian-Italian, disabled survivor of sexual violence, Cassandra’s work has won multiple national literary and spoken word titles including the National Magazine GOLD Award in Poetry and Champion of the Canadian Festival of Spoken Word. Find them @cass.myers.poetry or at cassmyers.com
Jury Citations
"When asked to judge the Very Small Verse contest, I was thrilled. I love small poems, poems that can capture a whole world (or a moment that is a whole world) in only a few lines. So much is expressed here in this one clear, beautiful image and simile, and at its heart: the oyster. I may not be able to hold hope, but I could feasibly hold this oyster, and I can carry what that all means with me in the shape of this poem."
—Terrence Abrahams, Verse Small Verse contest juror
Terrence Abrahams is a poet and writer based in Toronto. His work has been published in The Ex-Puritan, This Magazine, In the Mood Magazine, Canthius, and Arc Poetry Magazine, among many others. His most recent poetry chapbooks were published with baseline press (2019) and Collusion Books (2021). His co-authored chapbook, what we call home (written with multi-disciplinary artist Cleopatria Peterson), was shortlisted for the 2022 bpNichol Chapbook Award.
“I could stay neither seated nor silent during Cassandra Myers' "Smash The Headlights Suite." The mastery of craft and precision of vision propelled me through each poem like an arrow, like the bullseye it pierces, like the quiver to which it returns. At every stage of the process, the form not only married, but elevated the content. While each poem is distinctly presented in terms of voice, colour, rhythms, settings, etc.; they bear a signature connective tissue of bivalve imagery, excoriating wit, and mesmerizing presence. Exquisite work.”
—Rasiqra Revulva, Spoken Word Award juror
photo credit: Adam Altomare
Rasiqra Revulva is a disabled queer femme writer, multi-media artist, editor, musician, and performer. She is the developer and editor of the Hybrid/Experimental Section at The Ex-Puritan Literary Magazine; one half of the experimental electronic duo The Databats (Slice Records); and a founding member of the interdisciplinary horror supergroup Take the Potion. She has published three sold-out chapbooks of glitch-illustrated and/or augmented poetry: Cephalopography (words(on)pages, 2016), If You Forget the Whipped Cream, You're No Good As A Woman (Gap Riot Press, 2018), and Sailor, C'est l'heure (The Blasted Tree, 2021). Cephalopography 2.0 (Wolsak & Wynn, 2020), is her award-nominated debut collection.
Runners-up
Runners-up in the Very Small Verse contest (listed in alphabetical order):
- "Chickadee" by Carole Giangrande
- "Prairie Rite" by Glen Greenly
- "Outing" by Ulrike Narwani
- "How to Gut a Pomelo" by Lisa Shen
- "orange peel" by Finnen Volt
Runners-up for the Spoken Word Award:
"Feeling is an Organ is a Symphony" by Lindsay Mayhew
Rasiqra Revulva’s juror comments:
“Linday Mayhew's haunting, incantatory soundscape evokes the histories and presents of women's rage and resistance through a resonant and note-perfect interweaving of content and form. Wonderfully paced, and beautifully controlled.”
"Shelter - A suite of two poems" by Marie Metaphor Specht
Rasiqra Revulva’s juror comments:
“Marie Metaphor Specht's live performances collaborating with instrumentalist and sound engineer Gabrielle Odowichuk and analogue light artist Sarah Thiessen are a perfect distillation of the intimacy, community, connection, and grounded transcendence expressed so powerfully within her writing.”
Honourable Mentions:
"Bravo" by Rohini Bannerjee
"The Letter" by Erin Guevara-Silva
"Counterintuitive" by Blessing Nwodo
"Smile Less" by Jen Selk
"I Love the Land Back" by Namitha Rathinappillai
About the Cold Moon Contests
The Very Small Verse contest invites and challenges poets to submit a poem at least six (6) words in length but no more than two hundred (200) characters. The contest is run annually November 15 – January 20. Winners are announced on March 21 (World Poetry Day). Each spring, one outstanding poem will win $300 and publication in the annual Poem In Your Pocket Day Postcard Collection.
The LCP Spoken Word Award is awarded twice annually: once in the summer/fall with the League's Summer Lovin' Contests, and once in the winter/spring with the League's Cold Moon Contests. Each $500 prize is presented to two poets for a single poem or suite of poems up to 10 minutes in length.