2025 Cold Moon Contest winners
Congratulations to the winners of the 2025 Cold Moon Contests!
The League of Canadian Poets is proud to present the winners of the 2025 Cold Moon Contests: MayaSpoken's "real love says," winner of the Very Small Verse contest, and Dr. Micheline Maylor's "Motorcycle, motorcycle," winner of the National Broadsheet Contest.
"Motorcycle, motorcycle" by Dr. Micheline Maylor
"real love says" by MayaSpoken
Motorcycle, motorcycle
- for Richard Osler
The wasp men of the granite valley
buzz-buzz down the highway at dawn,
leather crusted, dangerously tilting
at blind corners. Belligerent riders
wind in their cuffs. My friend is dying,
one province over. I wish one of these
flying boys would pick me up and take me
to the sumptuous mound of heaven
at the centre of a brown-eyed Susan,
so plump in the autumn sunlight, that I might
grasp the petals on the face of death,
yellow as my belly in the last days of life.
Ephemeral as one yellow insect, yellow as the last
sparked colour on the last summer sunset ride.
real love says
real love says
"you are enough"
before
you even try to be
“A meditation on living courageously and a tribute to a poet and friend, “Motorcycle, motorcycle” bends reality around the metaphoric head of a flower in a way only a self-knowing poem can. The poet's tactile language, keen ear for sound, and rhythmic trio of similes in the end make the poem buzz with yellow energy and emotional impact.”
—Jessica Lee McMillan, National Broadsheet Contest juror and winner of the 2024 National Broadsheet Contest
"In an era of constant comparison and endless scrolling on social media platforms, this poignant poem offers a refreshing and vital reminder: real love doesn’t require validation or approval from the outside world. It speaks to our collective anxieties—whether about money, appearance or worthiness, and is a powerful call to honour genuine human connections. This beautiful little poem is a reminder that true love sees us, knows us, and embraces us just as we are."
—Kelly Madden, Very Small Verse juror and winner of the 2024 Very Small Verse contest
Dr. Micheline Maylor is a Poet Laureate emerita of Calgary (2016-18). She was awarded the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee Award for literary contributions to Alberta in 2022. She is a Walrus talker, a TEDX talker, and she a past Calgary Public Library Author in Residence (2016). Her most recent book, The Bad Wife (U of A Press 2021), won the BPAA Robert Kroetsch Award for best book of Alberta poetry and has been translated into Italian La Cattiva Moglie (iQdB). She was short-listed for the Exile Robert Kroetsch award for experimental poetry. She won the Lois Hole Award for Editorial excellence for poetry in Alberta (2019). Her poems have recently been translated into Italian, Farsi, and Chinese.
MayaSpoken is an award-winning multidisciplinary spoken word artist. She is the author of self-published poetry novel “Warriors in Broad Daylight” and founder of platforms such as Spoken in the City Poetry Slam, Tell 'Em Girl Women’s Spoken Word Showcase, and Loud Black Girls, where local poets are invited to share their stories loudly and without apology.
A two-time champion of Ottawa’s largest poetry slam OG500, Maya was also crowned the 2023 Canadian Individual Spoken Word Champion and ranked 4th across the Americas. Her poetry is published internationally in anthologies “De las Periferias a las Fronteras” and “Poesía Y Disidencias” (2024), as well as CBC and “Black Ottawa Scene Magazine”. Through spoken word Maya tells her own story of overcoming to contribute to the urgency of larger conversations surrounding collective liberation and justice for all.
About the Cold Moon Contests
The Very Small Verse Contest and the Broadsheet Contest are run annually November 15 – January 20. Winners announced on March 21 (World Poetry Day).
Each spring, two outstanding poems will win $300 and publication in the annual Poem In Your Pocket Day Postcard Collection.
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.
What is a broadsheet? By definition, a broadsheet is a large piece of paper printed with information on one side only. In the world of poetry, a broadsheet is a great format in which to share or showcase one stand-out poem – winning the National Broadsheet Contest will surely do both!