2026 Pamela Paige Porter Poetry Prize: Winner Announcement
Congratulations to Ellie Sawatzky, winner of the inaugural Pamela Paige Porter Poetry Prize!
Congratulations to Ellie Sawatzky, winner of the 2026 Pamela Paige Porter Poetry Prize (PPPPP).
The PPPPP awards an annual prize of $2,000 to a book-length collection of poetry that demonstrates a masterful execution of the themes of the beauty and meaning found in everyday life, empathy and connection to nature, wonder in creation, celebration of the natural world, grief in witnessing the destruction of nature, and hope for healing and conserving the environment we all share – all themes that are present in the work of Pamela Porter.
Jury statement:
"From the first page, Hottest Smartest Self announces a voice that is unmistakably its own—restless, surprising, and alive to the possibilities of language. These poems resist polish and easy cohesion. Instead, the collection embraces risk, strangeness, and a syntax that continually turns away from predictability as it captures the minutiae of everyday life in tandem with the world on the brink of collapse. Not every moment resolves or convinces, but the collection’s daringness—its willingness to be excessive, to reach, even to falter—is its central strength. It is this unpredictability, this sense that anything might happen line to line, that compels rereading and ultimately sets the book apart as a linguistically vibrant and memorable collection of poetry."
Ellie Sawatzky (@elliesawatzky) grew up in the territory of the Anishinaabe Nation in Treaty 3 (Kenora, Ontario), and currently lives, works, and plays on the unceded, ancestral, and traditional territory of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh peoples (Vancouver). A UBC MFA alum, she is the author of two poetry collections: None of This Belongs to Me (Nightwood Editions, 2021) and Hottest Smartest Self (ECW Press, forthcoming spring 2028). Recent poems have appeared in The Walrus, The Fiddlehead, EVENT, and elsewhere. She works as an editor and is founder and facilitator of the Strathcona Poetry Studio. Write with her on Tuesdays at Tuesday Night Write, a drop-in style, generative poetry class on Zoom.
About Pamela Paige Porter
Born in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Pamela Porter earned a Bachelor of Arts in Creative Writing from Southern Methodist University, Dallas, TX, in 1978, and a Masters of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from University of Montana, Missoula, MT, in 1980, where she studied under Richard Hugo. Pamela immigrated to Canada in 1994, where she joined workshops with Patrick Lane and Lorna Crozier. Patrick Lane called her "a poet to be grateful for." Her work has earned many accolades, including the inaugural Gwendolyn MacEwan Poetry Prize, the Malahat Review's 50th Anniversary Poetry Prize, the Our Times Poetry Award for political poetry, the FreeFall Magazine Poetry Award, the Prism International Grand Prize in Poetry, the Vallum Magazine Poem of the Year Award, as well as the Raymond Souster and Pat Lowther Award shortlists. Her novel in verse, The Crazy Man, won the Governor General's Award, the Canadian Library Association Book of the Year for Children Award, the TD Canadian Children's Literature Award and a multitude of other prizes. Both The Crazy Man and her later novel in verse, I'll Be Watching, are required reading in schools and colleges across Canada and the U.S. Pamela lives on a farm near Sidney, B.C., with a menagerie of rescued horses, dogs and cats.