Congratulations to Kevin Andrew Heslop, winner of the 2022-2023 Very Small Verse Contest!

Toulouse’s uncharacteristic heat
Kevin Andrew Heslop

brings seventy grandmothers’ begonias from the house to the balcony out of season.

Kevin Andrew Heslop is. Debut: the correct fury of your why is a mountain (Gordon Hill Press, Fall 2021). Lately:six feet | between us(McIntosh Gallery, Winter 2022); Revelations: Gathie Falk (Centred Magazine, Winter 2023). Forthcoming: in medias res  (Westland Gallery, Spring 2023);  mo(u)vements.  (Astoria Pictures, Summer 2023); you are not required to complete the task; neither are you free to desist from it  (Rose Garden Press, Spring 2024). Supported in part by the London Arts Council, Ontario Arts Council, and Canada Council for the Arts.

Listen to “Toulouse’s uncharacteristic heat” by Kevin Andrew Heslop

Kevin Andrew Heslop is. Debut: the correct fury of your why is a mountain (Gordon Hill Press, Fall 2021). Lately:six feet | between us(McIntosh Gallery, Winter 2022); Revelations: Gathie Falk (Centred Magazine, Winter 2023). Forthcoming: in medias res (Westland Gallery, Spring 2023); mo(u)vements. (Astoria Pictures, Summer 2023); you are not required to complete the task; neither are you free to desist from it (Rose Garden Press, Spring 2024). Supported in part by the London Arts Council, Ontario Arts Council, and Canada Council for the Arts.

Kevin has won $300, publication in the 2023 Poem In Your Pocket Day Booklet, as well as have their poem professionally designed and printed on a tote bag.  

The juror for this year’s Very Small Verse Contest was Cameron Anstee. Thank you for your hard work Cameron!

From our 2022-2023 juror, Cameron Anstee:

Among the many exceptional poems submitted to the Very Small Verse Contest, “Toulouse’s uncharacteristic heat” is remarkable. In addition to concisely offering its reader a striking image that captures both ecological and human scales, it does what many of the best small poems do—it pushes at its own formal boundaries. In this case, the very small poem is a single very long line. The tension in the poem derived from the “uncharacteristic heat” arriving “out of season” is matched by the tension between writing a poem one-line in length, but a line that is itself uncharacteristically long at twenty-two syllables. It is poem deserving of this prize, and I am proud to select it.

Cameron Anstee is the author of two collections of poetry, Sheets: Typewriter Works (Invisible Publishing, 2022) and Book of Annotations (Invisible Publishing, 2018), and the editor of The Collected Poems of William Hawkins (Chaudiere Books, 2015). He is the editor and publisher of Apt. 9 Press and holds a Ph.D. in English Literature from the University of Ottawa. He lives and writes in Ottawa on the traditional unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishnaabeg people. cameronantsee.com

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LCP 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 League of Canadian Poets Cold Moon Contests, comprising of the Very Small Verse Contest and Broadsheet Contest are run annually November 15 – January 20, and winners are announced on World Poetry Day (March 21).