bpNichol Chapbook Poetry Award

In the spirit of the original Phoenix Chapbook Award, which was adjudicated for its first two years by Frank Davey and bpNichol, and continued as the bpNichol Chapbook Award for 23 years by Phoenix Community Works Foundation, the award recognizes excellence in Canadian poetry published in chapbook form. With the demise of Phoenix Community Works Foundation, the Meet the Presses collective is pleased to assume management of the award. Meet the Presses is a Toronto-based collective devoted to promoting micro, small and independent literary presses. This collective has come together in the spirit of the original Meet the Presses event begun in Toronto in the mid-1980s by Nicholas Power and Stuart Ross. Members of Meet the Presses have organized a variety of curated public events, and all the events focus on independent publishers of fiction, poetry, and creative non-fiction. Meet the Presses – an unfunded and non-profit collective – consists of members Gary Barwin, Paul Dutton, Maria Erskine, Ally Fleming, Beth Follett, Leigh Nash, Nicholas Power, Stuart Ross, and Carey Toane.

Chapbooks written by members of the Meet the Presses collective are ineligible for the award. Authors of chapbooks published by members of the collective remain eligible for the award.

WINNERS OF THE BPNICHOL CHAPBOOK AWARD

2012
Adrienne Gruber, Mimic (Leaf Press)

2011
Claudia Coutu Radmore, Accidentals (Apt. 9 Press)

2010
Alisha Piercy, You have hair like flags, flags that point in many directions at once but cannot pinpoint land when lost at sea (Your Lips to Mine Press)

2009
Gary Barwin, Inverting the Deer.

Sandra Ridley, Lift: Ghazals for C. (JackPine Press)

2008
Jay Millar, Lack Lyrics & Cara Benson, Quantum Chaos & Poems.

2007
Jake Kennedy, Hazard (information on Hazard available below in the attached pdf)

2006
Steven Ross Smith, Hilary Clark, Betsy Rosenwald: Pliny’s Knickers

2005
Lisa Robertson, Rousseau’s Boat

2004
Susan Clark, as lit x: the syntax of adoration (Friends of Runcible)
Barry McKinnon, Bolivia/Peru (Gorse Press)

2003
Allan Brown, Imagines (Leaf Press)
Stan Dragland, 12 Bars (Running the Goat Books)

2002
Robert Kroetsch, The New World and Finding It (Mother Tongue Press)

2001
M.W. Field, The Sapphire Morpho

2000
Hilary Mosher, Buri Frau Rontgen’s Hand (Published by Outlaw Editions)

1999
P.K. Page, Alphabetical

1998
Nicole Marcotic, More Excess

1997
Lance Blomgren, Liner and Manual for Beginners

1996
Janice Williamson, A Boy Named

1995
Barry McKinnon, Arrythmia

1994
Mathew Remski, Organon Vocis Orgnalis: bk.II of Aerial Sonography

1993
George Bowering, Do Sink

1992
George Bowering, Quarters & Theresa Kishkan, Morning Glory

1991
Susan Musgrave, In The Small Hours of The Rain

1990
Mary Howes, QHS

1989
Paul Dutton, Additives

1988
Robin Blaser, The Faerie Queen and the Park
Nicole Brossard, Sous La Langue/Under Tongue

1987
David Donnell, The Natural History of Water

1986
Mark Laba, The Mac Bolan Poems