Andrea Pynisky is the winner of this year’s Janice Colbert Poetry Award.
Created by award-winning poet Janice Colbert in 2012, the Janice Colbert Poetry Award honours SCS learners who have created a piece of poetry that moves us.
Colbert previously completed the SCS Creative Writing Certificate herself, and her generosity helps to celebrate and support her fellow poets. This annual honour is valued at $1,000, plus two finalist awards of $500 each.
This year’s first prize has been awarded to Andrea Pynisky, with finalist prizes earned by Avie Herman, and Anne Pollard.
Andrea Pynisky is a higher education professional and emerging writer currently completing a certificate in Creative Writing. She holds a B.A. and M.Ed. from the University of Toronto and has taught learning strategies to post-secondary students. Andrea enjoys writing across genres and is working on a collection of poetry. She lives in Toronto with her husband, daughter, and dog.
Poet and award adjudicator Cassidy McFadzean says “From the captivating ‘Milky Way Motion in 3D from Gaia’ to the playful ‘Last Lunch in Cobourg’ and the elegiac ‘Birds,’ Andrea Pynisky's poems demonstrate an impressive range of subjects and settings. Each is written with beautifully precise language, curiosity for the world, and engagement with the ordinary. There is much to admire in these poems’ remarkable imagery and striking yet subtle observations on daily life."
$500 Winners
Avie Herman holds an English degree from Yeshiva University in New York, where she received the English Department Award for Creative Writing. Her writing has appeared in several publications, most notably Today’s Parent magazine and the Kveller parenting blog. She recently completed University of Toronto’s Certificate in Creative Writing, mentored by Alexandra Oliver. Avie lives just outside Toronto with her husband and children, where they are members of its vibrant and diverse Jewish community. You can find her at avieherman.com or hiding in a corner with a book.
Pujita Verma, poet, former Janice Colbert Award Winner and award adjudicator shares the following about Herman’s submission: “From the scale of cellular differentiation to the mysteries of deep space, Avie Herman’s ‘Curve’ bridges scientific inquiry with intimate reflections on all that we carry. These poems trace the many arcs of motherhood, pregnancy, pandemics, and memory. Herman’s language is inventive and visceral, yet remains deeply tender, gently revealing how life’s most profound moments rarely unfold in straight lines.”
Anne Pollard has been a pizza cook, a teacher of English as a Second Language, a census-taker, a rabble-rouser, and an adoption educator. She lives in Hamilton, Ontario on the traditional territories of the Erie, Neutral, Huron-Wendat, Haudenosaunee, and the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation with 4/6 of her most wonderful family. Her first published poem, “Twenty-One Things God Could Have Said to Eve Instead,” appeared this spring in Arc 109.
“In ‘Portrait of My Mother, Dying’, Anne Pollard’s assured poems delve into grief and loss, while exploring and exposing familial bonds and the service that love requires. These unsentimental, almost surreal poems expose the grotesquerie of the body and how the corpus functions with a deep sense of love and generosity. Through the quotidian and seemingly mundane, Pollard uncovers the profound sense of loss in the small details of life,” says award adjudicator, poet, SCS CW graduate, and Janice Colbert Award Winner, Kerri Huffman.
Ready to bring your poetry to life? Learn about our poetry courses being offered this year.