Meeting Jibreel
Majda Gama
“Meeting Jibreel” is the honourable mention for Room’s Poetry Contest 2020, as selected by judge Canisia Lubrin.
In my Quranic primer of short, & long, verses
I scrawled in the margins with metallic ink.
I learned the name of an angel, as my body
Shaped a conduit from aya to hand to pen.
I grounded pre-teen words like “cool” & “ok”
While the class chanted the story of visitation
Beneath a palm tree. A woman name Maryam
& the winged Malak whose message
Must have knocked her into his feathered arms
Without doubt or hesitation because Jibreel
Was the messenger & the body of a man together.
Poetry Contest 2020: The Winners
We are thrilled to finally share the final results of our 2020 Poetry Contest! Huge congratulations to the following three poets, whose works have been selected by our acclaimed judge, Canisia Lubrin, as the winners and honourable mention for our 2020 Poetry Contest!
1st Place Winner: Cara Waterfall
Ottawa-born and Costa Rica-based, Cara’s work has been featured in Best Canadian Poetry, The Fiddlehead, Frontier Poetry and more. She has won Room’s Short Forms Contest and PULPLit’s 2020 Editors’ Prize, and been shortlisted for the CBC Poetry Prize. She has a Poetry & Lyric Discourse diploma from SFU’s The Writer’s Studio. Her portfolio can be found at www.carawaterfall.com.
Poetry Contest 2020: The Shortlist
Ten writers have made our 2020 Poetry Contest Shortlist. Big thank you to our esteemed judge, Canisia Lubrin, for her work, and congrats to these talented poets!
“alternate universe in which my trauma response is made of birds” by Lisa Baird
“After Life” by Marika Prokosh
“Materia Medica” by Nikki Sheppy
“Eulogy” by Fran Westwood
“Heirloom” by Cara Waterfall
“Pocketed Roots”, by Erin Goheen
If you are curious to know which shortlisted poems are ultimately selected by our judge as the top three submissions, stay in touch; the announcement will be made before the year is out. While you’re here, check out our 2020 Cover Art Contest which is closing in early January.