Take your seats! The 2014 Winners Announcement

NISA is happy to announce that the winners have been selected for the 12^th Annual BrainStorm Poetry Contest for mental health consumers and survivors. With 264 entries, the contest was smaller than other years, but still presented a wealth of poetry for our judges to review. Poets from across Canada, the USA and even from Australia submitted their work on topics ranging from love and lovers, zen and cats, trains and superheroes, friendship and fig trees, to the very particular experiences of depression, mania and psychosis. The judges had plenty of material over which to exclaim and debate.

Poems were blind-judged by three judges with experience in writing, reading and mental health issues. The 34 finalists were scored against pre-set criteria, and the winners were chosen from the best-scoring poems. The winning poems exhibit strength in imagery, attention to the sound of language, and left the readers with a sensation long after they were read. A lively debate in the final judging with three strong aesthetic personalities rightly decided, in our view, on the following poems as winners:

FIRST PLACE

Quebec City
Ashley Laframboise
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

SECOND PLACE

Airport, Heavy Water
Tyler Gabrysh
Victoria, British Columbia, Canada

THIRD PLACE

Waiting to be Found
Aaron Simkin
Toronto, Ontario, Canada

WITH HONOURABLE MENTIONS TO:

an echo
Sophie Soil
Thornhill, Ontario, Canada

As She Gently Brushed My Hair
Sandy Jeffs
Christmas Hills, Victoria, Australia

With a huge love shattering my heart
Georgina Paul
Medicine Hat, Alberta, Canada

Medicated
Sandy Jeffs
Christmas Hills, Victoria, Australia

NISA thanks all of the poets who participated in our BrainStorm Poetry Contest for sharing their words and their innermost thoughts in poetry. We recognize the effort you took in preparing your entries and supporting this modest fundraiser for Open Minds Quarterly, and we want to ensure you that all poems received were indeed read. Thanks are also extended to Krista Hembruff and Audrey O’Brien for their assistance in administering the contest.