I am pleased to announce that Richard-Yves Sitoski has won the Bywords.ca 2021 John Newlove Poetry Award for his poem, "Air Kiss" published on Bywords.ca in November, 2020.
 

This year's judge was Elee Kraljii Gardiner.

"I feel the kindred recognition of the ridiculousness of being human. Richard-Yves Sitoski has lifted a regular moment into something both glittering and poignant that for a moment made me forget about routine, expectation, order. This poem cleaned my smeared glasses and straightened my collar. Here I am, buoyed and mentally reorganized to face another pandemic day."

The annual John Newlove Poetry award, launched in the fall of 2004, commemorates the honest, poignant and well-written poetry of John Newlove, an Ottawa resident for almost twenty years and poet who died in 2003.