Meet Jake Byrne, winner of the 2019 Foster Poetry Prize! Jake writes beautiful poetry and funny tweets (@jakebyrnewrites) and will also be featured in our upcoming Daddy Issue! Read on to learn more about Jake and his experience winning the contest.
“I give a bit of a reflection on the process of writing the poem in CV2‘s Daddy Issue. My experience winning it was pretty funny. I’d had no word from the contest in a few months — at least three or four, which is typical for contests. Then CV2 emailed me to let me know I’d won and, was it alright if they published the news in an hour? No longlist, no shortlist, just the nicest surprise I’ve ever found in my inbox. I felt so giddy I had to abandon my set at the gym.”
Jake Byrne is a writer who lives in Tkaronto, on lands governed by the Dish with One Spoon Covenant that belong to the Anishnaabek, the Huron-Wendat, the Mississaugas of the Credit River and the Haudenosaunee nations. Jake won the Foster Poetry Prize for 2019. Find an updated list of Jake’s published work at www.jakebyrnewrit.es.
Many thanks, Jake! We’ll forgive you for the light shade about our response time on your win if you’ll forgive us for the wait.
Be like Jake! Submit to the Foster Poetry Prize, and who knows — we may find a way to get you out of a workout.
*Photo credit: Jessica Laforet.