Editor’s Notes

I start this issue’s personal message to you with good news. The City of Ottawa has given us a small infusion of money that, along with corporate sponsorships, private donations and sales revenues, will help to ensure that the remaining issues of the Bywords Quarterly Journal will be published as planned this year.

My focus for this issue is volunteers. As I’ve said in the past, Bywords relies on the hard work and positive attitudes of its volunteers. If you love poetry and literary events, and you want to help us with our goals of showcasing Ottawa’s talented poets, please volunteer for any of the items below or suggest something new. To volunteer, e-mail volunteers@bywords.ca and specify which items you’d like to help with and why.

Artwork: in the future we intend to update the artwork in the BQJ, and add artwork to Bywords.ca. If you are an artist who can do work on the computer, consider joining us.

BQJ Distribution: the journal is now available in numerous bookstores around town, but we haven’t covered the city completely yet.

Calendar distribution: in addition to our online calendar, we also print and distribute an informative and colourful calendar at the beginning of each month. Currently it is handed out at local readings, and distributed to a few businesses on Bank Street and a bit in the Market, and mailed to libraries. We need distributors for as many parts of the city as possible from Sandy Hill to the suburbs of Gloucester and Kanata. We need to get calendars into bookstores, libraries, cafes, pubs...anywhere the writing and reading public loiter, lounge or levitate.

Treasure Hunt for Lost Poets: if you were published in the 20th century Bywords, or know of someone who was, contact us at lostpoets@bywords.ca. We need your permission before we can republish your work.

Money: If you are feeling generous, and think what Bywords is doing is worthwhile, send a cheque to us made out to Bywords.

Music: we hold readings each quarter to celebrate and hear the work of poets published in the BQJ and on Bywords.ca. We’d like to add music to make the celebrations sing!

Previews: if your poetry is being published in 2003, drop us a line. We’ll consider publishing a preview in an upcoming issue of Bywords.ca, provided your publisher grants us permission.

Typing: We have a very large archive of 11 years of poetry from the 20th century Bywords, and much of it is not available electronically. We are gradually contacting previously published poets to get their permission to republish these wonderful poetic gems. We need typing genies to word process the older issues which may not be available electronically any more.

Web links: if you consult other poetry or literary websites that are local, let us know what they are, and we’ll add them. We want Bywords.ca to be the focal point for poetry in Ottawa.

I’m sure I’ve forgotten numerous other activities. If you have ever worked on a poetry publication, you could probably give us advice, so please do so!

Thanks to Steve, Megan, Stephanie and Krisha for their help in selecting the poems this month.

Thank you to those of you who sent poems in for consideration as well. We’d just be a blank meaningless screen without you.

Please consider subscribing to Bywords. Click on the Quarterly Journal button to the left to find out how and how much.

If you have any advice, comments, praise or support, please e-mail me at editor@bywords.ca