The Power Plant

The Power Plant and the Toronto International Festival of Authors are excited to co-present POWER OF THE POETS, an ekphrastic poetry competition!

Ekphrastic poetry is poetry written about a work of art, often striving to connect what we see with feelings, memories and other insights. Well known examples include Ode on a Grecian Urn by John Keats and Landscape with the Fall of Icarus by William Carlos Williams.

In celebration of April as National Poetry Month, we invite YOU to write your own ekphrastic poem, inspired by one of The Power Plant’s five Clerestory Commissions:
Carlos Amorales,
Latifa Echakhch,
Michael Landy,
Abbas Akhavan, Rashid Johnson,
Submissions were assessed by pre-judges as well as special guest judge A.F. Moritz, Toronto’s sixth poet laureate. Winners will receive prize packs from TIFA and The Power Plant!

ABOUT A.F. MORITZ

Al Moritz (A.F. Moritz) is Toronto’s sixth Poet Laureate. Described as a “master of metaphor,” Al Moritz has published 20 books of poetry and was the 2009 Griffin Poetry Prize winner for The Sentinel. His book The New Measures received the League of Canadian Poets’ 2013 Raymond Souster Award and was a finalist for the Governor General’s Award. His most recent work is the 2018 retrospective collection The Sparrow. He lives in Toronto and is the Blake C. Goldring Professor of the Arts and Society at Victoria College, University of Toronto.

WINNERS

Ellen Chang-Richardson, All we are, are cavities
Inspired by Abbas Akhavan's variations on a landscape

Shannon Quinn, A Beautiful Math Inspired by Carlos Amorales' Black Cloud

Antranik Tchalekian, Fragments/ memory (after Cross Fade) Inspired by Latifa Echakhch's Cross Fade

Karen Sylvia Rockwell, exposure therapy Inspired by Rashid Johnson's Anxious Audience

Eleni Gouliaras, Capitalism *2mg Inspired by Michael Landy's DEMONSTRATION

CO-PRESENTED WITH