It has been almost twenty years since there was last a publication dedicated to works of poetry from Canadian Quakers. The last of these collections was ‘Poems from the Journey: Poetry by Friends in Canadian Yearly Meeting’, edited by Margaret Slavin Dyment in 2007. It seems to us time to bring some new material to light, and luckily the CYM Publications and Communications Committee agreed!
So, shower us with your most meaningful assortments of phrases; allow us to use your words as strands as we sew together a simple patchwork of poetry.
The poems will be reviewed and selected by a group of three Quakers from Montreal Monthly Meeting, where the project (re)spawned. We are looking for works which reflect a quakerly spirit—whatever that may mean to each author. The writing should come from a deep place; it should reveal a kernel of Truth, of Light, of Spirit. A few excerpts from the 1992 collection of Quaker poems “Turning Pages, Seeing Sky: Poetry by Friends in Canadian Yearly Meeting” (ed. Margaret Dyment) may shed some light on what is meant here.
The leaves,
they lie gently tonight,
and in them death seems quite without malice.
– Excerpt of ‘Reading in Meaning’ by Denise Cammiade
when the trees come green,
after a night’s blackening
under a cobalt sky,
and pale pink light slowly spills
over the early morning wash
of a thousand bird cries,
where will you be
– Excerpt of ‘June Question’ by Cornelia C. Hornosty
Here are some more practical details:
- Submissions should be no more than 108 lines, and a maximum of 72 lines from a single person will be published. This means we may publish multiple shorter poems.
- Poems in both English and French are welcome.
- Submissions will be accepted until the 31st of August 2026, and should be sent to canadianpoetryfriends@gmail.com.
Eagerly awaiting your words, Sascha, Geoffreyjen, and Wendy from Montreal Monthly Meeting