Tag: poetry contest

Into the Mist by Josie Di Sciascio-Andrews

di sciascio andrews
Josie Di Sciascio-Andrews

I remember hearing it before seeing it.
Feeling in the heart its cosmic hum.

Pulse of blood rushing to the temples.
Heavy rollercoastering roar of current.

Its turquoise, jade body inescapably ceding
to gravity’s ominous pull.

It was that high tide inside oneself. Immensity’s
perpetual aortic leap into the drop of the abyss.

As I look at the erasures of us in those faded
Polaroids & Kodaks, only now I realize that we

too, amidst those endless crowds of tourists,
were no more than drops of water falling.

H2O particles. Spritz from life’s colossal flow.
River of consciousness eternally brimming,

cascading over the escarpment or the universe.
Niagara Falls was our refuge from tedium.

So many times we went down there from sweltering
Sunday afternoons for a change in atmosphere.

How wondrous when visitors came from overseas
yearning to see the Honeymoon Capital of the World!

Gladly we drove them through the highways
to wine country, Clifton Hill & Lundy’s Lane.

We sat and picnicked on the grass
where multitudes had stood before.

They say the sun was out when Annie Edson
survived her barrel trip over God’s water slide.

They say her agents had wolfish eyes.
 Just tried to make a buck out of her skill.

But they too are gone now. I saw postcards
of her story and her name’s in all the gift shops.

The world’s sightseers are all here taking photos
& buying souvenirs. Soon they will drive off

to be replaced tomorrow and tomorrow
after that by new faces in search of wonder,

each one repeating, sparkling, falling
on the radiant, arched green of time’s precipice.

Invisible life force calling all of our names.
Oh mighty river, my heart is in your hands!

Source: The author, 2026. 

This poem won second place in the Niagara Falls Poetry Project 25th Anniversary Poetry Competition. It will be published with all the other entrants in a print anthology to be published by Phylum Press. To reserve a copy of the anthology please email aporteus@niagarapoetry.ca. A companion volume exploring the poetry over 6 centuries will also soon be available, and may be reserved ahead of time.

Josie Di Sciascio-Andrews has written seven collections of poetry and two non-fiction books. Her work appears in various journals and anthologies among which: Canadian Literature, The Malahat Review, Descant, The Canada Literary Review, Acta Victoriana, Canadian Poetry Review, The Blue Nib and Lothlorien, among others. Her poetry won first prize in the 2023 International Poetry Prize in Rome’s Antonio De Ferraris contest. Her poem “The First Time I Heard Leonard Cohen” was nominated for the 2022 Pushcart Prize. Her latest book of poems, A Nomenclature for Light was released September 2025 by Mosaic Press. One of her poems “Quantum Sparks in the Tabernacle,” was the first place winner of the 2025 Ontario Poetry Society’s Long Poem Prize. Josie is a member of The League of Canadian Poets, the Ontario Poetry Society, the Italian Canadian Writers Association and The Heliconian Club for Women in the Literary Arts. She teaches workshops for Poetry in Voice and is the host & coordinator of The Oakville Literary Cafe series.

Before I Met Niagara by Kunal Sharma

sharma
Kunal Sharma

My first lesson in water
was not from a map.

I stood a little apart
while my brother
placed my grandfather into the Ganga.

At Har Ki Pauri,
a priest kept chanting Sanskrit shlokas
without looking up.

The water felt high that day
but the river stayed calm.

That calmness felt strange to me.

Temple bells rang from far away—
not loud, just continuing.

It felt like a sound
meant to say goodbye
when words are not enough.

Later, in Delhi,
I saw another river in passing.

The Yamuna
moving through dust and distance,
as if it had learned
not to expect attention.

Then one day—
a photograph.

Niagara.

I did not understand it at first.

Just water
breaking its own edge
and refusing to stop.

I have never stood there.

But I see it like this:

people leaning hard on railings,
wind pulling at their sleeves,
mist already stuck on skin
before anyone notices.

The sound would not feel like water.

It would feel like something constant
hitting the air.

And beyond it—

the Horseshoe Falls
curving wide,
as if the earth has opened
and forgotten to close again.

I think of how water behaves.

At Har Ki Pauri,
it carried ash, prayer, silence—
And kept moving as if nothing had changed.

At Niagara,
it keeps falling
as if falling is the only thing it knows.

One day I will stand there.

I will not arrive empty.

That moment at the river
will already be inside me—

the priest’s voice,
the bells from far away,
my brother’s hands steady in water,
and me standing aside
not knowing where to look.

All of it
moving quietly together
when I finally face that falling water.

Source: The author, 2026

Kunal Sharma is a poet from Delhi, India. He explore memory, travel, and the emotional presence of landscapes in his writing.

This poem won an Honourable Mention in the Niagara Falls Poetry Project 25th Anniversary Poetry Competition. It will be published with all the other entrants in a print anthology to be published by Phylum Press. To reserve a copy of the anthology please email aporteus@niagarapoetry.ca

 

 

 

 

Please join me at Local on the Niagara Falls Night of Art

night of art

Please join me at Local on Thursday, September 17, from 7pm-9pm for an open mic event.

 

This event is being held during the Niagara Falls Night of Art 2026 celebration. The Local is a few steps south of The Exchange campus, the principal Night of Art venue.

 

We’re hoping to announce the short list of finalists for the Niagara Falls Poetry Project 25th Anniversary Poetry Contest, as well as reading some of them.

 

If you’d like to read a couple of your poems, please drop a line to aporteus@niagarapoetry.ca 

 

Hope to see you there!

Directions to Local

The Contest is finished!

finished
The 25th Anniversary Poetry Contest submission period has now finished. Thanks to all of the people who submitted their poems.

Poems came from across North America, with others from the United Kingdom, Sweden, India, Indonesia, and a few that I don’t know where they’re from.

The poems are now going into the judges’ hands for scoring. Once they come back to me I will tally the scores and then be able to announce the winners. The winners’ poems will be added to the website at that point. I don’t envy the judges during the scoring process. There were so many good poems that were entered it will be hard to make a decision.

As the judging is being done I will be selecting and compiling the poems into book format (depending on the size and cost of the book not all entires may necessarily be added to the book). That will be completed after the winners are announced, and the manuscript will be sent to Phylum Press to complete the printing process, with the publication date to be announced later. We will be taking advance orders.

After the book is published the non-winning entries will be added to the website. 

Once again, thanks to all of the poets from around the world who entered the contest.

ONE WEEK LEFT!!

left

We’re getting down to the wire!  There is one week left to submit your poem about Niagara Falls to the Niagara Falls Poetry Project 25th Anniversary Poetry Contest!!

The judges have sharpened their pencils and are eagerly awaiting reading the submissions!

The curator is feverishly working at getting all of the submission ready for the print anthology of the winners and contestants that will hopefully be available later this year.

All we need is ….. your poem.

Click here to see all of the info you need to submit your poem.