Manuel Mathieu, Resilience – a Landscape of Desire, 2020. Fabric, ink, and dust on canvas, 80 x 110 in. Courtesy the artist. Installation view: World Discovered Under Other Skies, The Power Plant, Toronto, 2020. Photo: Toni Hafkenscheid.

The Power Plant and the Toronto International Festival of Authors (TIFA) are excited to co-present POWER OF THE POETS 2, an ekphrastic poetry contest!

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 Fall 2020 exhibitions:

• Howie Tsui: From swelling shadows, we draw our bows
• Manuel Mathieu: World Discovered Under Other Skies
• Nathan Eugene Carson: Cut from the same cloth

To view the exhibitions online, including links to audio of the wall texts and Slow Looking tour stops, please click HERE.

Submissions are due via the form below by 11:59 PM on Friday, April 30, 2021 and will be pre-judged by Roland Gulliver, Director of TIFA, then judged by Elder Duke Redbird. Winners and Honourable Mentions will receive prize packs from TIFA and The Power Plant!

The contest is now closed.