Get ready, Airdrie Transit users – locally written poems are coming soon to a bus near you.
The Airdrie Public Library (APL) is hosting its annual Poetry in Motion contest this month, for the fourth year in a row.
Open to anyone with an APL card, which is free for Airdrie residents, the contest is accepting poems in two different categories – youth ages 13 to 17, and an open category for those 18 and older.
The poems can be no longer than 11 lines, including the title, and should be submitted in a PDF format. Local poets can submit up to three poems to the contest and the winners will be announced in early September.
Aside from these guidelines, those interested are encouraged to submit all kinds of work, regardless of the content.
“It’s poetry – we’re not going to censor them, they can write whatever they’re feeling,” said APL programming and customer engagement manager, Eric Pottie.
Interested scribes have until June 30 to submit their poems, and can do so by visiting bit.ly/3zrhP3u.
Winners will be selected for both categories and each winner will receive a $100 gift card to a bookstore of their choosing, in addition to having their poem printed on Airdrie Transit’s Inter City Express (ICE) bus, which travels daily to downtown Calgary from Airdrie.
Although this year’s judge has not been confirmed yet, it will, as usual, be an Albertan poet, according to Pottie.
Four runners-up will also be selected during blind judging, and they will also have their poems featured on a local bus. Airdrie's public transit users can expect to see six different poems starting in September, in conjunction with Alberta Culture Days.
Pottie said the motivation behind Poetry in Motion is to showcase the talents of local writers.
“I know a lot of people [who] think of Airdrie as a bedroom community in Calgary but there are a lot of people here who are very talented, very creative, who get lost in the shuffle because of how big Calgary is,” Pottie added. “We wanted to be able to offer a program that allows for the creative side of Airdrie to be on display.”
The contest also invites new poetry readers to explore the hobby and promotes Airdrie’s local library, Pottie added.
“We’re hoping to reach people who may not be reading poetry…but [it’ll] be on a bus, they can see local people who have written poetry and maybe get inspired themselves to try writing or reading poetry,” he said.
Now in its fourth year, the contest has received steady growth since 2019 and Pottie is hoping to receive between 40 and 70 poems this year. In particular, Pottie has noticed the youth category receiving more poems year after year.
“It’s great to see the youth here in Airdrie are getting more involved,” he said.
The contest is becoming an annual tradition, according to Pottie, who is committed to hosting the contest so long as Airdrie residents remain interested and the City of Airdrie continues to work with the library.
Partnering with the City’s community development branch, the Poetry in Motion contest idea came from a collaboration meeting between staff from the City and the APL.
The APL and the City wanted to highlight the talent within Airdrie and by placing the poems on the bus, the organizations were able to reach readers they otherwise might not have, Pottie said.
“We wanted to be able to showcase to people how great the people of Airdrie can be,” Pottie said. “Hopefully, [we’ll] get them inspired to try it themselves or come into the library and get some poetry books.”
