James McIntryre Poetry contest on national radio

The CBC follows all the big literary awards – the Governor General’s Awards, the CBC Literary Awards, the Gilller Prize. But this Monday at 1:00 p.m. on Radio One, Shelagh Rogers will look at the most important literary event of all: Ingersoll, Ontario’s James McIntyre Poetry contest.

Shelagh won’t be announcing all the winners on air – well, how could she? In the juvenile division alone, I named 40 winners, including 17 in first place. And goodness knows how many winners there are in the adult category. However, the James McIntyre contest includes a special award for Cheese Poems and Dairy Odes, and rumour has it that the winners in that category will be announced on-air. Maybe we’ll even get to hear one of the poems. Or perhaps we'll hear James McIntyre's infamous Ode to the Mammoth Cheese.

More about the James McIntyre Poetry Contest here.
And you can read a selection of James McIntyre’s famously awful verse here.

Note: For information about Brian Henry’s writing workshops and creative writing courses, see here.