Interview with Phoenix Poetry Prize Founder Isabella Wang
"We are the Phoenix Poetry Prize, rising from the ashes of its former deceased self."
Isabella Wang is a poet and founder of the Phoenix Poetry Prize. I’ve invited Isabella to answer some questions about this new project.
Kathryn Mockler: Congratulations on being the founder of an exciting new literary prize, The Phoenix Poetry Prize!
The Phoenix Poetry Prize uses humour, fosters community, and has serious critiques about prize culture while still offering awards to poets. Can you tell Send My Love to Anyone readers why you started this prize and how it evolved?
Isabella Wang: Two things inspired me to go, gee! I should really start a whole new poetry prize even though I got no time and am chronically ill. Those two things are: 1) free-will. 2) A penchant for chaos. See, I will admit this to your readers—I had a book of poetry come out in 2025 and did I hope that maybe I might just get recognized by that other poetry prize I won’t name for legal purposes? Ya. And I think a lot of poets, a whole country of them in Canada felt that way. So, I realized, I’ve got probably a small amount of funds to spare if I don’t spend all my money on takeout or get a fourth cat, and once I knew I could literally just start a poetry prize, there was nothing stopping me. Plus, I couldn’t give up the name of the Girffin Poetry Prize, and folks seemed to be all for it, which surprised me.
KM: How did you come up with the name Phoenix Poetry Prize?
IW: Unfortunately, two days after the success of launching the Girffin Poetry Prize, some folks affiliated with other organizations got bitter about us and reported us. Instagram took down all my accounts, and to get ahead of any other legal hellstorms, my board and I decided that two things needed to change: the name of the prize and the body of the animal in the logo. I had already made a logo though, so I didn’t want to change it too much cause it’s adorable. But the problem is that the animal’s body is red, and what other animal possibly has a red body? Selena on the board suggested phoenix. Brilliant. So now we are the Phoenix Poetry Prize, rising from the ashes of its former deceased self.
KM: Many of the prizes are chosen by a combination of chance and subjective preference like the “Mother-in-Law’s Choice Award” where your actual mother-in-law will be blindfolded, pick four books out of hat, read them, and choose her favourite. Why did you decide to incorporate chance instead of focusing on “best” for your awards?
I think the way that book prizes are currently done, there is a lot of barriers preventing a wide range of poets from getting recognized. Don’t get me wrong, I have been on book juries and also benefited from several, and I am all for the amazing book prizes that we’ve got in Canada. Having been on the recipient side, and also worked behind the scenes with organizers, I know the love and labour that gets put into making these prizes happen, and I am immensely grateful to everyone who does this work. I think though, as reflected in my poetry, I love experimental forms. I’m a very experimental person who loves to take risks, often to my own detriment lol. So, with this opportunity to start a new prize, I am doing a lot of experimenting, trying new ways and approaches, and asking why not? And seeing where that goes, what comes out of it, and learning a lot as I go.
While organizing the early steps of this prize, one thing actually surprised me about prize culture and inspired me to do something differently. I learned that prizes often require submission fees from publishers, and they can be expensive. So sometimes book publishers can only afford to submit a handful of the books they publish instead of all eligible titles. If I can extrapolate a bit and assume, I’d think that this is especially true for smaller, Indie presses, while larger, more established ones might be able to afford submission fees for all their authors. This creates an imbalance in the outcome of prize announcements—often times, folks who are recognized, though deservingly so, are recognized over and over again, while others sort of fall into the shadows. The randomness of these judging processes I think balance out the more objective approaches of literally every other book prize out there. These awards, chosen by dear members of my family, reinforces the idea that the poetry community—from publishers, editors, readers, event organizers, to poets themselves—are a kind of family. Everyone puts thought, passion, labour and love into their books. So why not give everyone a chance to be picked?
Again, though, submission fees help to make prizes sustainable for those who run them. And I definitely think that the more standard and tested process of jurying—get several people to judge, meet, rank, discuss after reading all the books, etc—is a more objective way to go when much bigger amounts of money for prizes are at stake. It’s just that because these other formats exist, I have the opportunity to try something a little different. We cut submission fees for publishers, so since we can’t financially compensate the judges and are offering other gifts from our sponsors instead, we have to come up with more unique and experimental ways to judge that reduces the work load expectancy of those on our team doing the labour.
KM: Have you decided how the Phoenix Poetry Prize winner will be chosen yet?
IW: You can read more about my ramblings and that process here, though how the ultimate winner will be decided out of the longlisted poets might change a bit: Phoenix BLog - PHOENIX POETRY PRIZE
KM: Another award involves readers writing letters of appreciation and winner of this prize will be the book with the most letters. Can you tell us more about this prize?
IW: In the new year, there will be a list of eligible books that publishers have submitted on the website. The community will be invited to write letters to the list of poets, sent through a submission form on the website: This Year's Canadian Poetry - PHOENIX POETRY PRIZE. All the letters will be sent digitally by the community, and vetted by volunteers, myself, and the board. I will also have templates for folks who want to write something nice to poets but don’t have that much energy or capacity, or need a bit of help or inspiration. After that, the letters will be snail-mailed to poets, and the poets will be invited to open them at the Phoenix Poetry Prize Gala.
KM: The winner of the Phoenix Poetry Prize receives a cash prize of $250 and prizes for the other awards include grocery cards, coffee gift cards, stacks of poetry, and care packages. Can you tells us about your choices of prizes and how they connect to the mandate and values of the PPP?
IW: The money prizes are funded by me; it recognizes that money awards are an important part of the support that poets and artists need to thrive. However, this prize also focuses on bringing other things that I believe nourishes poets equally as much: letters of appreciation from the community; humour, laughter, jokes; reciprocity; mentorship; gifts and care packages; collaboration…
KM: What has been the response from the poetry community?
IW: They seem to love the idea of a new poetry prize focused on community, and me making a fool of myself with the silly jokes while I’m at it.
KM: What is the deadline for publishers to submit?
IW: Dec 15, 2026
KM: How can the Canadian poetry community support this prize? What would be helpful to you and the other organizers?
IW: Donate a gift card, send postage stamps, host winners for events at bookstores and festivals, share and repost our social media updates, donate a subscription as compensation for judges if you are a lit journal. Attend the gala. Write letters to poets when the call goes out. I’m available for interviews, but be prepared for silliness. And stay chaotic.
KM: Anything else you’d like us to know about this project?
IW: Penguins are good.
KM: Thanks so much for answering these questions.
Readers please visit Phoenix Poetry Prize to find out more about this award and contact the organizers by email if you’d like to support this project.
What makes me excited about this prize is that the organizers seem to be having fun and are engaging with good humour in the bringing together of poets which reminds us all why were are involved in this community in the first place—for poetry and each other.
Is this only for poets in Canada