
The K. Valerie Connor Memorial Poetry Celebration is an annual province-wide literary contest run by The Leacock Museum. This celebration has been made possible due to the generous support of the Connor family.
Remembering Valerie Connor

The K. Valerie Connor Memorial Celebration honours one of our museum's cherished volunteers. Valerie Connor is best remembered as a local teacher and active community member, participating in groups such as the School Belles and the Orillia Fine Arts Association, and in her free time she was also a talented painter and poet. Val’s late husband Harry Connor created the Connor Prize to honour Valerie, whose love of the arts and people touched many lives.
This tribute to K. Valerie Connor by her husband Harry carries Val’s love for the arts into the community. Both Val and Harry are missed dearly.
Many of Val and Harry’s family and friends have joined us for this celebration. This artwork shown is a K. Valerie Connor original, gifted to Museum Coordinator Jen Martynyshyn. The piece is an untitled work depicting the Leacock Museum house and garden, painted in 2012.
Thank you for being a part of our celebration.
You're Invited
Celebrate our 2023 winners with us at the Valerie Connor Poetry Gala on June 17, 2023 from 2 - 3p.m. This free event, hosted in the historic Leacock Museum rose garden is open to the public, giving all guests the opportunity to hear from the winners and form connections in the literary and arts communities.
This event will feature readings from our top winners in each category.
2023 Winners:
Congratulations to the winners of the 2023 K. Valerie Connor Memorial Poetry Celebration Contest! Their poems will be shared following the celebration event on June 17th.
Adult Category:
1st Place: “Echoes of Babylon: An Ode to Iraqi Immigrants” by Zina Hirmiz.
2nd Place: “The Dishwasher is Broken” by Shannon Bird.
3rd Place: “The Day That Nothing Died” by Colin McKim.
Intermediate Category:
1st Place: “The Beach” by Elise Holla
2nd Place: “The Return Home” by Maha Ahtesham
3rd Place: “Dollar Beers” by June Lin
Elementary Category:
1st Place: “Death’s Kiss” by Sadie James
2nd Place: “A Feather’s Journey” by Esther Schmidt
3rd Place: “Ode to the Dream” by Margaret Kimbugwe
Meet the 2023 Judges
Melanie Marttila

Always looking up, eyes on the skies, head in the clouds, #actuallyautistic author Melanie Marttila writes poetry and speculative tales of hope in the face of adversity. She lives and writes in Sudbury, Ontario, in the house where three generations of her family have lived, on the street that bears her surname, with her spouse and their dog, Torvi. Her most recent short story, "Psychopomps Are Us," was published in the spring issue of Pulp Literature Magazine, and her debut poetry collection, The Art of Floating, will be published by Latitude 46 in April 2024.
Shannon Lorenzi

My name is Shannon Lorenzi. I’ve worked with the Simcoe County District School Board for the last 25 years as a Sign Language Interpreter. You can also find me working as a Front of House Supervisor at the Orillia Opera House. Reading at home and out for long walks with my dog is where I spend much of my free time. I do love spending time with my children, though at 20 and 16, they much prefer spending their time elsewhere.
John Challis

John spent 43 years working on both sides of the news media line; first as a reporter, photographer and editor in Muskoka, and then in media relations with the Simcoe Muskoka District Health Unit. He fills his retirement time as a member of Editors Canada, Mariposa Arts Theatre, Muskoka Field Naturalists and continues to write on a freelance basis.
2023 Winners
View our 2023 winning poems!
Elementary Winners |
1st: Death’s Kiss
By: Sadie James
|
He once was a creature,
Of monstrous things,
A tyrant, they said.
T’was havoc he brings.
Blood he brought,
To the families of the departed.
And still, he desires,
To fill the burden he carted.
He was grief-stricken, they said.
Torn by the horrors of before,
His heart, they said.
Shattered with the pain he bore.
Brought to his knees,
While he reigned supreme,
By a woman of valor,
Who ended the regime.
As he lay on his deathbed,
With a sword through his heart,
He listened to the whispers,
Of those that made him start.
His mother,
His father,
His wife,
His daughter.
They whispered memories,
Stories of love and joy,
Before the tragedy,
That did destroy.
In a pool of his blood,
The tyrant had lain,
Listening to those,
That he had slain.
Born from fire and rage,
As this man was,
Heard the murmurs,
Who knew he could change.
They propped him up,
For the battles he fought,
Not out, but in,
As they knew he rethought.
And as time went on,
He grew and grew,
The flora, the fauna,
With the glistening dew.
Shelter was offered,
And homes were made,
In the belly of the skeleton,
Where flowers were laid.
…
Throughout the decades,
With blood and blades,
People stopped to listen,
To sounds of the remains.
|
2nd: A Feather’s Journey
By: Esther Schmidt
|
A feather glides gently on the breeze;
Tossed by sunshine's unseen sneeze.
Its course stays steady; solidly west;
Drifting farther from its departing nest.
It gracefully spins in nature's air;
The wind gently rustling it, steady, yet fair.
The feather, the wind kindly uplifts,
Showing it guidance as neighbourly gifts.
The feather flutters softly, as if in a dream,
Down over a sparkling, crystal clear stream.
Its journey continues past moor and meadow;
Late through the day 'til the sun casts its shadows.
Finally, its pilgrimage ends in a tree's silhouette;
Tiny droplets of dew make it shining and wet.
There it rests through night's peaceful reign;
And will start its graceful path in the dawn once again.
|
3rd: Ode to the Dream
By: Margaret Kimbugwe
|
A Sonnet
My clever dream, you inspire me to write.
How I love the way you nice, sleep and dream,
Invading my mind day and through the night,
Always dreaming about the grappling sky.
Let me compare you to an active moon?
You are more epic and hyperactive
Big sun heats the cunning peaches of June,
And summertime has the refracting.
How do I love you? Let me count the ways.
I love your smile and personality.
Thinking of your first-class smile fills my days.
My love for you is the normality.
Now I must away with a gripping heart,
Remember my kind words whilst we're apart
|
|
Intermediate Winners |
1st: The Beach
By: Elise Holla
|
A Rimas Dissolutas
Circling birds scythe the sunless sky,
tearing holes through the leaden clouds.
Their razor-sharp wings find ether,
reintroduce light to the beach.
The sand is already bone-dry.
Waves froth whiteley, but kelp enshrouds
that strip of shoreline where neither
bustle nor human footsteps breach.
Instead, the grasses shrivel, die,
fall earthward in reverent crowds.
And the sun, that cruel deceiver,
hoards what land her brightness can reach.
|
2nd: The Return Home
By: Maha Ahtesham
|
the door taunts me.
ebony with the colour of your pupils,
that darkness in your iris that would dilate at me.
i reach my hand for that brass-plated handle before hesitating,
lustrous and golden,
like the chain you'd don around the porcelain neck my hands once held.
i knock,
asking acceptance for my plea of entry.
i hear nothing in return as the echo resounds in emptiness behind this barrier of ours.
i enter anyway,
it was unlocked.
the smell consumes me with familiarity,
absorbing my surroundings.
the air burns with the scent of nostalgia,
drawing me to the kitchen,
the florals of your cologne trace to the wilting flowers situated on the counter.
you bought me that vase, too.
the carpeted staircase calls me as i shift towards it.
the warmth once welcomed the skin on my soles,
but my shoes don't care for the floor's comfort anymore.
i reach the top and glance at the photo on the wall.
our smiles stare back at me while i indulge the memories of its hanging.
"forever,"
we had written on the back.
i trace my fingers along the top of the frame to correct its misalignment,
pausing momentarily.
your gentle touch once caressed my face with the same promises.
i walk back outside.
i sit pensively on the front steps,
gazing at the sunset,
intrusively remembering your head on my shoulders.
we'd remark the mysteries of the orange.
that feeling never evades you,
you always miss home.
|
3rd: Dollar Beers
By: June Lin
|
March and the months are falling
like dominoes.
I'm in a room full of people
I don't want to know.
I don't dance like I'm in front of a camera anymore,
just like one is about to walk through the door.
These student bars are an object lesson in self-sabotage.
The sticky floors. The 10-dollar cover.
The boy three feet over, 5'9 and mediocre,
who I'll make eye contact with and ignore
when he moves to stand behind my shoulder.
The thing about playing with a motive is
that to win, you have to commit.
Wanting to be loved and lonely only leaves you alone.
When I grow up I'll just be a city,
beautiful and terrible,
an idol who will never quite love you back
I'll be your mid-life crisis and quarter-life reinvention.
One seating summer. One sunlit haze.
A four- month infatuation, seamless and brilliant,
that you'll still dream about ten years down the line.
But what do I know.
I'm standing in the middle of a bar thinking about
how I want to be wanted but not to be touched.
If this is an object lesson in self-sabotage,
then I'm going to be valedictorian.
The boy by my shoulder is still hovering,
hopeful. He thinks he can take me
out of and into my body again.
Sparrow into frosted glass,
he doesn't know how violently this will have to end.
|
|
Adult Winners |
1st: Echoes of Babylon: An Ode to Iraqi Immigrants
By: Zina Hirmiz
|
"Who are you?" the world asks
And hands me a shattered mirror,
Where a ghostly figure grows,
A nightgown-wrapped form on a stage bare,
Not yet ordinary, my mind starts to dream,
Eyes fixed on my reflection.
I am a blank space, a tangled pattern
Hundreds of wet eyelashes and disordered braids,
My people's roots knotted,
A web that pervades,
Trapped in an old house filled with memories and dust,
With a thousand lights and reminiscences,
Fear that lingers on their tongue,
The ancient ruins of Babylon's embrace,
Sharp skin, a symbol of strength.
My nose is prominent, my eyes are black
Veins flowing with Arabic blood,
My father's sunken eyes and muddy hands,
Clutched to his suitcase,
Photographs of him kissing my tiny elbow
Assembling my every piece,
Reminding me that love is not a frame you hang on the
wall, But a warm bath you rest and hide in--
All that I know of home.
|
2nd: The Dishwasher is Broken
By: Shannon Bird
|
One week after Dad dies, the dishwasher breaks.
The last spoon he used holds onto his fingerprints.
His bedroom remains untouched by the passing months.
The dishes pile up.
The laundry piles up.
Grief is the only clean blanket in the house.
It weighs down the family until they reach a Pompeii stillness.
They all sit alone, wishing for death, for life, for numbness, for feeling.
The clock hands reach out, unable to lift the grief.
The neighbour's hands reach out, filling the house with more dirty casserole dishes and moulding vases.
The storm clouds keep leaking.
Miraculously, the trees keep growing, even though the earth has stopped spinning.
Fifteen months after Dad dies, the grief blanket starts wearing thin.
The family crawls out from under the blanket, and returns to it each night, each week.
The hostage taker slips out in the night, replaced with an old friend, in the morning.
Two years after Dad dies, the dishwasher gets out of bed.
She takes a walk in the early morning sun and buries his ashes in the forest.
She remembers the feeling of sun, of laughter, of community.
She returns home.
She's not really repaired, but the mosaic of broken pieces is beautiful, too.
She cleans the dishes.
|
3rd: The Day That Nothing Died
By: Colin McKim
|
The Day That Nothing Died
The moment
the fire fighter
caught the falling baby,
a rubber boot
got jammed in the gears
of Death.
And for a whole day
everything lived.
A spider trapped
in a bathtub
climbed out
on a cast-off stocking.
Ants safely threaded
their way around
tires and shoes.
Fish escaped
by the thousands
through holes
in drifting nets.
Sprouting wings,
impala left lions
pawing at fleeting shadows.
It was the day that nothing died.
Crossing the border,
missiles forgot
their destinations
and burst
into swirling flocks
of starlings.
Bullets crawled off
like shiny beetles,
disappearing
into the long grass.
The apple was too tart
and Eve spat it out,
while high above her head
a thunder cloud
holstered its lightning.
On the day that nothing died
volcanoes sat in circles
in church basements,
learning about
anger management.
The Hangman
dipped his noose
in soapy water
and blew bubbles
the size of watermelons.
Highways turned into rivers and everyone
laughed
when inflatable boats,
loaded with passengers,
collided and harmlessly
bounced back.
On the day that nothing died
the chickens all went camping
and cattle trucks drove to the beach.
|
|
Questions?
Contact Brittany McDonald
Program and Events Supervisor
50 Museum Dr.
Orillia, ON L3V 7T9
T. 705-325-2196
Email Contact