Nominations Open for 2025 Zaccheus Jackson Nyce Memorial Award

Nominations for recipients of the 2025 Zaccheus Jackson Nyce Memorial Award are now open.

We encourage you to nominate someone who fits the criteria for the award (below), with particular consideration for a person who doesn’t ask for, or receive much recognition or praise, but deserves it. We recognize the great sacrifices Zaccheus made to bring poetry to communities who needed it, and we wish to carry forward that legacy.

ABOUT THE AWARD:

The Zaccheus Jackson Nyce Memorial Award was created to recognize community leaders who have gone over and above in the pursuit of honouring the national Spoken Word Community. Zaccheus was a prolific artist that went out of his way to help people feel welcome.

Some of the qualities attributed to Zaccheus that we look for include a person who:

  • Is real AF.
  • Happily celebrates others and is the loudest person in the room doing so.
  • Mentors and guides peers and youth.
  • Makes the world safer for other people.

and a person who demonstrates:

  • A welcoming spirit that reaches out to community members known and unknown.
  • Courage on and off the stage.
  • A ferocious energy that graciously steers through adversity and transforms it into something beautiful and useful.
  • A commitment to build community even when that work is challenging.
  • Good sportsmanship

Past recipients include: Erin Dingle, Johnny MacRae, Rusty Priske, Nang K’uulas, Sonya Littlejohn, Jeremy Loveday, RC Weslowski, Taran Kootenayoo, Johnny Trinh, Jillian Christmas, and Trevana Spilchen.

NOMINATIONS & SELECTION

Nominations open for 6 weeks and close at midnight (PST) on Jan 31, 2025. Adjudication of nominations will take place in early February.

Nominees will be adjudicated by a selection committee composed of past recipients, and poets who knew and worked personally with Zaccheus. The selection committee will make a recommendation in February 2025 for a recipient or recipients to be honored at the Verses gathering in April, in Vancouver, BC. If applicable, Vancouver Poetry House will cover travel expenses for the recipient(s) to receive the award at the Verses Festival of Words in Vancouver, BC, in April 2025.

To nominate someone for the award, please fill out the Google Form here: https://forms.gle/8rXS9YRtENAJNtuK7