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TWSSF makes call for entries

It's that time of year again! The ramp up for the TELUS World Ski and Snowboard Festival has began, and as Whistler braces itself for its most popular festival photographers are being asked to make submissions for the OLYMPUS Pro Photographer Showdow
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Pro Photo show This year's OLYMPUS Pro Photographer Showdown, like last year's (pictured above), is already sold out. It's a flagship event at the TWSSF. Photo by Joern Rohde / wpnn.org

It's that time of year again! The ramp up for the TELUS World Ski and Snowboard Festival has began, and as Whistler braces itself for its most popular festival photographers are being asked to make submissions for the OLYMPUS Pro Photographer Showdown, the banner arts event at the TWSSF.

Sports and action photographers from all over the world are encouraged to submit their work for a Best in Show grand prize of $10,000.

All five photographers picked for the competition will win a trip to Whistler, where their slideshows will be showcased at the Whistler Conference Centre for a sold out audience of sports enthusiasts, media and industry professionals on April 19. Aside from the grand prize, all four runners-up will receive $1,500 cash. Not a bad a gig.

Deadline for submissions is March 1. For full details on how to apply, visit www.wssf.com/events.

Also returning for this year's festival are the two filmmaker competitions, the ever-popular/already sold-out 72hr Filmmaker Showdown and the short sports-action film challenge, Intersection. Pecha Kucha will also return for its second year as an official part of the festival.

Whistler joins Poetry Challenge

We were hoping that, given the name of this event, it would be a poetry challenge for various Canadian mayors to show off their flowery wordplay, but alas...

Instead, the Mayor's Poetry Challenge is a chance for cities across Canada to recognize their homegrown poets. Mayor Nancy Wilhelm-Morden announced at the Feb. 7 council meeting that Whistler was going to take part.

"It just sounded like something a little different, a bit of a fun thing to do, so we decided we were going to do it," she says.

Pat Fiaccio, mayor of Regina, spearheaded the cause to work in conjunction with World Poetry Day on March 21 and April being National Poetry Month. Wilhelm-Morden says the RMOW has not yet worked through the details of their own plan but they'll likely make a call for submissions and set up a jury to choose their favourite poems. The winning poets will then read their work at a council meeting at the end of March or beginning of April.

We repeat — the details have not yet been solidified, which gives RMOW staff ample opportunity to consider a more public celebration of local poetry. It's sad enough that few people even pay attention to poetry anymore, must the winners of this challenge be relegated to an appearance at a

council meeting? Eek.

Unfortunately, the mayor will not be reading her own poetry. She says, "There was some chuckling about that at the council meeting that I should write a poem. I used to write poetry back in high school. Maybe I can dig out one of those old poems, but as I recall my poems were rather lousy."

Be that as it may, Pique requests that the mayor divulge these adolescent yearnings in a public forum. The knowledge that these poems exist is driving us giddy with curiosity. Were they rhyming couplets detailing the flight of dandelion seeds? Or were they free verse platitudes on Canadian nationalism?

Sadly, we may never know.