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CBC
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- CBC
Books by past CBC Poetry Prize winners and finalists being published in 2025
Being a finalist for the CBC Poetry Prize can jumpstart your literary career. Need proof? Here are books that were written by former CBC Poetry Prize winners and finalists that are being published this year. The 2025 CBC Poetry Prize is open for submissions until June 1, 2025 at 4:59 p.m. ET. You can submit an original, unpublished poem or collection of poems. The submission will be judged as a whole and must be a maximum of 600 words (including titles). The winner will receive $6,000 from the Canada Council for the Arts, a two-week writing residency at Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity and will have their work published on CBC Books. Four finalists will each receive $1,000 from the Canada Council for the Arts and have their work published on CBC Books. Compulsory Figures by John Barton The collection Compulsory Figures reflects on John Baron's childhood in Alberta, his coming of age as a gay man during the AIDS crisis and all the people and things that shape us. Through lyrical poetry, it also explores the depths of grief after the poet's loss of one of his sisters in 2015. Barton was the editor of The Malahat Review from 2004 to 2018. He is a three-time winner of the Archibald Lampman Award and his collection Lost Family: A Memoir was nominated for the 2021 Derek Walcott Prize for Poetry. He was the city of Victoria poet laureate from 2019 to 2022. Barton won second place of the CBC Poetry Prize in 2002 for In the House of the Present and Assymetries. The poems in No One Knows Us There shows two portraits of early womanhood. The first, a devoted granddaughter responding to needs in hospital hallways, the second, the same woman ten years older, looking at her younger self with compassion and hopes for healing. Jessica Bebenek is a queer interdisciplinary poet, bookmaker and educator living between Tiohtià:ke (Montreal) and an off-grid shack on unceded Anishinaabeg territory. Bebenek's writing has been nominated for the Journey Prize, twice nominated for the Pushcart Prize, and in 2021 she was a finalist for the Bronwen Wallace Award for Emerging Writers in Poetry. Bebenek was longlisted for the 2024 CBC Poetry Prize. She was recently announced as a reader for the 2025 CBC Poetry Prize. In Born, a pregnant high school teacher is trapped in a classroom during a lockdown caused by a troubled student with a knife, while relying on her students for support as she unexpectedly goes into labour. The novel explores the complexities of the school system, motherhood and the student-teacher relationship. When you can read it: June 17, 2025. Heather Birrell is the author of the Gerald Lampert award-winning poetry collection Float and Scurry, and two story collections, Mad Hope and I know you are but what am I? She has also won the Journey Prize and been shortlisted for both the Western and National Magazine Awards. Her work has appeared in numerous Canadian literary journals. She lives in Toronto. In 2022, Birrell was longlisted for the CBC Poetry Prize. The Longest Night by Lauren Carter In The Longest Night Ash Hayes is locked out of her family home in Minnesota on a cold December night. Looking for shelter, she heads to her neighbours whom she's never met. The next morning she discovers that their house is completely void of modern technology and all its windows are blocked. Ash will have to figure a way to alter her past in order to reconnect with her future. When you can read it: Sept. 1, 2025. Lauren Carter writes, teaches writing and mentors other writers. She is the author of four books of fiction, including This Has Nothing to Do with You, which won the 2020 Margaret Laurence Award for Fiction. She has also received the John Hirsch Award for Most Promising Manitoba Writer. Her short story Rhubarb won the Prairie Fire Fiction Award. Her debut novel, Swarm, was longlisted for Canada Reads 2014. She is based in Winnipeg. In 2017, Carter made the CBC Poetry Prize longlist for Lie Down Within the Night. It was her second time on a CBC Poetry Prize longlist. Before that, she'd made the 2013 CBC Poetry Prize longlist for Migration (1851-1882). She was also longlisted for the CBC Short Story Prize in 2015 for River's Edge. Kingdom of the Clock by Daniel Cowper Kingdom of the Clock is a novel in verse that explores the lives of the inhabitants of a coastal city during a single day. The cast of characters include an aging stock promoter, an artist, an elderly chess player and a homeless man, among others. Each citizen facing different experiences throughout that same day. Daniel Cowper is based on Bowen Island, B.C. He studied medieval literature, philosophy and law in Vancouver, Manhattan and Toronto. His poems have appeared in various literary journals, including Arc, Vallum, Freefall, Prairie Fire and Contemporary Verse 2. His first chapbook The God of Doors was the co-winner of Frog Hollow Press' 2016 chapbook contest. Cowper longlisted for the 2017 CBC Poetry Prize for Earth on the Ocean's Back. SCAR/CITY by Daniela Elza The poems in SCAR/CITY are inspired by the tireless work in communities to protect and grow homes that are affordable and provide security of tenure. They interrogate a system that has allowed homes to be mined for profit. When you can read it: July 22, 2025. Daniela Elza is a Vancouver-based poet. Her previous collections are the broken boat and slow erosions. In 2024, she received the Colleen Thibaudeau Award for Outstanding Contribution to Poetry. Her debut prose collection Is This an Illness or an Accident? is also be published in 2025. Elza was on the 2024 CBC Poetry Prize longlist for scar/city I. Is This an Illness or an Accident? by Daniela Elza Is This an Illness or an Accident? is a memoir inspired by having to answer the question "But where are you really from?" Elza explores the ideas of belonging, identity and the question of home. It also incorporates the concept of the world citizen, pushing back against the rise of nationalism. Daniela Elza is a Vancouver-based poet. Her previous collections are the broken boat and slow erosions. In 2024, she received the Colleen Thibaudeau Award for Outstanding Contribution to Poetry. Her poetry collection SCAR/CITY is also be published in 2025. Elza was on the 2024 CBC Poetry Prize longlist for scar/city I. Shadow Price by Farah Ghafoor Shadow Price borrows its title from the finance term — "the estimated price of a good or service for which no market price exists." It's a poetry collection that explores what holds value in a capitalistic world. Farah Ghafoor is a poet whose work has appeared in The Walrus, Prism International, Room, Ninth Letter and Hobart. Her poems have been taught at Iowa State University and have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Best New Poets and Best of the Net. She won the E.J. Pratt Medal and Prize in Poetry. Born in New York and raised in New Brunswick and Ontario, she currently works as a financial analyst in Toronto. Ghafoor was longlisted for the CBC Poetry Prize in 2022. Keener Sounds: A Suite by Roger Greenwald The poet, when young, listened to a violinist practicing and wondered: "Could words as well be made to say the wordless?" Keener Sounds: A Suite is a sequence of contemporary sonnets in which music, as both subject and inspiration, accompanies explorations of love, grief, time and memory. Greenwald attended The City College of New York and the Poetry Project workshop at St. Mark's Church In-the-Bowery, then completed graduate degrees at the University of Toronto. He has published three earlier books of poems: Connecting Flight, Slow Mountain Train and The Half-Life. He won the 2018 Gwendolyn MacEwen Poetry Award from Exile Magazine. Greenwald won the CBC Poetry Prize in 1994 and First Prize in the CBC Literary Award for Travel Literature in 2003. Beaver Hills Forever by Conor Kerr Beaver Hills Forever is a genre-bending novella with poetic verses that looks at the intertwined lives of four characters — each one of them representing one of the paths available to Metis people on the Prairies. They all share their inner dreams, hardships and even their delusions of grandeur. When you can read it: Sept. 9, 2025. Kerr is a Métis/Ukrainian writer who has lived in a number of prairie towns and cities, including Saskatoon. He now lives in Edmonton and teaches creative writing at the University of Alberta. A 2022 CBC Books writer to watch, his previous works include the poetry collection Old Gods and the novel Avenue of Champions, which was longlisted for the 2022 Scotiabank Giller Prize, and won the ReLit award the same year. His most recent book Prairie Edge was shortlisted both for the 2024 Giller Prize and for the 2024 Atwood Gibson fiction prize. Best Canadian series 2025 edited by Anita Lahey The Best Canadian anthologies are a yearly endeavour shepherded by series editor Anita Lahey. Every year, a featured guest editor is selected for each of the three categories: stories, essays and poetry. In 2025, the guest editor for fiction was Steven W. Beattie, Emily Urquhart edited the nonfiction category and Aislinn Hunter served as the editor of the poetry collection. Anita Lahey is an Ottawa writer. Her books include Spinning Side Kick, Out to Dry in Cape Breton, The Mystery Shopping Cart and The Last Goldfish, which was a finalist for the Ottawa Book Award. She has been the series editor of the Best Canadian yearly anthologies since 2018. Lahey was on the CBC Poetry Prize longlists in 2009 for Men and in 2010 for The Foe. i cut my tongue on a broken country by Kyo Lee Through the poet's reflections on growing up queer and Korean Canadian, i cut my tongue on a broken country poignantly details her coming-of-age that's marked with beauty, pain and a quest for love. Kyo Lee is a queer high school student from Waterloo, Ont. Her work is featured in PRISM International, Nimrod, The Forge Literary Magazine and This Magazine, among others. Lee is the youngest winner of the CBC Poetry Prize, for her poem lotus flower blooming into breasts, and the youngest finalist for the RBC Bronwen Wallace Award. Alice loves to play and get up to no good with her friend Mrs. Nobody. However, after Alice pushes back on her idea because she didn't want to play a game they'd already played, Mrs. Nobody disappears. Alice has to spend a lonely night without her friend and figure out what to say when Mrs. Nobody reappears the next day. Mrs. Nobody is for ages 3-6. Y. S. Lee's fiction includes the YA mystery series The Agency, which was translated into six languages. Her poems have appeared in publications such as Event, Room, Rattle and the Literary Review of Canada. Her poem Saturday morning, East Pender Street was longlisted for the 2021 CBC Poetry Prize. She lives in Kingston, Ont. Lee was a finalist for the 2022 CBC Nonfiction Prize for her piece Tek Tek. Elegy for Opportunity by Natalie Lim Natalie Lim is a Chinese-Canadian poet based in Vancouver. Her work has been featured in Arc Poetry Magazine and Best Canadian Poetry 2020, among others. She is the author of the chapbook arrhythmia and has won the Room magazine's 2020 Emerging Writer Award. Cut Side Down by Jessi MacEachern Cut Side Down is a collection of poems that explores the themes of autobiography, desire, invention, landscape and memory. The poems also feature the important places of the Jessi MacEachern's life — P.E.I. and Montreal. The poems touch on the fantasy genre for even better storytelling. MacEachern is a poet from P.E.I., who now lives in Montreal where she teaches English literature. Her writing has appeared in journals and anthologies across Canada. Her previous poetry collection was A Number of Stunning Attacks. MacEachern was on the longlist for the 2018 CBC Poetry Prize. The Northern by Jacob McArthur Mooney In the summer of 1952, three men are hired by an upstart Mormon baseball card company in Western Ontario. Their two weeks in the Northern League will have them living in an ever-growing chaos. The Northern depicts a world shaped by the trauma of World War II and those left behind by it. The book is a character study on grief, adolescence, and family. Jacob McArthur Mooney's previous collections have been shortlisted for the Trillium Book Award in Poetry and the Dylan Thomas Prize. Originally from Nova Scotia, he now lives in Toronto. His fourth book was titled Frank's Wing. Mooney was on the longlist for the CBC Poetry Prize in 2014 for a poetry collection titled Bindled Back: Three Travel Poems. From a lovelorn journalist entering a diabolical pact to a tourist attempting to stay sober, Dead Writers is a collection of short stories exploring what the ever-changing concept of "bargain" means, and the heavy price that comes with corrupting your soul. Regina-raised Cassidy McFadzean is a past finalist for the CBC Poetry Prize and The Walrus Poetry Prize. Her previous works include the poetry books Drolleries, Crying Dress and Hacker Packer, which won two Saskatchewan Book Awards. She also wrote a crown of sonnets called Third State of Being. She currently lives in Toronto. McFadzean was a finalist for the CBC Poetry Prize in 2013. We, the Kindling by Otoniya J. Okot Bitek In We, the Kindling, three women who, as children, survived the horrors of war in Uganda continue to experience the trauma of their past, even when they've started families of their own. Otoniya J. Okot Bitek, a poet, fiction writer and scholar born in Kenya to Ugandan parents, currently lives in Kingston, Ont. Her first collection of poetry, 100 Days, won the 2017 IndieFab Book of the Year Award for poetry and the 2017 Glenna Lushei Prize for African Poetry. Her second poetry collection, A is for Acholi, won the 2023 Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize. She was also longlisted for the 2018 CBC Poetry Prize. We, the Kindling is her debut novel. Planet Earth: Stories by Nicholas Ruddock Planet Earth is a collection of short stories and novellas that explores themes of love and passion with a specific awareness of humans' carelessness in burning up the world in fresh and unexpected ways. The provocative and contemplative stories are humorous, quick-witted, paradoxically positive with a fondness for humans and their failings. When you can read it: Nov. 4, 2025. Nicholas Ruddock is a physician and writer who has worked in Newfoundland and Labrador, Quebec, Yukon and Ontario. He has had novels, short stories, poetry published since 2002 in Canada, U.K., Ireland and Germany. He is the author of the 2021 novel Last Hummingbird of West Chile. Ruddock has been a finalist for each of the CBC Literary Prizes. He made the 2016 CBC Poetry Prize longlist for Storm as well as the 2016 CBC Nonfiction Prize longlist for The Hummingbirds. Most recently, Ruddock was shortlisted for the 2023 CBC Short Story Prize for his story Marriage. Goalie by Ben von Jagow From rookie to retirement, the collection of poems in Goalie vividly captures the highs, lows and everything in-between of a hockey career — exploring the glorious moments of ambitious pursuit and the vulnerable times of facing set-backs.
CBC
23-05-2025
- Entertainment
- CBC
3 'must-read' poetry book picks from the 2025 CBC Poetry Prize jurors
Carol Rose GoldenEagle, Paul Vermeersch and Britta B. will judge the 2025 CBC Poetry Prize. The jury selects the shortlist and winner of the 2025 CBC Poetry Prize. A panel of established writers and editors from across Canada review the submissions and will determine the longlist from all the submissions. The winner will receive $6,000 from the Canada Council for the Arts, a two-week writing residency at Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity and have their work published on CBC Books. Four finalists will each receive $1,000 from the Canada Council for the Arts and have their story published on CBC Books. The 2025 CBC Poetry Prize is open for submissions until June 1, 2025 at 4:59 p.m. ET. We asked each juror to recommend a book they think poets should read before submitting to the CBC Poetry Prize. A Calendar of Reckoning takes a look back at youth in contrast with the heavy subject matter of one's own mortality. Although Margoshes writes about poets and poetry, the mainly lyrical poems focus on family, death and the experience of facing the death of our parents. The collection also explores the struggle of having to reconcile the reader's past and present. Dave Margoshes writes short and long fiction and poetry on a farm west of Saskatoon. He has published several collections of short stories, including Bix's Trumpet and Other Stories, which was book of the year at the 2007 Saskatchewan Book Awards and a ReLit Award finalist, and A Book of Great Worth which was named one of Amazon's top hundred books for 2012. He has appeared six times in Best Canadian Stories and been a Journey Prize finalist for his book The Wisdom of Solomon. Carol Rose GoldenEagle is a Cree and Dene writer, poet, playwright and musician. She was named the Saskatchewan Poet Laureate from 2021-2023. GoldenEagle's previous books include the novels Bearskin Diary, Bone Black and The Narrows of Fear, and the poetry collection Hiraeth. GoldenEagle also writes children's books including Mother Earth: My Favourite Artist as well as an upcoming collection of poetry, Singing to the Moon, that will be released later this year. Fugue with Bedbug by Anne-Marie Turza, recommended by Paul Vermeersch In her second poetry collection Fugue with Bedbug, Anne-Marie Turza uses the fugue form to weave a series of poems about time and mortality. It is part musical reference, part portraiture, part essay and a musical score. Turza is a poet and author who lives on Vancouver Island. Her other poetry collection, The Quiet, was a finalist for both the Gerald Lampert Memorial and Bronwen Wallace awards. Paul Vermeersch is a poet, artist and editor from Toronto. He currently teaches at Sheridan College. Vermeersch holds an MFA in creative writing from the University of Guelph for which he received the Governor General's Gold Medal. His other poetry collections include The Reinvention of the Human Hand, Self-Defence for the Brave and Happy and Shared Universe. His eighth collection of poetry NMLCT will be published in September 2025. Nomenclature by Dionne Brand collects eight volumes of the celebrated poet and author's work that were originally published between 1982 and 2010. With a critical introduction by the literary scholar and theorist Christina Sharpe, the book features a new long poem, the titular Nomenclature for the Time Being, which is a thoughtful and wide-ranging reflection on location, consciousness, time and the current state of the world. Brand is an award-winning poet and novelist from Toronto. She won the Governor General's Literary Award for poetry and the Trillium Book Award for her 1997 collection Land to Light On. Her collection thirsty won the 2003 Pat Lowther Award. In 2009, she served as the poet laureate of Toronto. Her novel What We All Long For won the City of Toronto Book Award in 2006. She won the 2011 Griffin Poetry Prize for Ossuaries and in 2017, she was named to the Order of Canada. Britta Badour, better known as Britta B., is an artist, public speaker and poet living in Toronto. She is the recipient of the 2021 Breakthrough Artist Award from the Toronto Arts Foundation. She was named one of CBC Books ' 2023 writers to watch. Badour was among the .
CBC
15-05-2025
- Entertainment
- CBC
Meet the 2025 CBC Poetry Prize readers
Social Sharing Every year, CBC Books enlists the help of established writers and editors from across Canada to read the thousands of entries submitted to our prizes. Our readers compile the longlist, which is given to the jury. The jury, comprised of Carol Rose GoldenEagle, Paul Vermeersch and Britta B., will then select the shortlist and the eventual winner from the longlisted selections. You can meet the readers for the 2025 CBC Poetry Prize below. The 2025 CBC Poetry Prize is currently accepting submissions until June 1, 2025. The winner will receive $6,000 from the Canada Council for the Arts, a two-week writing residency at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity and have their work published on CBC Books. Here are the writers who will be reading the submissions to the 2025 CBC Poetry Prize. Jes Battis Battis is a queer autistic writer and teacher at the University of Regina, splitting their time between the prairies and the west coast. They wrote the Occult Special Investigator series and Parallel Parks series. Battis' first novel, Night Child, was shortlisted for the Sunburst Award. Their novel The Winter Knight was on the Canada Reads 2024 longlist. I Hate Parties is a collection of 50 poems on Battis' experiences of being queer, autistic and nonbinary. Focusing on the feelings of intense anxiety that come with growing up in the nineties in Canada as a marginalized person, Battis writes of adolescence, queer parties and panic attacks through metaphor and honest verse. Jessica Bebenek is a queer interdisciplinary poet, bookmaker and educator living between Tiohtià:ke (Montreal) and an off-grid shack on unceded Anishinaabeg territory. Bebenek's writing has been nominated for the Journey Prize, twice nominated for the Pushcart Prize, and in 2021 she was a finalist for the Bronwen Wallace Award for Emerging Writers in Poetry. The poems in No One Knows Us There shows two portraits of early womanhood. The first, a devoted granddaughter responding to needs in hospital hallways, the second, the same woman ten years older, looking at her younger self with compassion and hopes for healing. Brandi Bird Bird is an Indigiqueer writer from Treaty 1 territory who is currently studying at the University of British Columbia. Their poems have been featured in various publications such as Catapult and Room Magazine. The All + Flesh is their first book. The All + Flesh is a debut collection that explores both internal and external cultural landscapes and lineages from the perspective of a Saulteaux, Cree and Métis writer. The All + Flesh won the 2024 Indigenous Voices Award for poetry and was shortlisted for two League of Canadian Poets prizes. Kayla Czaga Kayla Czaga is also the author of For Your Safety Please Hold On and Dunk Tank. For Your Safety Please Hold On won the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award and was nominated for the Governor General's Literary Award for poetry and the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize. She lives in Victoria and served as the online poetry mentor for Simon Fraser University's Writer's Studio. Midway is a poetry collection that explores the writer's grief in the aftermath of her parents' deaths. The poems travel from the underworld to London's Tate Modern in a way that's both comforting and disconcerting. Jessica Hiemstra Jessica Hiemstra is a poet, artist and designer from Gunning Cove, Nova Scotia. Her previous works of poetry include the collections The Holy Nothing, Self Portrait without a Bicycle and Apologetic for Joy. In Blood Root, Hiemstra reflects on her dual upbringing in Bobcaygeon (Canada/Turtle Island) and Badela (Sierra Leone). Through a blend of poetry, diary entries and drawings, she touches on themes of land, belonging and identity — meditating on the impact of colonialism in these places. Nathanael Jones Nathanael Jones is an Afro-Caribbean Canadian writer and artist. Born in Montreal, he holds degrees from NSCAD University and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Jones is the author of the poetry collection Aqueous and two chapbooks, ATG and La Poésie Caraïbe. His work has been exhibited and performed across North America and the United Kingdom. In Aqueous Jones addresses the post-colonial realities of the Black diaspora and how they affect the concepts of identity, place and community. Organized in three main poem sequences, the poet expresses the personal and collective experiences of being Afro-Caribbean Canadian. Cassandra Myers (My'z) Cassandra Myers is a queer, non-binary and disabled South Asian and Italian performance poet and counsellor from Toronto. Raised in the slam poetry community for seven years, they have earned titles such as the Canadian Festival of Spoken Word Champion. As she transitioned to the written word, her work has won the ARC Poetry Magazine's Poem of the Year Award 2021 and the Reader's Choice Award. Myers received the inaugural Lillian Allen Prize for spoken word poetry. Their first collection of poems, Smash the Headlights, is forthcoming from Write Bloody North Publishing. Sasenarine Persaud Born in Guyana, Sasenarine Persaud has published essays in various journals about the term he originated, Yogic Realism. He is the author of 15 books of prose and poetry. He has lived in Canada and now makes his home in Florida. His forthcoming poetry collection is A Scent of India. His previous collection is Mattress Makers where Persaud explores his Indian roots through language, traditions, music and paying homage to beloved writers. Jane Shi Jane Shi is a writer and poet based in B.C. Her writing has appeared in the Disability Visibility Blog and Queer Little Nightmares: An Anthology of Monstrous Fiction and Poetry. Shi graduated from the Writer's Studio Online program at Simon Fraser University and StoryStudio Chicago. She is the winner of The Capilano Review's 2022 In(ter)ventions in the Archive Contest. echolalia echolalia a collection of poems focus on the body politic and the experiences of being queer, disabled and in the diaspora. Reflecting on her own identities, author Jane Shi writes about chosen family and resisting colonial projects and ideologies that seek to dehumanize. Spenser Smith Spenser Smith is a Winnipeg-based poet and photographer. Her work has appeared in The Malahat Review, Geist, Prairie Fire, among others. She holds an MFA in creative writing from the University of British Columbia and works as a marketing copywriter at the University of Manitoba. A brief relief from hunger explores survival and tenderness in the midst of B.C.'s toxic drug crisis. Through poems about addiction, recovery and loss, the collection responds to public stigma and finds moments of comfort in fast food restaurants and a grandmother's cabbage rolls. Sarain Frank Soonias Sarain Frank Soonias is a Cree/Ojibwe writer and artist. His work has appeared in ARC Poetry Magazine, Canadian Literature Review, Carousel, Carte Blanche and Filling Station, among others. is Soonias's debut poetry book. He currently lives in Red Deer, Alta. All Wrong Horses on Fire that Go Away in the Rain is a collection of poems that searches through family history and sheds light on intergenerational trauma and how it impacts Indigenous voices. Bringing together fragmented memories, All Wrong Horses on Fire that Go Away in the Rain invites strength, beauty and intensity. Ben von Jagow Ben von Jagow is a Ottawa-based poet and writer. His work has been featured in Canadian Literature, Prairie Fire and The Antigonish Review, among others. His debut poetry collection is Goalie and includes the poems that longlisted to the CBC Poetry Prize in 2020.
CBC
08-05-2025
- Entertainment
- CBC
Carol Rose GoldenEagle, Paul Vermeersch and Britta B. to judge 2025 CBC Poetry Prize
Carol Rose GoldenEagle, Paul Vermeersch and Britta B. will judge the 2025 CBC Poetry Prize. The winner will receive $6,000 from the Canada Council for the Arts, a two-week writing residency at Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity and have their work published on CBC Books. Four finalists will each receive $1,000 from the Canada Council for the Arts and have their story published on CBC Books. The 2025 CBC Poetry Prize is open for submissions until June 1, 2025 at 4:59 p.m. ET. The CBC Poetry Prize is open! Submit before June 1 Carol Rose GoldenEagle is a Cree and Dene writer, poet, playwright and musician. She was named the Saskatchewan Poet Laureate from 2021-2023. GoldenEagle's previous books include the novels Bearskin Diary, Bone Black and The Narrows of Fear, and the poetry collection Hiraeth. GoldenEagle also writes children's books including Mother Earth: My Favourite Artist as well as an upcoming collection of poetry, Singing to the Moon, that will be released later this year. In 2021, she published the poetry collection Essential Ingredients and the following year she published Stations of the Crossed. Carol Rose GoldenEagle's Essential Ingredients is a poetry collection that explores the power of parenting In Stations of the Crossed, Cree/Dene writer GoldenEagle uses her childhood memory of the church rite "stations of the cross" as a springboard for critical reflection, examining the dark legacy of the residential school system, church and government policies and their ongoing impacts on Indigenous people today. Paul Vermeersch is a poet, artist and editor from Toronto. He currently teaches at Sheridan College. Vermeersch holds an MFA in creative writing from the University of Guelph for which he received the Governor General's Gold Medal. His other poetry collections include The Reinvention of the Human Hand, Self-Defence for the Brave and Happy and Shared Universe. His eighth collection of poetry NMLCT will be published in September 2025. NMLCT: Poems is a collection of poems all identically formed with precisely 16 lines as if they were mass produced. They explore a world constructed by The Algorithm where no one knows what to believe because of misinformation and computer-generated hallucinations. They also raise hope for the possibility to escape this disorienting society. Britta Badour, better known as Britta B., is an artist, public speaker and poet living in Toronto. She is the recipient of the 2021 Breakthrough Artist Award from the Toronto Arts Foundation. She was named one of CBC Books ' 2023 writers to watch. Badour was among the finalists for 2024 Trillium Book Awards. Badour teaches spoken word performance at Seneca College. She is also the poet-in-residence for Poems in Passage, the Toronto Transit Commission's poetry initiative. For Britta Badour, storytelling is grounded by her family, community and experience of Blackness. In her debut collection, Wires That Sputter, she has taken on translating the beauty of spoken word to poems for the page. Britta Badour's powerful poetry is inspired by her family, community and her experience of Blackness Wires That Sputter is an intimate collection of poetry which plays with form and punctuation. Badour explores pop culture, sports, family dynamics and Black liberation. The jury will select the shortlist and winner. A panel of established writers and editors from across Canada review the submissions and will determine the longlist from all the submissions. The longlist, shortlist and winner will be announced in fall 2025. If you're looking to submit to the Prix de poésie Radio-Canada, you can enter here.
CBC
30-04-2025
- Entertainment
- CBC
Chimwemwe Undi, Shani Mootoo, Bren Simmers among poets longlisted for League of Canadian Poets prizes
Chimwemwe Undi, Shani Mootoo and Bren Simmers are among the Canadian poets longlisted for the League of Canadian Poets' poetry awards for books published in 2024. The organization administers three poetry prizes to celebrate the past year's best published works — the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award for debut books, Pat Lowther Memorial Award for books by Canadian women and Raymond Souster Award for books by League members. The winner of each prize receives $2,000. Undi's Scientific Marvel is nominated for both the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award and the Raymond Souster Award. Scientific Marvel is a poetry collection that looks into the history of and current life in Winnipeg. With humour and surprise, it delves into deeper themes of racism, queerness and colonialism while keeping personal lived experiences close to the page. Scientific Marvel won the 2024 Governor General's Literary Award for poetry. Chimwemwe Undi is a Winnipeg-based poet, editor and lawyer. She was the Winnipeg poet laureate for 2023 and 2024. She won the 2022 John Hirsch Emerging Writer Award from the Manitoba Book Awards and her work can be found in Brick, Border Crossings, Canadian Literature and BBC World. Undi was longlisted for the 2020 CBC Poetry Prize. If you're interested in poetry, the 2025 CBC Poetry Prize is currently accepting submissions. You can submit an original, unpublished poem or collection of poems from April 1-June 1. Shani Mootoo and Bren Simmers are both longlisted for the Pat Lowther Memorial Award. Mootoo is being recognized for the poetry collection Oh Witness Dey! With no record of how they got there and where they're originally from, Shani Mootoo's great-great-grandparents were brought to Trinidad by the British. Oh Witness Dey! discusses the concept of "origin" through an exploration of history, displacements and legacy, starting with her own. Shani Mootoo on chocolate, house chores and cryptic notes Mootoo is a writer and visual artist who currently lives in Ontario. Her debut novel was 1997's Cereus Blooms at Night. Her novel Polar Vortex was shortlisted for the 2020 Scotiabank Giller Prize. Her other books include the novels Cane | Fire, Moving Forward Sideways like a Crab and Valmiki's Daughter. In 2022, she won the Writers' Trust Engel Findley Award for fiction writers in the middle of their career. Bren Simmers is nominated for her poetry collection The Work. The poems in The Work explore the themes of loss and grief and how one can make themselves whole again after being broken. From the sudden death of her father, her mother's dementia and her sister-in-law's terminal illness, Simmers' poems show us how healing can come from love. The Work was among the finalists for the 2024 Governor General's Literary Award for poetry. P.E.I. writer Bren Simmers wins 2022 CBC Poetry Prize for work inspired by how Alzheimer's affects language Bren Simmers is the author of four books, including the wilderness memoir Pivot Point and Hastings-Sunrise, which was a finalist for the Vancouver Book Award as well as a collection of poetry titled If, When. Simmers won the 2022 CBC Poetry Prize for her poetry collection Spell World Backwards, which is included in The Work. She was previously longlisted for the CBC Poetry Prize in 2013 and in 2012 for Science Lessons. Shō Yamagushiku and Zehra Naqvi are both nominated for the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award and the Raymond Souster Award. Yamagushiku is nominated for shima, a poetry collection that questions both the past and future of a community exiled, anchored in the relationship of a father and son. It shows the fragility of memory with a voice at once yearning and precise. Yamagushiku is a writer and researcher living in Victoria. In 2022, Yamagushiku was selected as a mentee by Kaie Kellough through the Writers' Trust of Canada's mentorship program. shima is his debut poetry collection. Naqvi is being recognized for The Knot of My Tongue, which uses a variety of poetic forms to capture a cast of characters as they attempt to express the inexpressible, from a new immigrant to Canada trying to speak a new language to the myth of Philomena searching for ways to communicate after her husband cuts off her tongue. Naqvi is a Vancouver-based writer who was born in Karachi. She won the 2021 RBC Bronwen Wallace Award for Emerging Writers. The Knot of My Tongue is her debut poetry collection. Barbara Tran is the only poet to receive 3 nominations for her collection Precedented Parroting, which explores themes of loss, the natural world, Asian stereotypes and our feathered friends. It's also a book about survival through generations and how both loss and feathers can enable and necessitate flight. Tran is a poet whose work has appeared in Women's Review of Books, Ploughshares and The New Yorker. Her honours include a MacDowell Colony Gerald Freund Fellowship, Pushcart Prize and Lannan Foundation Writing Residency. She was born in New York City and currently lives in Toronto. Precedented Parroting was a finalist for the 2024 Governor General's Literary Award for Poetry. In 2018, Tran was on the longlist for the CBC Nonfiction Prize. 2025 Gerald Lampert Memorial Award longlist: 2025 Pat Lowther Memorial Award longlist: The Seventh Town of Ghosts by Faith Arkorful Heliotropia by Manahil Bandukwala I Will Get Up Of Of by Simina Banu impact statement by Jody Chan Farm: Lot 23 by Tonya Lailey Empires of the Everyday by Anna Lee-Popham Good Want by Domenica Martinello Oh Witness Dey! by Shani Mootoo The Knot of My Tongue by Zehra Naqvi The Work by Bren Simmers Invisible Lives by Cristalle Smith Precedented Parroting by Barbara Tran 2025 Raymond Souster Award longlist: The shortlisted titles for each award will be announced on May 7, 2025.
