24 books by past CBC Poetry Prize winners and finalists being published in 2023

Being a finalist for theCBC PoetryPrizecan jump-start your literary career. Need proof? Here are 24 books being published in 2023 that were written by formerCBC Literary Prizeswinners and finalists.

The 2023 CBC PoetryPrizeis currently accepting submissions. The winner will receive$6,000 from theCanada Council for the Arts, have the opportunity to attend a two-week writing residency atArtscape Gibraltar Pointand have their work published onCBC Books.

• 2023 CBC Poetry Prize is now open to Canadian poets

Four finalists will each receive $1,000 from theCanada Council for the Artsand have their work published onCBC Books.

Women Wide Awake by Manahil & Nimra Bandukwala

Women Wide Awake is a multi-genre book featuring a collection of stories, poetry, and visual art exploring folklore from the region of Sindh, Pakistan. The sculptures were created using reclaimed materials: sari fabric, wedding invitations on paper, flowers, shells, and animal bones.

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Manahil Bandukwala is a Pakistani writer, artistand editor currently based in Mississauga. Her debut poetry collection,Monument, was published in 2022. In 2019,Bandukwala waslonglisted for theCBC Poetry Prizefor her poemTo ride an art horse. She has also been a finalist for the bpNichol Chapbook Award in 2021.

Nimra Bandukwalais a visual artist and maker of crafts using foraged and found materials.

Burn Diary by Joshua Chris Bouchard

Burn Diary isToronto poet Joshua Chris Bouchard'sdebut poetry collection.His writingis gritty, personal, brave and with a strangely beautiful from.

When you can read it: Fall 2023

Joshua Chris Bouchard is the author of Let This Be the End of Me,which was shortlisted for the 2019 bpNichol Chapbook Award. His poetry has appearedin Event, CV2, Carousel, Poetry is Dead, PRISM international, Arc andThe Ex-Puritan.Bouchard was longlisted for the 2013 CBC Poetry Prize for Portraits.

Who Owns the Cloudsby Mario Brassard

Who Owns the Cloudsis a YA novelabout a girl named Mila and the dreams she is having of a life left behind. In her dreams, Mila and her family are hoping to move on to better lives but thoughts of a missing uncle and visions of clouds blur the lines between what's real and what's not. Mila must resolve past pain to move on in the present.

Mario Brassard is anartist and author of children's books from Quebec.Who Owns the Cloudsis his first illustrated work. Brassardwon the Prix de posie Radio-Canada 2018for his poemSconal.

Grard DuBois is an artist and illustratorbased in Quebec.

The Ridgeby Robert Bringhurst

The Ridgeis a nonfiction poetry collection that uses metaphor and provocative imagery to reflect on the ecological history and future of the West Coast of Canada.

• Past CBC Literary Prize winners

Robert Bringhurst is a writer and former Guggenheim Fellow in poetry. His poetry collectionThe Beauty of the Weaponswas shortlisted for aGovernor General's Literary Award in 1982 and his nonfiction bookA Story as Sharp as a Knifewas shortlistedfor aGovernor General's Literary Award in 2000.

In 1985, he won theCBC Poetry Prizefor his poemThe Blue Roofs of Japanand laterwonthe Lieutenant Governor's Award for Literary Excellence in 2005.He is alsoa recipient ofthe Order of Canada andlives on Quadra Island, B.C.

Swansby Michelle Brown

Swansis a narrative poetry collection following three best friends on a regular night out that quickly turns into a surrealist coming-of-age before dawn. Michelle Brown writes about tense female friendships, alcoholism, spontaneity and sexuality.

Brown is a poet living on the west coast of Canada. Brown's first full-length collection of poetry,Safe Words, was shortlisted for the 2018 ReLit award. Brown was on the longlist for the 2015 CBC Poetry Prizefor Invasive Species.

Places Like Theseby Lauren Carter

Places Like Theseis a short story collection that covers the globe from Ecuador to San Francisco to small-town Ontario or northern Manitoba.From a teenager dealing with the emotional toll of the oncoming climate crisis to a widow searching for her late husband through a spiritual guide or a sexual assault survivor navigating her boundaries and the expectations of her boyfriend's family, each story paints aportrait of a character longing for connection and confronting their demons.

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Lauren Carter is the author of four books of fiction, includingThis 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 storyRhubarbwon the Prairie Fire Fiction Award. Her debut novel,Swarm, was longlisted forCanada Reads2014.

Carter has made the CBC Poetry Prize longlisttwice: in 2017forLie Down Within the Nightandin 2013 for Migration (1851-1882). She was alsolonglisted for the 2015 CBC Short Story Prize for River's Edge. She was raised in Ontario and now livesjust outside of Winnipeg.

Lent by Kate Cayley

Lent is built from thetension, exploring domestic and artistic life amidst the environmental crisis and the surprising ways that every philosophical quandary large and small converges in the home, in small objects, conversationsand moments. This poetry collection is a work of our era, asking us to contemplate what it means to live in a broken world and why we still find it beautiful.

• Toronto poet Kate Cayley wins $20K Mitchell Prize for Faith and Poetry

Kate Cayley is a fiction writer, playwright and poet based in Toronto. She is also the author of the YA novelThe Hangman in the Mirror, the poetry collectionsWhen This World Comes to an EndandOther Housesand the short story collectionsHow You Were BornandHouseholders.

Cayleymade the longlist for the 2016 CBC Short Story Prize and the 2013 CBC Poetry Prize longlistforWriters' Bedrooms.

Siteseeing by Ariel Gordon &Brenda Schmidt

Between February 2021 and March 2022, Ariel Gordon and Brenda Schmidt wrote Siteseeing, a collaborative poetry manuscriptformatted like a call and response. They wrote birds and trees,mushrooms, pronghorns and also the people making their way through it all.

When you can read it:Oct. 25,2023

Gordon is a writer andeditor based in Winnipeg. She is the ringleader of Writes of Spring, a National Poetry Month project with the Winnipeg International Writers Festival that appears in the Winnipeg Free Press. Gordonis also the author of the nonfiction bookTreedand was a co-editor on the anthologyGush.

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Schmidt was the seventh poet laureate of Saskatchewan. She is the author of five books of poetry and a book of essays.Her work has been nominated for Saskatchewan Book Awards, received the Alfred G. Bailey Prize for Poetry, and is included in The Best of the Best Canadian Poetry in English: Tenth Anniversary Edition.Schmidt was longlisted for the CBC Poetry Prize in 2010 for The Wire.

Optic Nerveby Matthew Hollett

Matthew Hollett employs wordplay and a specific kindof playfulness in poems about photography, perception and ways of seeing in the poetry collectionOptic Nerve. Hollettdissects the way we see the world, from perspectives such asthe inside of an eyeball to the impact of a bomb crater.

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Hollettis a writer and visual artist living in St. John's. He published his debut book,Album Rock, in 2018.

In 2020, Hollettwon theCBC Poetry PrizeforTickling the Scar. Before that, he was on the CBC Poetry Prize longlist in 2016 for Merchant Vessel and Bomb Crater Behind Vimy Station and thelonglist for the 2017 CBCNonfiction Prizefor Painting the Curlew.

The King of Terrors by Jim Johnstone

The King of Terrorswas written after a brain tumour diagnosis early in the pandemic, and is a meditation on living with illness and the forces required to heal. These forces are not always what we expect they may not even be medical. Jim Johnstone's poems are bodily reflections that ask how we can reframe our past to make sense of the present.

When you can read it:Sept. 26,2023

Johnstone is a Toronto-based poet, editorand critic. He is the author of seven collections of poetry, including The Chemical Life, which was shortlisted for the 2018 ReLit Award. Currently, he curates the Anstruther Books imprint at Palimpsest Press, where he published The Next Wave: An Anthology of 21st Century Canadian Poetry.

Johnstonewon second prize in the 2008CBC Literary Awards for poetrywith a collection of poems titled Invertebrate Poems. He alsomade the longlistfor the 2012 CBC Poetry Prize for Revenants.

Old Godsby Conor Kerr

Old Godsis a poetry collection in motion. From coyotes that race through the night to buses that drive from region to region or people that search for lost loves on the Internet,Old Gods is a meditation on the travels humans and animals take over time. Conor Kerrplaces readers in the "Mtis mindset," showingthat wherever one is in the natural world, there is life in the rivers, the hills and the prairies we travel on.

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Kerr is a Mtis and Ukrainian educator, writer and harvester. He is a member of the Mtis Nation of Alberta and is descended from the Gladue, Ginther and Quinn families from the Lac Ste. Anne and Fort Des Prairies Mtis communities and the Papaschase Cree Nation. His poemPrairie Ritualwas on the2021 CBC Poetry Prize longlist.

Kerrwon the 2022 Novel ReLit Awardfor his debut novel,Avenue of Champions,which was alsolonglisted for the 2022 Giller Prizeand was afinalist for the 2022 Amazon Canada First Novel Award. Kerr was alsoa reader for the 2022 CBC Poetry Prize.

Fire Monster by Anita Lahey & Pauline Conley

Fire Monsteris a graphic novel about an oil sands worker who returns to his childhood town in Cape Breton, N.S., where a wildfire previously devastated the fishing village. Going back comes with its challenges because the entire community believes he was the one to start the fire.

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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. Herlatestpoetry collection, While Supplies Last, is also being published in 2023. She has beenthe series editor of theBest Canadian Poetry anthologies since 2018. Lahey was on the CBC Poetry Prize longlists in 2009 for Men and in 2010 for The Foe.

Pauline Conley recently transitioned from painting to comics. Fire Monster is her first graphic novel.

Sigrene's Bargain With Odinby Zo Landale

This unique, epic poem explores little-known Norse mythology and pays special attention to form, sound, and imagery. Sigrene's Bargain with Odin contemplates the age-old quandary of where our loyalties lieand how to act with integrity to find peace in a troubled world.

When you can read it:Oct. 19,2023

Zo Landale has published 10 books, edited two booksand her work has appeared in more than 50anthologies. She taught for15years as a faculty member in the creative writing department at Kwantlen Polytechnic University in Vancouver. Landale won the 2002 CBC Poetry Prize for Once a Murderer: Poems for Three Voices.

Kink Bands by David Martin

In Kink Bands, David Martin digs deep into an examination of the world using the lens of geology. With lyrically experimental poems expanding and retracting, Martin's poetic practice pushes forward to contend with the contemporary environmental changes.

When you can read it:Sept. 1,2023

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David Martin works as a literacy instructor in Calgary and as an organizer for the Single Onion Poetry Series. In 2014, hewon theCBCPoetry Prizefor his poemTar Swan. In 2018,Tar Swanbecame a published book-length narrative poem.

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Frank's Wing by Jacob McArthur Mooney

Written as a sequence of "ghost ekphrastics" (poems inspired by works of art that neither the poet nor most living people have ever seen), Frank's Wing constructs a whole world of lost or destroyed artifacts that have been rearticulated and resurrected, brought back to life by a fictional property baron as a dying gift to Toronto's Art Gallery of Ontario.

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. Frank's Wing is his fourth book. Hewas onthe longlist for the CBC Poetry Prize in 2014 for a poetry collection titledBindled Back: Three Travel Poems.

Anecdotes by Kathryn Mockler

Anecdotes is a hybrid collection in four parts examining the pressing realities of sexual violence, abuseand environmental collapse. These varied, immersive works bristle with truth in the face of unprecedented change. They are playful forms for serious times.

When you can read it: Sept. 19,2023

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Kathryn Mockler is the author of five books of poetry. She co-edited the print anthology Watch Your Head: Writers and Artists Respond to the Climate Crisis and is the publisher of the Watch Your Head website. She runs Send My Love to Anyone, a literary newsletter, and is an assistant professor at the University of Victoria where she teaches screenwriting and fiction. Mockler was longlisted for the 2012 CBC Poetry Prize for a collection of poems titledIce Fishing, Neighbours, Stones, Looking for Crayfish as well as in 2009 for Onion Man.

How to Be Alone by Heather Nolan

How to Be Alone is a duet ofpoetic novellas documenting the double-edged sword of self-acceptance.Nolandepicts the euphoric highs of a queer awakening and the crushing lows of feeling othered in a world that isn't built for you. The poemsexplorethemes such as isolation, traumaand loss.

When you can read it:Sept. 19,2023

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Heather Nolanis a writer from St. John's. They arethe author ofLand of the RockandThis is Agatha Falling, which was shortlisted for the ReLit Award and longlisted for the BMO Winterset Award. Nolan was on the longlist of the 2017 CBC Poetry Prize for Home and Native Land. Nolan was also a reader for the 2022 CBC Poetry Prize.

A knife so sharp its edge cannot be seenbyErin Noteboom

Erin Noteboom uses the lyric form to write about illness, grief and loss inA knife so sharp its edge cannot be seen. The former-physicist-turned-writer tests hypotheses about sadness, science and love to ask important existential questions.

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Noteboomis a former physicist who currently writespoetry and young adult novels. Originally from Nebraska, Noteboomcame to Canada in 1997. Her poetry collections includeSeal Up the Thunder.

Noteboomwon the CBC Poetry Prizein 2001 for her poemPoems for Carl Hruskaandmade the2021 CBC PoetryPrize longlistfor her poemHow to write at the end of the world.

Noteboom publishesYA fiction under the name Erin Bow.Her novels includePlain Kate,The Scorpion Rules,The Swan Riders,Stand on the SkyandSorrow's Knot.Plain Katewon the TD Canadian Children's Literature Award in 2011.

Song & DreadbyOtoniya J. Okot Bitek

Otoniya J. Okot Bitek wrote her latest collection,Song & Dread, inside during the early daysof the pandemic, observing the emotions and experiences of a slow life in isolation.Song & Dreadtakes inventory of the value of community and what becomes normalized in the face of survival.

Bitek is a poet and scholar. Her collection100 Dayswas nominated for theBC Book Prize, the Pat Lowther Award, the Alberta Book Awards and the Canadian Authors Award for Poetry. It won the 2017 IndieFab Book of the Year Award for poetry and the Glenna LuscheiPrize for African Poetry. She was alsolonglisted for the 2018 CBC Poetry Prizefor Gauntlet.

Diagnosing Minor Illness in Children by Kerry Ryan

In Diagnosing Minor Illness in Children, poet Kerry Ryan stares at everything in her path: family, grief, dog obituaries, fine-toothed lice combs, quotidian gore, a waterslide that is "not a slide, it's a throat closing in" and herself as a mother. The collection provides a glimpse of the poet struggling to suckle a wolf pup while admiring the softness of her daughter's cheek. Through humour and immersion in nature, Ryan comes to terms with the self-doubt and dislocation of motherhood. Staying close to home, she sees herself (and others) in birds blown thousands of kilometres off course and reindeer defending their young.

Ryan is the author of The Sleeping Life and Vs., which was a finalist for the Acorn-Plantos Award for Peoples' Poetry.In 2022, she was shortlisted for the CBCPoetry Prize for Grief white. Ryan was previouslylonglisted for the CBC Poetry Prize in 2020forDriver's Seat & Grief Knot.Diagnosing Minor Illness in Children is herthird poetry collection. She lives in Winnipeg.

The Legend of Baraffo by Moez Surani

A mythic work of sweeping literary imagination, The Legend of Baraffo speaks to our current social climate and the ingredients for progress. This coming-of-age story, of a boy and a town, asks prescient questions about the nature of social change: is it better accelerated by those who seek total transformationor attained by those trying to work within the system?

When you can read it:Sept. 26,2023

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Moez Suraniis the author of four poetry books, includingOperations and Are the Rivers in Your Poems Real.Hiswriting has been published inHarper's Magazine, Best Canadian Poetryand the Globe and Mail. Surani was longlisted for the 2015CBC PoetryPrizeforThe Day We Lay in Bed Like John Lennon.

A thin fire runs through meby Kim Trainor

A thin fire runs through meexamines the tiny and mundane moments in life that exist amid ecological disaster and political turmoil. Written during a period of heartbreak, depression and new love, Kim Trainor's collection of short poems pull from many places, including current events, Jewish liturgy and lyricism.

Trainor is the Vancouver-based author of the poetry collectionsKaryotypeandLedi. Her poems have won theFiddlehead's Ralph Gustafson Prize, theMalahat ReviewLong Poem Prize, the Great Blue Heron Prize.

Trainor has a long history with the CBC Literary Prizes: her poemDesolationmadethe2019 CBC Poetry Prize longlist. Shewas also longlisted for the CBC Poetry Prize in 2018 for Sweetgum (7 readings of the I Ching), in2014 for Peredelkino 1956-1960, in 2013 for In Baghdad it is Night and in 2012 for On the gravity of light (10 exposures in the manner of Francesca Woodman). In 2015, she appeared on the CBC Poetry Prize longlist three times for her poetry collectionsglass, clay, Lascaux, Winter ghazals and You tell me in the summer the light.

More Sureby A. Light Zachary

A. Light Zachary's debut collection,More Sure, is about the process of finding oneself again and again through time, experience and community. The poet explores themes of queerness, neurodivergence, labour, love and family.

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Zachary is a writer, editor and teacher living in Toronto and Grande-Digue, N.B.Zachary was longlistedtwice for the2021 CBC PoetryPrizefor their poemsTwo GirlsandWhy bury yourself in this place you ask.

Dandelion Daughterby Gabrielle Boulianne-Tremblay, translatedby Eli Tareq El Bechelany-Lynch

Dandelion Daughteris an autobiographical novel of author Gabrielle Boulianne-Tremblay'syoung life as a trans person who felt isolated, scared and trapped in the wrong body. The novel chronicles her coming-of-agestory, including first loves,struggling with gender identityandconversation about thedecisionto transition, all whileher parents'marriage was failing and she facedthe alienation that comes with being discriminated against in society.

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Boulianne-Tremblayis a writer, actress, modeland trans activist. Her other booksinclude the poetry collectionsLe Ventre des volcansandLes secrets de l'origami, andLa voix de la nature, a book for young adults.

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Eli Tareq El Bechelany-Lynch is a mixed-race Arab poet from Montreal. Their work has appeared inThe Best Canadian Poetry,The Puritan and The New Quarterly. They werelonglisted for the 2019 CBC Poetry PrizeforNancy Ajram Made Me Gay. They werealsoa reader for the 2022 CBC Poetry Prize.