Montreal's Matthew Hollett Wins CBC Poetry Prize for Pandemic Inspired Poem

Today, CBC Books announced Matthew Hollett of Montreal as the winner of the 2020 CBC Poetry Prize.

His winning piece, "Tickling the Scar", was written during the early days of the pandemic, when Hollett, like many others, was avoiding public transit as much as possible and walking in his neighbourhood. His solo distance walks along the Lachine Canal inspired him to "document that strangeness" of the emerging pandemic.  

Hollett, who is a photographer as well as a writer, recently moved from St. John’s to Montreal's Côte-Saint-Paul neighbourhood.

He spoke passionately about the supportive literary community in St. John's and its role in his development as a writer: "The writing community in St. John’s is marvellously welcoming and collaborative, and the creative writing program at Memorial University (where I’ve taken a few classes) is top notch. I've especially enjoyed taking classes with Lisa Moore (who teaches fiction), and Rob Finley (who teaches nonfiction and poetry). Lisa is a force of nature and she's a huge part of why the writing community in St. John's is so welcoming and supportive of younger writers."

Hollett's first book, Album Rock, was published in 2018 by Boulder Books. He won the 2017 NLCU Fresh Fish Award for Optic Nerve, a collection of poems (not yet published) about photography and seeing. He has had good luck with the CBC literary prizes, having been longlisted for the 2016 CBC Poetry Prize and the 2017 CBC Nonfiction Prize.

As the grand-prize winner, Hollett will receive $6000 from the Canada Council for the Arts and his poem has been published on CBC Books, along with the other finalists. He will also receive a two-week writing residency at Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity.

Read his winning entry, "Tickling the Scar", which was selected from over 3000 submissions from across the country by jurors Kaie Kellough, Dionne Brand, and Stephen Collis, online at CBC Books.