Western Canada Dominates CBC Poetry Prize Shortlist

It's another good day for Western Canada with the announcement of the shortlist for the CBC Poetry Prize. 

With five finalists (four of whom count their homes in Alberta or farther west), it's an intriguing list of new voices that will delight poetry lovers. Chosen from nearly three thousand submissions from across Canada, the final five were selected from the longlist by a jury composed of Kaie Kellough, Dionne Brand, and Stephen Collis. Though the CBC contests (which run in the genres of poetry, nonfiction, and short fiction) famously receive extremely high numbers of entries every year, this year marked a record for the most submissions ever received to the poetry contest. 

The 2020 CBC Poetry Prize finalists are:

• Selina Boan (Vancouver) for Conversations with Niton, Have you ever fallen in love with a day
• Hiromi Goto (Victoria) for alley/bird/ally
• Matthew Hollett (Montreal/St. John’s) for Tickling the Scar
• Emily Riddle (Edmonton) for Learning to Count
• Andrea Scott (Victoria) for Adipose Glose

You can read the shortlisted poems on CBCBooks.ca to decide on your personal favourite, and the winner of this year’s prize will be announced on Thursday, November 12.

In addition to $6000 from the Canada Council for the Arts, the winner is also awarded a two-week writing residency at the prestigious Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity and published on the CBC Books website. The four other finalists will each receive $1000 from the Canada Council for the Arts and be published on CBC Books. 

For more information on the CBC Literary Prizes, please visit CBCBooks.ca.