Borderland by Howard Anglin
CBC Books | Posted: November 7, 2024 2:30 PM | Last Updated: November 7
The Calgary-based writer is on the 2024 CBC Poetry Prize longlist
Howard Anglin has made the 2024 CBC Poetry Prize longlist for Borderland.
The winner of the 2024 CBC Poetry Prize 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. The four remaining finalists will each receive $1,000 from the Canada Council for the Arts and have their work published on CBC Books.
The shortlist will be announced on Nov. 14 and the winner will be announced on Nov. 21.
If you're interested in the CBC Literary Prizes, the 2025 CBC Nonfiction Prize opens in January and the 2025 CBC Poetry Prize will open in April.
About Howard Anglin
Howard Anglin is a doctoral student at the University of Oxford. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature from McGill University, a JD from New York University, and an MPhil from the University of Oxford. He lives in and between Oxford (England), Calgary and Vancouver Island.
In 2022, Anglin made the CBC Poetry Prize longlist for At the Holy Well.
Entry in five-ish words
"When borders change, does identity?"
The poem's source of inspiration
"There was no specific inspiration, but I often see bears at the edge of the forest when I drive out from Calgary into the Rocky Mountains. The general idea must have come from reading stories about the people who lived in the places between great powers in the 20th century, especially in Eastern Europe and at the margins of the U.S.S.R."
First lines
I didn't understand why the men were in our house,
coarse and hairy like the wild pigs in the forest.
They knocked my father's hat off, after that he took it off
when they came by. They wanted milk and when my mother
fetched it they made a joke I didn't understand.
coarse and hairy like the wild pigs in the forest.
They knocked my father's hat off, after that he took it off
when they came by. They wanted milk and when my mother
fetched it they made a joke I didn't understand.
Check out the rest of the longlist
The longlist was selected from more than 2,700 submissions. A team of 12 writers and editors from across Canada compiled the list.
The jury selects the shortlist and the eventual winner from the readers' longlisted selections. This year's jury is composed of Shani Mootoo, Garry Gottfriedson and Emily Austin.
The complete longlist is:
- Borderland by Howard Anglin (Calgary)
- on the last day of ramzan, the moon makes the sun in its image by Manahil Bandukwala (Ottawa)
- Lament by Jessica Bebenek (Montreal)
- Citrus Dreams by Elena Bentley (Clavet, Sask.)
- When it's 9:48pm and the kids are asleep and you realize you've spent the entire night on your phone by Nicole Boyce (Calgary)
- ABC Gum by Devlin (Halifax)
- scar/city I by Daniela Elza (Vancouver)
- I Thought I Might by Tamsyn Farr (Wakefield, Que.)
- Score Before Cutting by Claire Gordon (Ucluelet, B.C.)
- There is no neutral way to say I was fourteen by Cicely Grace (Vancouver)
- After Icebergs by Matthew Hollett (St. John's)
- a house in O's name by Eimear Laffan (Nelson, B.C.)
- Gas Station Coffee by Paula Lemke (Langley, B.C.)
- magdalene sonnets by Louie Leyson (Vancouver)
- 吃苦 (Eat the Bitterness) by Emily Yiling Ma (Burnaby, B.C.)
- Kananaskis by Kathleen McCracken (Belfast, Northern Ireland)
- A Tenuous Life Act, I Lay Dreaming by Sasha Pickering (Halifax)
- Regeneration and other poems by Katherine Poyner (Nanaimo, B.C.)
- Girls of the Now by Dora Prieto (Vancouver)
- No Apples and Oranges by Marion Quednau (Sechelt, B.C.)
- i'll expect big things from the moon later tonight by c. a. r. rafuse (Ottawa)
- Song for the Earth and the Water by Harold Rhenisch (Vernon, B.C.)
- Palimpsest County by Rachel Robb (Toronto)
- Doom Scroll by Jenny Sampirisi (Toronto)
- Northern Childhood by Eleonore Schönmaier (Ketch Harbour, N.S.)
- Some Notes on Intoxication and Simile: Like Butterscotch by Catherine St. Denis (Victoria)
- The Killer and the Harpist by Catherine St. Denis (Victoria)
- The Rupture by Ayşe Lara Yildirim (Toronto)