ABC Gum by Devlin
CBC Books | Posted: November 7, 2024 2:30 PM | Last Updated: November 7
The Halifax writer is on the 2024 CBC Poetry Prize longlist
Devlin has made the 2024 CBC Poetry Prize longlist for ABC Gum.
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 Devlin
Devlin (they/she) has called Kjipuktuk (Halifax) home for the better part of two decades. Devlin writes and creates poetry zines including illustrations from friends and community members, which can be found at the Anchor Archive Zine Library. Devlin has worked in public and academic libraries for the last decade. They have volunteered in writing centres and coordinated and led children's library programs. As a member of the 2SLGBTQIA+ community and a person with disabilities, Devlin strives to make libraries a safer space for everyone where they can access free information, express, connect and create.
Entry in five-ish words
"Gum Archivist: Clairvoyant's Best Piece."
The poems' source of inspiration
"I've worked in a lot of food service jobs, over the course of my time in restaurants and libraries, I've helped set up three restaurants, Central Public Library in Halifax, and created a quilt exhibit at the Charlotte County Museum. At the time, I was helping the Good Food Emporium open, which included things like cleaning the grout on the kitchen floor, painting, and scraping gum from the undersides of chairs and tables. Throughout my life I've had 'visitation' dreams, where you feel someone is contacting you and sharing some of their experience or a message. I also have experience accessioning artifacts and cataloging books. As I was scraping gum off the underside of tables, this character in the poem popped into my head and so I wrote about him."
First lines
ABC gum
He scraped gum from the table's underbelly
To sit alone in thought, conjuring
The Forechewer
He kept a collection
A modest archive
To sit alone in thought, conjuring
The Forechewer
He kept a collection
A modest archive
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)