scar/city I by Daniela Elza
CBC Books | Posted: November 7, 2024 2:30 PM | Last Updated: November 7
The Vancouver writer is on the 2024 CBC Poetry Prize longlist
Daniela Elza has made the 2024 CBC Poetry Prize longlist for scar/city I.
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 Daniela Elza
Daniela Elza lived on three continents before immigrating to Canada in 1999. Her most recent collections are the broken boat (2020) & slow erosions (2020). scar/city I is part of SCAR/CITY— her collection forthcoming with McGill-Queen's University Press (2025). Daniela's debut prose collection Is This an Illness or an Accident? will also be published in 2025 by Caitlin Press. She is the recipient of the 2024 Colleen Thibaudeau Award for Outstanding Contribution to Poetry. She lives on the unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish) and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations, also known as Vancouver.
Entry in five-ish words
"Fragmentation of our urban-moral fabric."
The poems' source of inspiration
"These poems are inspired by the tireless work in communities to protect and grow homes that are deeply affordable and provide us with security of tenure. They interrogate a system that has allowed our homes to be mined for profit, and resulted in the now perceptible depravity and scarcity, which leaves us homeless metaphorically and literally."
First lines
behind the parade of your glass the eyes of
the under/paid dream. vitrines multiply &
divide us. leaf blowers re/arrange the dust
on side/walks w/here we've stopped hearing
the under/paid dream. vitrines multiply &
divide us. leaf blowers re/arrange the dust
on side/walks w/here we've stopped hearing
even our own th/oughts. bedazzled in
multiple translations some of us grow
det/ached some imp/partial some of us
fracture along pres/sure points & fault lines—
multiple translations some of us grow
det/ached some imp/partial some of us
fracture along pres/sure points & fault lines—
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)