a house in O's name by Eimear Laffan
CBC Books | Posted: November 7, 2024 2:30 PM | Last Updated: November 7
The Nelson, B.C.-based writer is on the 2024 CBC Poetry Prize longlist
Eimear Laffan has made the 2024 CBC Poetry Prize longlist for a house in O's name.
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 Eimear Laffan
Eimear Laffan's [about]ness was published by McGill-Queen's University Press in 2023. It was longlisted for the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award and a selection was shortlisted for the Bronwen Wallace Emerging Poetry Prize. Her writing has appeared in Funicular, Geist, The Ex-Puritan, wildness and in the anthologies Spectral Lines and Very Much Alive.
Entry in five-ish words
"For the love of O."
The poems' source of inspiration
"The inspiration for a house in O's name is the letter O. The oldest letter of the Roman alphabet traceable back to the Phoenicians. The only letter to appear on a speaker's lips when sounded. O, the leading light of the alphabet. What other letter has a moon inside it? Or was an eye in a former life? a house in O's name follows the lead of the letter, wonders where an atom of language might take us."
First lines
oath
o vows
to perform
to perform
the operative
notion
notion
oath of word
to word
to worlding—
to word
to worlding—
roll on officier
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)