Girls of the Now by Dora Prieto
CBC Books | Posted: November 7, 2024 2:30 PM | Last Updated: November 7
The Vancouver writer is on the 2024 CBC Poetry Prize longlist
Dora Prieto has made the 2024 CBC Poetry Prize longlist for Girls of the Now.
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 Dora Prieto
Dora Prieto is an emerging poet based in Vancouver on the unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh nations. She is currently editing her debut poetry manuscript and co-translating an award-winning work by Xitlalitl Rodríguez. Her poetry has been shortlisted and awarded by the Writer's Trust and appears in publications including Acentos Review, Capilano Review, Catapult, and GUTS. Her interdisciplinary poetry includes comics, performance, and poetry-dance collaboration. She enjoys sharing the tools of poetry-making via El Mashup, a workshop for Latinx youth that centers hybrid practice and amateurism in experimental poetry, fiction, analog cinema, sound art, and performance.
Entry in five-ish words
"Phenomena: nature, mannequins, girl grief."
The poem's source of inspiration
"I was trying to let something emerge rather than having a specific idea of what I wanted the poem to convey. I like the complete phrases of monostich; the lack of enjambment creates equal weight on the language, and the assertiveness of a period at the end of every line adds drama to a sassy and humorous voice, though violence and grief are always nearby, too. In the edit, I found these themes: girlhood, identity, defiance, and the deep grief of having lost a young person in my life. From this speaker, an entire manuscript has emerged. She has a lot to say!"
First lines
Men are all like, "Nature is this, nature is that."
But I've seen a pigeon fly over a factory and suddenly shift in air, back in a secret direction.
On the phone, my friend tells me how his parents are disappointed in him.
"Wasted potential," is a thing these kinds of parents say.
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)