Alessandra Naccarato has won the 2017 CBC Poetry Prize for Postcards for my Sister.

Naccarato will receive $6,000 from the Canada Council for the Arts and her poem will be published in Air Canada enRoute magazine and on CBC Books. She will also receive a 10-day writing residency at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity.

This year's jury was comprised of Gary Barwin, Rosanna Deerchild and Humble The Poet.

"The women in Postcards for my Sister face challenges, loss and sorrow, but they respond with dignity and resilience," the jury said in a statement. "In beautiful and arresting language, the poem introduces us to matriarchs, 'big-mouthed women, fat/as trees,' and the patterns which join grandmothers, mothers, sisters and their children to the sometimes difficult realities of birth and death, but also to nature and each other."

Postcards for my Sister was selected from more than English-language 2,400 submissions. There were more than 3,500 submissions in both English and French.

The other finalists were Cornelia Hoogland for Tourists Stroll a Victoria Waterway, Laboni Islam for Lunar Landing, 1966, Sarah Kabamba for Carry, and Harold Rhenisch for Saying the Names Shanty. The finalists each received $1,000 from the Canada Council for the Arts and had their stories published on CBC Books.

Marie-Eve Blanchard won the Radio-Canada French-language grand prize, Prix de poésie, for her poem Louise.

The CBC Literary Prizes have been recognizing Canadian writers since 1979. Past winners include Michael Ondaatje, Carol Shields, Michael Winter and Frances Itani.​

If you're interested in submitting to the CBC Literary Prizes, the 2018 CBC Nonfiction Prize opens Jan. 1, 2018.