Miss Mercy by A.B. Dillon
CBC Books | Posted: October 31, 2018 8:19 PM | Last Updated: November 2, 2018
2018 CBC Poetry Prize longlist
A.B. Dillon has made the 2018 CBC Poetry Prize longlist for Miss Mercy.
About A.B.
A.B. Dillon is a first-generation Canadian. Her parents emigrated from Ireland in 1959, joining the rest of the clan in Montreal before eventually moving to Windsor, Ont. She is, by day, an educator and counsellor for outreach students and, by night, a crafter of prose, poetry and personal essay. She has written for Swerve, the Calgary Herald, Where, Avenue Magazine and Toque & Canoe. Her poetry has been published in the Café Beano anthologies and FreeFall Magazine, where she won third prize in 2016. Matronalia is her first collection of prose poetry, published in 2018. She is currently working on her second book, Murmuration.
Entry in five-ish words
Divine merciful unheard murmuration gifties.
The poem's source of inspiration
"I read an article about a little girl who made friends with a crow. The crow gifted her with all manner of trinkets, which the girl categorized into a large collection. This collection of crow communication by gift took on a symbolic meaning for me, in terms of language — as a living, breathing entity, across cultures and species. I wanted to explore the relationship of crow to human, in lore, legend and in our present workaday lives. In my work, this particular philosopher-crow tracks humans, and 'speaks' to them, having learned the nuances of their accents, which become enmeshed with his own — an amalgam of Middle English and modern speak."
First lines
Brought her two shiny bits of glass this day,
from the edges of the bended river
where them bow reeds grow.
Her face
the tale I am loving to read,
speakens of silent thinkings and musings
and allsorts.
Yous tending to look to the light, erstwhile.
About the 2018 CBC Poetry Prize
The winner of the 2018 CBC Poetry Prize will receive $6,000 from the Canada Council for the Arts, will have their work published on CBC Books and will have the opportunity to attend a writing residency at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity. Four finalists will each receive $1,000 from the Canada Council for the Arts and have their work published on CBC Books.