A Number of Stunning Attacks by Jessi MacEachern

2018 CBC Poetry Prize longlist

Image | CBC Poetry Prize - Jessi MacEachern

Caption: Jessi MacEachern is a writer and poet from Montreal. (Katie Sehl)

Jessi MacEachern has made the 2018 CBC Poetry Prize longlist for A Number of Stunning Attacks.

About Jessi

Jessi MacEachern is a PhD candidate in Études anglaises at the Université de Montréal. Her article, The Feminist Poet Re-Creates the Soundscape: The Excessive Noise of Lisa Robertson and Rachel Zolf, is available in Studies in Canadian Literature. Her poetry has previously appeared in Vallum, Canthius, MuseMedusa, PRISM and CV2.

Entry in five-ish words

The violent intimacies of intoxication.

The poem's source of inspiration

"This long poem is a revision of my Master's thesis, in which I created lyric portraits of women who were living and re-living daily traumas. In this 're-vision' — in which my own early work becomes the source text for a conceptual practice — I blur the lines between any singular 'woman' and the collective body of 'women.'"

First lines

If she began to recount her early years
"She has about her a terrible aversion to leaving the house —"
She is searching for examples to parallel pot lids and dresses To begin with
as I recall she looked a little drunk

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(external link), will have their work published on CBC Books(external link) and will have the opportunity to attend a writing residency at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity(external link). Four finalists will each receive $1,000 from the Canada Council for the Arts(external link) and have their work published on CBC Books(external link).

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