Erin Wilson has made the 2019 CBC Poetry Prize longlist for Blue, Orphaned Rabbits and The Shearing.

The winner of the 2019 CBC Poetry Prize will receive $6,000 from the Canada Council for the Arts, have their work published on CBC Books and attend a two-week 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.

The shortlist will be announced on Nov. 14, 2019. The winner will be announced on Nov. 21, 2019.

Erin Wilson is originally from a small rural community on Manitoulin Island, the daughter of a trapper and a cook, stepdaughter to a butcher. Wilson's poetry explores identity through poems that both threaten and feed. Her work has appeared in literary journals such as The Literary Review of Canada, On the Seawall, Natural Bridge, Poetry Ireland Review and The Hamilton Stone Review. Her first collection, At Home with Disquiet, is due out in spring 2020. She lives and writes in a small town in northern Ontario.

Blood is what there is.

My son.

There is a family story.

When my first husband and I were together
we hiked a fairly arduous trail with the children,
young at the time.

At the top, our daughter,
believing she saw water in the distance,
ran toward the jutting precipice
and nearly jumped.

It was sky.