A Blue Filter by Sheryda Warrener

2020 CBC Poetry Prize longlist

Image | Sheryda Warrener

Caption: Sheryda Warrener is a writer from Vancouver. (Jackie Dives)

Sheryda Warrener has made the 2020 CBC Poetry Prize longlist for A Blue Filter.
The winner of the 2020 CBC Poetry Prize will receive $6,000 from the Canada Council for the Arts(external link), have their work published on CBC Books(external link) and have the opportunity to attend a two-week 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).
The shortlist will be announced on Nov. 5 and the winner will be announced on Nov. 12.

About Sheryda Warrener

Sheryda Warrener is the author of two collections of poetry, Hard Feelings and Floating Is Everything. New work has been selected for Best Canadian Poetry and The Next Wave: An Anthology of 21st Century Canadian Poetry, and commissioned by local galleries Artspeak and The Belkin. She teaches in the creative writing program at the University of British Columbia.

Entry in five-ish words

"Glove, field, iris, body, time."

The poem's source of inspiration

"Seeing a worker's cotton glove in a glass case at MashUp: The Birth of Modern Culture at the Vancouver Art Gallery, and being instantly transported back to commuting on trains in Tokyo nearly 20 years ago."

First lines

travelling southbound
8:12 train book in hand
could be Snow Country or
Thousand Cranes
flash in her periphery
she looks up
from the window
late spring's foreign language
she looks up
the book could be The Sound of the Mountain or
The Old Capital
gold & white stipple the blue

About the 2020 CBC Poetry Prize

The winner of the 2020 CBC Poetry Prize will receive $6,000 from the Canada Council for the Arts(external link), have their work published on CBC Books(external link) and attend a two-week writing residency at the Banff Centre for the 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).
The 2021 CBC Nonfiction Prize will open in January. The 2021 CBC Poetry Prize will open in April.