Spruce Bones by Alice Irene Whittaker
CBC Books | Posted: November 10, 2022 1:00 PM | Last Updated: November 10, 2022
Alice Irene Whittaker has made the 2022 CBC Poetry Prize longlist for Spruce Bones.
The shortlist will be announced on Nov. 17 and the winner will be announced on Nov. 24.
If you're interested in the CBC Literary Prizes, the CBC Nonfiction Prize opens in January and the CBC Poetry Prize opens in April.
About Alice Irene Whittaker
Alice Irene Whittaker is a writer and environmental leader. She is the executive director of Ecology Ottawa, and the creator and host of Reseed, a podcast about repairing our relationship to nature. She has been published in national and international publications, and is currently working on a memoir about unraveling perfectionism from environmentalism and finding home. In 2021, she received a literary grant from the Conseil des Arts et des Lettres du Québec. Alice Irene is the mother of three beautiful young children, and a keeper of cats, dogs, and chickens. She lives with her family in a cabin in the woods in Québec.
Whittaker was longlisted for the 2021 CBC Nonfiction Prize for The Coyote and the Wren.
Entry in five-ish words
"My body, made of birds."
The source of inspiration
The deep sorrow, and love, that I feel for the boundless beauty of our Earth and her birds and animals inspired the poems of Spruce Bones. - Alice Irene Whittaker
"The deep sorrow, and love, that I feel for the boundless beauty of our Earth and her birds and animals inspired the poems of Spruce Bones. I have always felt that there is no boundary between myself and the world around me, and this comes with it great empathy and profound sadness. I am inspired to express how this lack of boundary — or perhaps interconnection between myself and the Earth and her creatures across boundaries — allows me to see birds and animals, feeling the exchange of our breath, seeing the sameness of our motherhood, and sharing our experience of the woods in a moment of precarity."
First lines
Yellow-bellied flycatchers
care tender for young
in the mosses
blueberry, viburnum and mountain laurel
that intertwine under the safe shadow
of the cinnamon fern
care tender for young
in the mosses
blueberry, viburnum and mountain laurel
that intertwine under the safe shadow
of the cinnamon fern
Brown creepers
and red-breasted nuthatches
know their home
as intimately as I do
finding my way from room to room
in 3 am darkness
to find my children
and red-breasted nuthatches
know their home
as intimately as I do
finding my way from room to room
in 3 am darkness
to find my children
About the 2022 CBC Poetry Prize
The winner of the 2022 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 the 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 2023 CBC Nonfiction Prize will open in January. The 2023 CBC Poetry Prize will open in April.