Farah Ghafoor has made the 2022 CBC Poetry Prize longlist for The Pear and Other Poems.

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.

Farah Ghafoor is a poet with work published in Arc Poetry Magazine, Prism International, CV2, Ninth Letter, Hobart and elsewhere. Her poems have been taught at Iowa State University, and nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Best New Poets and Best of the Net. Born in New York, she was raised in New Brunswick and Ontario, and recently graduated from the University of Toronto with a BBA in management and accounting.

"How extraordinary is the ordinary."

"When I had the titular pear, I felt so grateful that I wanted to trace back where it had been, and everything that had occurred to allow me to have such an ordinary yet wonderful experience. After writing the poem, I realized that it was in conversation with Wendy Cope's work. The second poem, Larvae, was inspired by the hard work of motherhood and my mother's garden. I love to sit in my parents' backyard in the summer and try to read, though I always get distracted by the butterflies, dragonflies and bees. New Year, New Me began out of wondering what modern-day mythology could look like — the circumstances and conditions."

After Wendy Cope

I've been thinking about this pear all morning and afternoon.
Stopped in the middle of cleaning the washroom, bleach still
on my palms, to sit down and tell you about this fortune,
green-gold with one hundred tiny brown eyes, each smiling.

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.