The finalists for the 2023 Governor General's Literary Award for poetry
CBC Books | Posted: November 1, 2023 12:40 PM | Last Updated: November 1, 2023
The $25,000 prizes recognize the best Canadian books of the year
Here are the finalists for the 2023 Governor General's Literary Award for poetry.
The Governor General's Literary Awards are one of Canada's oldest and most prestigious literary prizes.
The prizes, administered by the Canada Council for the Arts, are awarded in seven English-language categories: fiction, nonfiction, poetry, young people's literature — text, young people's literature — illustration, drama and French-to-English translation. Seven French-language awards are also given out in the same categories.
The Canada Council for the Arts is a partner of the CBC Literary Prizes. The 2024 CBC Short Story Prize is currently open for submissions.
Each winner will receive $25,000. The winners will be announced on Nov. 8, 2023.
The poetry category was assessed by Mary Dalton, Moez Surani and Gillian Sze.
Get to know the poetry finalists below.
Baby Book by Amy Ching-Yan Lam
Baby Book explores how beliefs are first formed. In this humourous poetry collection, Lam vividly tells many stories that show growth in its many forms.
Amy Ching-Yan Lam is a Toronto-based artist and writer. She is the author of Looty Goes to Heaven. Baby Book is her first collection of poetry.
Exculpatory Lilies by Susan Musgrave
Renowned Canadian poet Susan Musgrave lost her husband in 2018 and her daughter in 2021. Her newest poetry collection, Exculpatory Lilies, explores this expansive grief but also the natural world and the connection between the two, searching for the beauty in the emotional highs and lows of life.
Susan Musgrave is a poet and writer based in B.C. She has received awards for poetry, fiction, nonfiction, personal essay, children's writing and for her work as an editor. She has published many books, including Love You More, More Blueberries and Kiss, Tickle, Cuddle, Hug.
Old Gods by Conor Kerr
Old Gods is a poetry collection in motion. From coyotes that race through the night to buses that drive from region to region or people that search for lost loves on the Internet, Conor Kerr's book is a meditation on the travels humans and animals take over time. The poet places readers in the "Métis mindset," showing that wherever one is in the natural world, there is life in the rivers, the hills and the prairies we travel on.
Kerr is a Métis and Ukrainian educator, writer and harvester. He is a member of the Métis Nation of Alberta and is descended from the Gladue, Ginther and Quinn families from the Lac Ste. Anne and Fort Des Prairies Métis communities and the Papaschase Cree Nation. His poem Prairie Ritual was on the 2021 CBC Poetry Prize longlist.
Kerr won the 2022 Novel ReLit Award for his debut novel Avenue of Champions, which was also longlisted for the 2022 Giller Prize and a finalist for the 2022 Amazon Canada First Novel Award.
LISTEN | Conor Kerr on The Next Chapter:
The Ridge by Robert Bringhurst
The Ridge is a nonfiction poetry collection that uses metaphor and provocative imagery to reflect on the ecological history and future of the West Coast of Canada.
Robert Bringhurst is a writer and former Guggenheim Fellow in poetry. His poetry collection The Beauty of the Weapons was shortlisted for a Governor General's Award in 1982 and his nonfiction book A Story as Sharp as a Knife was shortlisted for a Governor General's Award in 2000.
In 1985, he won the CBC Poetry Prize for his poem The Blue Roofs of Japan and later won the Lieutenant Governor's Award for Literary Excellence in 2005. He is also a recipient of the Order of Canada and lives on Quadra Island, B.C.
Xanax Cowboy by Hannah Green
Xanax Cowboy is a poetry collection that follows the adventures of the Xanax Cowboy, a pill-popping, whiskey drinking woman with a reputation like a rattlesnake.
Hannah Green is a Winnipeg-based writer and poetry editor. She was a poetry finalist for the 2021 Bronwen Wallace Award for Emerging Writers.