Ashleigh A. Allen has made the 2023 CBC Poetry Prize longlist for The great hypnotist.

The shortlist will be announced on Nov. 16 and the winner will be announced on Nov. 23.

Ashleigh A. Allen is a poet, writer, researcher, educator and doctoral candidate in Curriculum & Pedagogy at OISE, University of Toronto. She has taught literature, writing and creative writing in various classroom and community settings since 2008, first in New York City and, more recently, in Tkaronto (Toronto). Her poetry has recently appeared or is forthcoming in Prism International, Room, The Malahat Review, The Antigonish Review, CV2 and anthologies by Pilot Press. Her heritage traces to Québec's Mohawk territory (Montreal), Belgium, Northern Italy and the Scottish Highlands.

"Winter morning, departures, radio on."

"I wrote the first draft in the dark midwinter, on one of those mornings that feels nonsensically cold. I was trying to dodge the confrontational shadow work we often attend to that time of year when we sit to write, but I kept being pulled back to it. (I've come to believe that we can harness that thinking/ writing as a slingshot.) And, of course, the dance of leaving and arriving is in there, too."

I loosen my hair in the morning, tap brainwaves, uncork the fog, unveil a map of winter roads. It's still Eurovision in my bed, choo choo ch'boogie on my toast, and the news of a late morning iceberg divorce rots the atmosphere. There is a forest nearby, but we don't surrender there. I forget that I know – was a child with –

The winner of the 2023 CBC Poetry Prize will receive $6,000 from the Canada Council for the Arts, a writing residency and have their work published on CBC Books. Four finalists will each receive $1,000 from the Canada Council for the Arts and have their work published on CBC Books.

If you're interested in the CBC Literary Prizes, the CBC Nonfiction Prize opens in January and the CBC Poetry Prize opens in April.