Raissa Simone has made the 2023 CBC Poetry Prize longlist for Forgive Me For What You Did: Poems and Post-Traumatic Ecologies.

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

Raissa Simone is a writer living in Tiohtià:ke (Montreal). She has competed at numerous national poetry slams and been invited to perform at multiple spoken word shows including the Canadian Festival of Spoken Word, Toronto International Poetry Slam, Hillside Festival and When Sisters Speak. She was a finalist for the Quebec Writers Federation Spoken Word Poetry Prize in 2022 and 2023, and she is currently a doctorate candidate in the Humanities Department at Concordia University. Her doctoral work involves post-traumatic narratology, theatre philosophy and research creation.

"Alchemizing trauma through poetic processing."

"The inspiration behind my poems is the ongoing process of contending with the past. My work aims to assess one's own trauma and explore the project of managing trauma or loss as the future unfolds. I'm interested in how poetry can do the work of creating structure around unanticipated loss or ruptures in life."

CRY IN PUBLIC WEAR SHORT SKIRTS AND BEND OVER BE GRACELESS IN CONVERSATION SLEEP OUTSIDE IN A FROSTBITTEN CITY RELY ON THE KINDNESS OF STRANGERS AND BE LET DOWN CRY IN PUBLIC TELL THEM WHAT HE DID TO YOU SHOW OFF YOUR BRUISES YELL AT PASSING CARS FIND NEW WAYS TO HURT YOURSELF

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.