Psychology of Loss and Grief by Karen Loucks
CBC Books | Posted: November 9, 2023 2:30 PM | Last Updated: November 9, 2023
2023 CBC Poetry Prize longlist
Karen Loucks has made the 2023 CBC Poetry Prize longlist for Psychology of Loss and Grief.
The shortlist will be announced on Nov. 16 and the winner will be announced on Nov. 23.
About Karen Loucks
Karen Loucks (Chester) lives and writes in Victoria. The traditional and unceded lands of the Coast Salish peoples on Vancouver Island is the place her family has called home for seven generations. She currently works as a clinical counsellor with a special interest in grief and loss. Her poetry has been previously published in the following anthologies: Worth More Standing, Sweet Water: Poems for the Watersheds, Voicing Suicide, Rocksalt: An Anthology of Contemporary BC Poetry, Poems from Planet Earth and in two chapbooks edited by Patrick Lane.
Entry in five-ish words
"Grief as teacher, attentive presence."
The poems' source of inspiration
"This poem sprung from an experience of teaching a Grief & Loss course to counselling students early in the COVID-19 pandemic. For the first time, I was instructing a weekend residency remotely. Each morning, I would prepare for the students, waiting for them all to appear on the screen, and then do my best to make the material come alive for them. Over the course of our weekend together, I had them do some writing exercises. When they were quietly working, I'd write too. Sometimes I'd find myself looking out my living room window marvelling at the bumblebees that had emerged during an unusually warm January morning.
This poem is also an ode to poets and writers who have come before me, a kind of conversation with other artists. - Karen Loucks
"This act of dipping in (to the teaching) and then leaning out (to notice my surroundings) had me thinking about the teaching experience in a new way. This poem is also an ode to poets and writers who have come before me, a kind of conversation with other artists. My poem is an explicit nod to Elizabeth Bishop's 12 O'clock News."
First lines
~ After Elizabeth Bishop's Twelve O'Clock News
Travel clock
Folded, I am servant.
Waiting for the students,
wanting for them.
I am: eight o'clock.
About the 2023 CBC Poetry Prize
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.