The World Was Ending by Andrea Scott
CBC Books | Posted: November 9, 2023 2:30 PM | Last Updated: November 9, 2023
2023 CBC Poetry Prize longlist
Andrea Scott has made the 2023 CBC Poetry Prize longlist for The World Was Ending.
The shortlist will be announced on Nov. 16 and the winner will be announced on Nov. 23.
About Andrea Scott
Andrea Scott is a writer, mother and high school teacher from Saskatchewan. She now lives in Victoria, the traditional territory of the Lekwungen Peoples. An MFA student at the University of British Columbia, she is working on a poetry collection, a screenplay and a young adult novel-in-verse. She won the 2022 Geist Erasure Poetry Contest and was a finalist for the 2022 Bridport Poetry Prize and the FBCW 2022 Literary Contest. Previously, Scott was shortlisted for the 2020 CBC Poetry Prize for Adipose Glose. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in The New Quarterly, The Dalhousie Review, Geist, Arc Poetry Magazine, The Humber Literary Review and The Antigonish Review.
Entry in five-ish words
"Soup, climate, capitalism, refugia, more soup."
The poems' source of inspiration
"Last winter break I had a surplus of food in my fridge and freezer, plus some free time to make my favourite recipes to eat and share. I'm often ruminating on, and writing about, the changing climate, and here's how it came out this time. In crisis, breaking bread with others seems a salve, beyond the obvious nutrition. My favourite dishes are those that friends have brought to my door in rough times, and I try to share those around with others. Form-wise, I took inspiration from American poet Chen Chen's poem In The Hospital. Chen Chen's poetry is dark and playful at once, and I love how this particular piece experiments with repetition and variation."
First lines
The world was ending and I made soup to move along
three chicken carcasses in ziplocs in the deep freeze.
three chicken carcasses in ziplocs in the deep freeze.
I changed the recipe back to high sodium to turn up
the noise of the umami and drown out the part about
the noise of the umami and drown out the part about
the world. The world was ending and people didn't want
to change. Me, I booked a flight down south on points.
to change. Me, I booked a flight down south on points.
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.