Mary Zhu has made the 2023 CBC Poetry Prize longlist for To Curl Under Your Light, Votive-Shaped Liver, The Olive Tree 2,562 Miles Away.

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

Mary Zhu is born and raised on the unceded traditional territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations. She has a few poems published in The Literary Canteen and Ricepaper Magazine, and will have one appear in the upcoming December issue of Prism International. She is slowly but surely working on a poetry book while juggling her day job in an academic library.

"love: a lot of salt."

To Curl Under Your Light: "A lot of people in my life have very big hearts. They're the inspiration behind this poem. They carry the world's grief like they're the ones responsible, and I want them to know it's okay to not be able to save the whole world. Sometimes all you can do is love in proximity. Sometimes all your efforts will only amount to a mark left on a single person's world, but it's still enough — the mark on mine is proof."

Votive-Shaped Liver: "What I wanted to capture in this poem is the specific childhood loneliness of witnessing someone close to you struggle or having used to struggle with addiction. The innocent longing to cling onto some kind of connection that tethered you to them even if that connection was a root of the cycle, and how as the sickness carried over into your adulthood like this invisible second limb, you ended up having to accept that specific loneliness anyway to sever it. There is resentment that conflicts with love, and a whole lot of other muddied emotions involved, so I wanted to explore and process that complexity."

The Olive Tree 2,562 Miles Away: "This was inspired by somebody who used to love me who visited me in the summer. Things hadn't worked out. I didn't know what to do with the love I still have for them, so this poem was born."

You tried to revive a dead sparrow once.
Thought if you were gentle enough

its heart would burst into a bright, bold pit-a-pat.
It never did. You took my mudcracked hand

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.