Britta Badour, Brandi Bird, Laila Malik each shortlisted twice for League of Canadian Poets prizes
CBC Books | Posted: April 17, 2024 3:42 PM | Last Updated: April 17
The $2K awards annually recognize the best in Canadian poetry
Britta Badour's Wires that Sputter, Brandi Bird's The All + Flesh and Laila Malik's Archipelago are each shortlisted twice for the League of Canadian Poets annual book awards.
The organization administers three poetry prizes to celebrate the year's best published works — the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award for debut books, Pat Lowther Memorial Award for books by Canadian women and Raymond Souster Award for books by League members.
The winner of each prize receives $2,000.
Wires That Sputter is shortlisted for the Gerald Lampert award and the Pat Lowther Memorial Award. It is an intimate collection of poetry which plays with form and punctuation. Badour explores pop culture, sports, family dynamics and Black liberation.
Badour, better known as Britta B., is an artist, public speaker and poet living in Toronto. She was also the recipient of the 2021 Breakthrough Artist Award from the Toronto Arts Foundation. She teaches spoken word performance at Seneca College.
She was named one of CBC Books' 2023 writers to watch.
LISTEN | Britta Badour on The Next Chapter:
The All + Flesh is shortlisted for the Gerald Lampert Award and the Raymond Souster Award. It's a debut collection that explores both internal and external cultural landscapes and lineages from the perspective of a Saulteaux, Cree and Métis writer.
Bird is an Indigiqueer writer from Treaty 1 territory who is currently studying at the University of British Columbia. Their poems have been featured in various publications such as Catapult and Room Magazine. The All + Flesh is their first book.
LISTEN | Books columnist Makda Mulatu explores Brandi Bird's debut poetry collection:
archipelago is shortlisted for the the Gerald Lampert award and the Pat Lowther Memorial Award. It's a collection of lyrical poems exploring family dynamics and self-identity in the face of multigenerational migration.
Laila Malik is a writer living in Adobigok, the traditional land of Indigenous communities that include the Anishinaabe, Seneca, Mohawk Haudenosaunee, and Wendat. archipelago is her debut poetry collection.
Other Canadian writers on the longlists include Kai Cheng Thom, D.M. Bradford and Hannah Green.
Thom's Falling Back in Love with Being Human is longlisted for the Pat Lowther Memorial Award. It's a collection of vulnerable and poetic love letters and a lyrical journey of self-acceptance.
Thom writes poems to those she describes as "lost souls" both within and far from her own lived experiences. She meditates on her own identities as a Chinese Canadian transgender woman in this collection about healing and love.
Thom is a Chinese Canadian writer, artist and activist. Her poetry collection a place called No Homeland was named an American Library Association Stonewall Honor Book. Her other books include Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars and I Hope We Choose Love.
Bradford's Bottom Rail on Top is longlisted for the Raymond Souster Award. It's a collection of poems which embodies the Black histories of antebellum life and emancipation in America, meditating on lineage and legacy through poetic fragments.
Bradford is a Montreal-based poet and translator. Their other books include Dream of No One but Myself, which won the 2022 A.M. Klein Prize for Poetry and was a finalist for the Griffin Poetry Prize, and their translated book House Within a House.
Green's Xanax Cowboy is longlisted for the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award. It's a poetry collection that follows the adventures of the Xanax Cowboy, a pill-popping, whiskey drinking woman with a reputation like a rattlesnake.
Green is a Winnipeg-based writer and poetry editor. She was a poetry finalist for the 2021 Bronwen Wallace Award for Emerging Writers.
LISTEN | Hannah Green and her dad, Chris, on her book Xanax Cowboy winning the Governor General's Literary Award for Poetry:
The Gerald Lampert Memorial Award is for the best debut book of poetry. The shortlist includes:
- Wires That Sputter by Britta Badour
- The All + Flesh by Brandi Bird
- Chores by Maggie Burton
- Xanax Cowboy by Hannah Green
- Archipelago by Laila Malik
- More Sure by A Light Zachary
The Pat Lowther Memorial Award recognizes a book by Canadian women and non-binary authors. The shortlist includes:
- Wires That Sputter by Britta Badour
- the natural hustle by Eva H.D.
- Archipelago by Laila Malik
- Vixen by Sandra Ridley
- Selvage by Kate Siklosi
- Falling Back in Love with Being Human by Kai Cheng Thom
The Raymond Souster Award is for the best book by a member of the League of Canadian Poets. The longlist includes:
- Uncomfortability by Roxanna Bennett
- The All + Flesh by Brandi Bird
- Bottom Rail on Top by D.M. Bradford
- Spells, Wishes, and the Talking Dead: ᒪᒪᐦᑖᐃᐧᓯᐃᐧᐣᐸᑯᓭᔨᒧᐤᓂᑭᐦᒋᐋᓂᐢᑯᑖᐹᐣ mamahtâwisiwin, pakosêyimow, nikihci-âniskotâpân by Wanda John-Kehewin
- Slows: Twice by T. Liem
- Sonnets from a Cell by Bradley Peters
This year's League of Canadian Poets award winners will be announced on May 1.