WINNER
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“The Green Muse” by John B. Lee
HONOURARY MENTIONS
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“Chardin’s Rabbit” by Jim Nason
“The Roll Call to the Ark” by Yvonne Blomer
Brantford Poet Laureate John B. Lee is the winner of the inaugural Winston Collins/Descant Prize for Best Canadian Poem. The $1,000 prize recognizing excellence in Canadian poetry was presented to Lee last night by Descant Editor-in-Chief Karen Mulhallen at a celebratory reception at PageWave Graphics, Toronto.
The Collins Prize commemorates the memory of Winston Collins, writer and enthusiastic teacher of literature at the universities of Cincinnati, Princeton and Toronto. The annual prize perpetuates his remarkable talent for encouraging self-expression through writing. The response to the inaugural year of this competition exceeded expectations, with over 100 submissions coming in from across Canada by first time and seasoned poets alike,attesting to the quality and diversity of poetry in Canada.
The judges for this year’s award — Douglas Glover (author of the 2003Governor-General’s Award-winning novel Elle) and Lisa Moore (author of the 2005 Giller-prize nominated novel Alligator) — were struck by the “exuberant, nimble language” of Lee’s winning poem “The Green Muse.”Proclaiming it “a gorgeous meditation on the colour green,” they were impressed by Lee’s linguistic craft, admiring the “deft juxtaposition and dreamy alliteration” of the piece.
Also recognized at Tuesday’s announcement were Toronto native Jim Nason, and Victoria, BC resident Yvonne Blomer, who each received Collin’s Prize Honourable Mentions.
Jim Nason’s poem “Chardin’s Rabbit,” which the judges characterized as “gory, sensuously lush, and richly imagined”, will be included in Nason’s new poetry collection Laneway Home. His novel The Housekeeping Journals is forthcoming with Turnstone Press.
“Witty, cadenced, and comic,” Blomer’s poem “The Roll Call to the Ark” is an example of the dynamism of her poetic style. She has appeared on the BBC radio, won numerous literary awards and has been a finalistin the CBC Literary Awards and The Malahat Review Long Poem Prize. Her first collection of poetry a broken mirror, fallen leaf was released in the spring of 2006.
(All three chosen poems will be published in Descant’s Spring 2007 issue.)
For more information about the Winston Collins / Descant Prize for Best Canadian Poem and Descant magazine, please visit:
http://www.descant.ca/contest.html
