:: Descant is pleased to announce the winner of the 2008 Winston Collins/ Descant Prize for Best Canadian Poem

TORONTO — February 21, 2008
For Immediate Release

:: Elgin, New Brunswick’s Elizabeth Venart was the winner of the 2008 Winston Collins/Descant Prize for Best Canadian Poem. The $1,000 prize recognizing excellence in Canadian poetry was presented to Venart on February 20, 2008.

The judges for the 2008 award — Douglas Glover (author of the 2003 Governor-General's Award-winning novel Elle) and Lisa Moore (author of the 2005 Giller-prize nominated novel Alligator) — were struck by Venart’s winning poem “On the Day I Cut Cabbage,” proclaiming it “a magnificent, imaginative jeu d’esprit.“ They admired the piece which, “begins with a humble domestic moment in the garden, then cuts, with the grace of a single sickle stroke, to metaphor and history and the future.” They also praised the poem for succinctly crossing, “the whole human trajectory in a few lines.”

Also recognized in 2008 were Montréal resident Cora Siré, and fellow Montréaler Celia Ste Croix, who each received Collin’s Prize Honourable Mentions and $250 prizes.

Cora Siré’s poem “Before Leaving Hué,” which the judges characterized as “an homage to the power of poetry,” traces the writer’s journey through Hué, culminating in a scene, “of surpassing ardour and dignity.” She recently released a CD of her poetry entitled, “13 Poems With Music.”

Ste Croix’s piece “The Poem on Your Body” is “about love, art, sex and silences; the corporeal and the ethereal.” Her work has been published in Arcady and Lichen Literary Journal and she has read at various events in Montréal and Vancouver as well as on Dromotexte, a Montréal literary radio program.

All three chosen poems were published in Descant’s Summer 2008 issue (#141).
To order this issue, go here

ABOUT THE WINNER —   Elizabeth Venart’s poetry and prose has been published in several literary journals across Canada, most recently a poem in Contemporary Verse 2. She recently completed a novel What’s There to Cry About? She lives on a farm in Elgin, New Brunswick.

:: 2008 Short List ::
(announced Jan 19, 2008)

Jeff Bien
Stella Body
Wendy Brandts
Michelle Deines
Laurie Graham
Adrienne Gruber
Jeffrey Herrick
Cornelia Hoogland
Julia Kuzeljevich
Laura Lamont
Shela E. Morrison
Shane Neilson
Kathryn Rogers
Cora Siré
Linda Squires
Celia Ste Croix
Elizabeth Venart
Margo Wheaton

:: Judges ::
• The judges for the second year of the award were fiction writer and critic
Douglas Glover, and fiction writer Lisa Moore

		Douglas Glover is an itinerant Canadian. Born in 1948, he is the author of five story collections, four novels, and a book of essays. His bestselling novel Elle won the 2003 Governor-General's Award for Fiction, and has been optioned by Isuma Igloolik Productions. His criticism has appeared in the Globe and Mail, the New York Times Book Review, the Washington Post Book World, the Boston Globe Books, and the Los Angeles Times. He has edited the annual Best Canadian Stories since 1996.
		Lisa Moore’s fiction has been published widely in literary magazines and in anthologies. She has also written art criticism and pieces for radio and television. Her two collections of short stories, Degrees of Nakedness and Open, have drawn enthusiastic praise for their supple sensuality and emotional authenticity. Her latest book, Alligator, was nominated for the 2005 Giller Prize. She lives in St. John’s.   Read Lisa Moore's web blog