Gaston won the $6,000 grand prize for her poem, James.
CBC BOOKS, CBC’s online home for literary content, together with its partners, the Canada Council for the Arts and Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, today announced Lise Gaston of Vancouver as the winner of the 2021 CBC Poetry Prize. Gaston’s poem, James, was selected from almost 3,000 entries.
As the grand-prize winner, Gaston will receive $6,000 from the Canada Council for the Arts and her poem has been published on CBC Books. She will also receive a two-week writing residency at Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity.
The 2021 CBC Poetry jurors Louise Bernice Halfe, Canisia Lubrin and Steven Heighton, said this about Gaston’s poem:
"Poetry has long addressed the materials with which life furnishes or afflicts everyone, love and loss above all. And at the farthest reaches of our existential concerns, there is death, writ large to us to be managed as grief. Good poets find or forge ways to redeem and make these sing. Perhaps technique really is the test of sincerity, whether political, emotional, or indeed beyond these realms. Maybe in spending some minutes of our lives with a poem here and there, our great reward might be the dissolving of falsities that come from the separate silos we too often make of head and heart. Here is a poem written with the sensitivity of a monarch landing on the palm-side of a wrist. Its beauty and pain are expressed with a profound emotional intelligence that pulls the reader inward and outward again. In its appreciation of its subject, James invites such wonder and asks what it might take to break the social taboo still attached to the loss of an infant. It is an aching joy to read."
“I am thrilled, surprised, and most of all so grateful to be able to honour my son in this way. This was such a personal, difficult poem to write and revisit that I am especially moved by the response,” said Lise Gaston. “Thank you to the judges, whose work I deeply admire, and to CBC for the recognition: a recognition that feels larger than my poem, and that encompasses and I hope speaks to other parents who have experienced loss—including those losses that can go unheard.”
The four runners-up for the 2021 CBC Poetry Prize, who will each receive $1,000 from the Canada Council for the Arts, are: Mia Anderson of Portneuf, Que. for ONION; Adriana Oniță of Edmonton for Untranslatable; Bola Opaleke of Winnipeg for The Morgue in my Tears; and Alison Watt of Nanaimo, B.C. for Addendum — “Flora of a Small Island in the Salish Sea”.
CBC Books also announced Marise Belletête as the winner of the French grand prize for Sommes-nous de la même gorge qui ne consent plus à la prière? More information is available at ICI.Radio-canada.ca/icionlit.
For more information on the CBC Literary Prizes, please visit CBCBooks.ca.
- 30 -
About CBC Books
Home to Canada Reads, Writers & Company with Eleanor Wachtel, The Next Chapter with Shelagh Rogers, Canada Writes and the CBC Literary Prizes, CBC Books connects Canadians with books, encouraging a shared love of reading and writing. For book news, writing challenges, reading lists, book recommendations and more, visit cbc.ca/books.
About CBC/Radio-Canada
CBC/Radio-Canada is Canada’s national public broadcaster. Through our mandate to inform, enlighten and entertain, we play a central role in strengthening Canadian culture. As Canada’s trusted news source, we offer a uniquely Canadian perspective on news, current affairs and world affairs. Our distinctively homegrown entertainment programming draws audiences from across the country. Deeply rooted in communities, CBC/Radio-Canada offers diverse content in English, French and eight Indigenous languages. We also deliver content in Spanish, Arabic, Chinese, Punjabi and Tagalog, as well as both official languages, through Radio Canada International (RCI). We are leading the transformation to meet the needs of Canadians in a digital world.
About Canada Council for the Arts
The Canada Council for the Arts is Canada’s public arts funder.
The Council’s grants, services, initiatives, prizes, and payments contribute to the vibrancy of a creative and diverse arts and literary scene and support its presence across Canada and abroad. The Council’s investments foster greater engagement in the arts among Canadians and international audiences.
The Council’s Public Lending Right (PLR) program makes annual payments to creators whose works are held in Canadian public libraries.
About Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity
Founded in 1933, Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity is a learning organization built upon an extraordinary legacy of excellence in artistic and creative development. What started as a single course in drama has grown to become the global organization leading in arts, culture, and creativity across dozens of disciplines. From our home in the stunning Canadian Rocky Mountains, Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity aims to inspire everyone who attends our campus – artists, leaders, and thinkers – to unleash their creative potential and realize their unique contribution to society through cross-disciplinary learning opportunities, world-class performances, and public outreach.
For further information, contact:
Astoria Luzzi, CBC PR
astoria.luzzi@cbc.ca
416-779-6612
Diane Hargrave
Diane Hargrave, Public Relations
416-467-9954
