I Am a Scar, Falling by Jane Eaton Hamilton

Jane Eaton Hamilton has made the 2018 CBC Poetry Prize longlist for I Am a Scar, Falling.

• 30 writers make longlist for the 2018 CBC Poetry Prize

About Jane

Jane Eaton Hamilton has published nine books, most recently the novel Weekend and the poetry Love Will Burst into a Thousand Shapes. They won the CBC Short Story Prize in 2014 and 2003 and has had three Notables in Best American series, including in BAE 2018 for an essay published in The Sun. Their memoir, No More Hurt, was a Sunday Times bestseller and was on the Guardian's best of the year list. They've published in the Globe, Rumpus, Macleans, the New York Times and many other places.

Entry in five-ish words

Being a scar in free fall.

The poem's source of inspiration

"Living with someone's mental illness."

First lines

The sting of the shower, you say
You stand on the bottom stair
hair wet and gleaming
your mouth shaping "O." We hand-sanded
the banister. In a hundred years
three children carved their initials
(P/TJ/R). One spindle
was dog-chewed
sculpted together with putty
melting under the heat gun

About the 2018 CBC Poetry Prize

The winner of the 2018 CBC Poetry Prize will receive $6,000 from the Canada Council for the Arts, will have their work published on CBC Books and will have the opportunity to attend a writing residency at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity. Four finalists will each receive $1,000 from the Canada Council for the Arts and have their work published on CBC Books.