The Bones by Patricia Young

Patricia Young has made the 2020 CBC Poetry Prize longlist for The Bones.

The winner of the 2020 CBC Poetry Prize will receive $6,000 from the Canada Council for the Arts, have their work published on CBC Books and have the opportunity to attend a two-week 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.

The shortlist will be announced on Nov. 5 and the winner will be announced on Nov. 12.

About Patricia Young

Patricia Young has published 14 collections of poetry, most recently Amateurs at Love. She has won the Pat Lowther Award and the Dorothy Livesay Award twice. She has also been twice nominated for the Governor General's Literary Award for poetry. Her collection of short fiction Airstream won the inaugural Rooke-Metcalf Award and was named one of the Globe and Mail's best books of the year. Baseline Press, a poetry micro-press, published a limited edition chapbook, Consider the Paragliders  in 2017. She lives with her husband in Victoria.

Entry in five-ish words

"Random experiences drawn from life."

The poem's source of inspiration

"There was no single inspiration behind this group of three poems. Each one was inspired by a particular event: uncovering a cache of deer bones with a small boy, visiting the bell tower in Seville with my husband and the almost telepathic communication between a long-married couple."

First lines

The Telepaths

We're tired of talk and the chittering of birds   speech
has grown heavy   cumbersome   we're impatient
with long-winded theories    and  pointless digressions 
words flare then burn out  our tongues are troubled
the rain is troubled  beneath the skylight
we consider every explanation  why the long arc
of history keeps bending in the wrong direction 
for years we argued into the small hours   you with sweet
logic   me with blunt incoherence    now
when we pass on the landing we nod but don't speak   

About the 2020 CBC Poetry Prize

The winner of the 2020 CBC Poetry Prize will receive $6,000 from the Canada Council for the Arts, have their work published on CBC Books and attend a two-week writing residency at the Banff Centre for the 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.

The 2021 CBC Nonfiction Prize will open in January. The 2021 CBC Poetry Prize will open in April.