Books by past CBC Poetry Prize winners and finalists being published in 2025
Being a finalist for the CBC Poetry Prize can jumpstart your literary career. Need proof? Here are books that were written by former CBC Poetry Prize winners and finalists that are being published this year.
The 2025 CBC Poetry Prize is open for submissions until June 1, 2025 at 4:59 p.m. ET.
You can submit an original, unpublished poem or collection of poems. The submission will be judged as a whole and must be a maximum of 600 words (including titles).
The winner will receive $6,000 from the Canada Council for the Arts, a two-week writing residency at Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity and will have their work published on CBC Books.
Four finalists will each receive $1,000 from the Canada Council for the Arts and have their work published on CBC Books.
Compulsory Figures by John Barton
The collection Compulsory Figures reflects on John Baron's childhood in Alberta, his coming of age as a gay man during the AIDS crisis and all the people and things that shape us. Through lyrical poetry, it also explores the depths of grief after the poet's loss of one of his sisters in 2015.
Barton was the editor of The Malahat Review from 2004 to 2018. He is a three-time winner of the Archibald Lampman Award and his collection Lost Family: A Memoir was nominated for the 2021 Derek Walcott Prize for Poetry. He was the city of Victoria poet laureate from 2019 to 2022.
Barton won second place of the CBC Poetry Prize in 2002 for In the House of the Present and Assymetries.
The poems in No One Knows Us There shows two portraits of early womanhood. The first, a devoted granddaughter responding to needs in hospital hallways, the second, the same woman ten years older, looking at her younger self with compassion and hopes for healing.
Jessica Bebenek is a queer interdisciplinary poet, bookmaker and educator living between Tiohtià:ke (Montreal) and an off-grid shack on unceded Anishinaabeg territory. Bebenek's writing has been nominated for the Journey Prize, twice nominated for the Pushcart Prize, and in 2021 she was a finalist for the Bronwen Wallace Award for Emerging Writers in Poetry.
Bebenek was longlisted for the 2024 CBC Poetry Prize. She was recently announced as a reader for the 2025 CBC Poetry Prize.
In Born, a pregnant high school teacher is trapped in a classroom during a lockdown caused by a troubled student with a knife, while relying on her students for support as she unexpectedly goes into labour. The novel explores the complexities of the school system, motherhood and the student-teacher relationship.
When you can read it: June 17, 2025.
Heather Birrell is the author of the Gerald Lampert award-winning poetry collection Float and Scurry, and two story collections, Mad Hope and I know you are but what am I? She has also won the Journey Prize and been shortlisted for both the Western and National Magazine Awards. Her work has appeared in numerous Canadian literary journals. She lives in Toronto.
In 2022, Birrell was longlisted for the CBC Poetry Prize.
The Longest Night by Lauren Carter
In The Longest Night Ash Hayes is locked out of her family home in Minnesota on a cold December night. Looking for shelter, she heads to her neighbours whom she's never met. The next morning she discovers that their house is completely void of modern technology and all its windows are blocked. Ash will have to figure a way to alter her past in order to reconnect with her future.
When you can read it: Sept. 1, 2025.
Lauren Carter writes, teaches writing and mentors other writers. She is the author of four books of fiction, including This Has Nothing to Do with You, which won the 2020 Margaret Laurence Award for Fiction. She has also received the John Hirsch Award for Most Promising Manitoba Writer. Her short story Rhubarb won the Prairie Fire Fiction Award. Her debut novel, Swarm, was longlisted for Canada Reads 2014. She is based in Winnipeg.
In 2017, Carter made the CBC Poetry Prize longlist for Lie Down Within the Night. It was her second time on a CBC Poetry Prize longlist. Before that, she'd made the 2013 CBC Poetry Prize longlist for Migration (1851-1882). She was also longlisted for the CBC Short Story Prize in 2015 for River's Edge.
Kingdom of the Clock by Daniel Cowper
Kingdom of the Clock is a novel in verse that explores the lives of the inhabitants of a coastal city during a single day. The cast of characters include an aging stock promoter, an artist, an elderly chess player and a homeless man, among others. Each citizen facing different experiences throughout that same day.
Daniel Cowper is based on Bowen Island, B.C. He studied medieval literature, philosophy and law in Vancouver, Manhattan and Toronto. His poems have appeared in various literary journals, including Arc, Vallum, Freefall, Prairie Fire and Contemporary Verse 2. His first chapbook The God of Doors was the co-winner of Frog Hollow Press' 2016 chapbook contest.
Cowper longlisted for the 2017 CBC Poetry Prize for Earth on the Ocean's Back.
SCAR/CITY by Daniela Elza
The poems in SCAR/CITY are inspired by the tireless work in communities to protect and grow homes that are affordable and provide security of tenure. They interrogate a system that has allowed homes to be mined for profit.
When you can read it: July 22, 2025.
Daniela Elza is a Vancouver-based poet. Her previous collections are the broken boat and slow erosions. In 2024, she received the Colleen Thibaudeau Award for Outstanding Contribution to Poetry. Her debut prose collection Is This an Illness or an Accident? is also be published in 2025.
Elza was on the 2024 CBC Poetry Prize longlist for scar/city I.
Is This an Illness or an Accident? by Daniela Elza
Is This an Illness or an Accident? is a memoir inspired by having to answer the question "But where are you really from?" Elza explores the ideas of belonging, identity and the question of home. It also incorporates the concept of the world citizen, pushing back against the rise of nationalism.
Daniela Elza is a Vancouver-based poet. Her previous collections are the broken boat and slow erosions. In 2024, she received the Colleen Thibaudeau Award for Outstanding Contribution to Poetry. Her poetry collection SCAR/CITY is also be published in 2025.
Elza was on the 2024 CBC Poetry Prize longlist for scar/city I.
Shadow Price by Farah Ghafoor
Shadow Price borrows its title from the finance term — "the estimated price of a good or service for which no market price exists." It's a poetry collection that explores what holds value in a capitalistic world.
Farah Ghafoor is a poet whose work has appeared in The Walrus, Prism International, Room, Ninth Letter and Hobart. Her poems have been taught at Iowa State University and have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Best New Poets and Best of the Net. She won the E.J. Pratt Medal and Prize in Poetry. Born in New York and raised in New Brunswick and Ontario, she currently works as a financial analyst in Toronto.
Ghafoor was longlisted for the CBC Poetry Prize in 2022.
Keener Sounds: A Suite by Roger Greenwald
The poet, when young, listened to a violinist practicing and wondered: "Could words as well be made to say the wordless?" Keener Sounds: A Suite is a sequence of contemporary sonnets in which music, as both subject and inspiration, accompanies explorations of love, grief, time and memory.
Greenwald attended The City College of New York and the Poetry Project workshop at St. Mark's Church In-the-Bowery, then completed graduate degrees at the University of Toronto. He has published three earlier books of poems: Connecting Flight, Slow Mountain Train and The Half-Life. He won the 2018 Gwendolyn MacEwen Poetry Award from Exile Magazine.
Greenwald won the CBC Poetry Prize in 1994 and First Prize in the CBC Literary Award for Travel Literature in 2003.
Beaver Hills Forever by Conor Kerr
Beaver Hills Forever is a genre-bending novella with poetic verses that looks at the intertwined lives of four characters — each one of them representing one of the paths available to Metis people on the Prairies. They all share their inner dreams, hardships and even their delusions of grandeur.
When you can read it: Sept. 9, 2025.
Kerr is a Métis/Ukrainian writer who has lived in a number of prairie towns and cities, including Saskatoon. He now lives in Edmonton and teaches creative writing at the University of Alberta. A 2022 CBC Books writer to watch, his previous works include the poetry collection Old Gods and the novel Avenue of Champions, which was longlisted for the 2022 Scotiabank Giller Prize, and won the ReLit award the same year. His most recent book Prairie Edge was shortlisted both for the 2024 Giller Prize and for the 2024 Atwood Gibson fiction prize.
Best Canadian series 2025 edited by Anita Lahey
The Best Canadian anthologies are a yearly endeavour shepherded by series editor Anita Lahey. Every year, a featured guest editor is selected for each of the three categories: stories, essays and poetry. In 2025, the guest editor for fiction was Steven W. Beattie, Emily Urquhart edited the nonfiction category and Aislinn Hunter served as the editor of the poetry collection.
Anita Lahey is an Ottawa writer. Her books include Spinning Side Kick, Out to Dry in Cape Breton, The Mystery Shopping Cart and The Last Goldfish, which was a finalist for the Ottawa Book Award. She has been the series editor of the Best Canadian yearly anthologies since 2018.
Lahey was on the CBC Poetry Prize longlists in 2009 for Men and in 2010 for The Foe.
i cut my tongue on a broken country by Kyo Lee
Through the poet's reflections on growing up queer and Korean Canadian, i cut my tongue on a broken country poignantly details her coming-of-age that's marked with beauty, pain and a quest for love.
Kyo Lee is a queer high school student from Waterloo, Ont. Her work is featured in PRISM International, Nimrod, The Forge Literary Magazine and This Magazine, among others.
Lee is the youngest winner of the CBC Poetry Prize, for her poem lotus flower blooming into breasts, and the youngest finalist for the RBC Bronwen Wallace Award.
Alice loves to play and get up to no good with her friend Mrs. Nobody. However, after Alice pushes back on her idea because she didn't want to play a game they'd already played, Mrs. Nobody disappears. Alice has to spend a lonely night without her friend and figure out what to say when Mrs. Nobody reappears the next day.
Mrs. Nobody is for ages 3-6.
Y. S. Lee's fiction includes the YA mystery series The Agency, which was translated into six languages. Her poems have appeared in publications such as Event, Room, Rattle and the Literary Review of Canada. Her poem Saturday morning, East Pender Street was longlisted for the 2021 CBC Poetry Prize. She lives in Kingston, Ont.
Lee was a finalist for the 2022 CBC Nonfiction Prize for her piece Tek Tek.
Elegy for Opportunity by Natalie Lim
Natalie Lim is a Chinese-Canadian poet based in Vancouver. Her work has been featured in Arc Poetry Magazine and Best Canadian Poetry 2020, among others. She is the author of the chapbook arrhythmia and has won the Room magazine's 2020 Emerging Writer Award.
Cut Side Down by Jessi MacEachern
Cut Side Down is a collection of poems that explores the themes of autobiography, desire, invention, landscape and memory. The poems also feature the important places of the Jessi MacEachern's life — P.E.I. and Montreal. The poems touch on the fantasy genre for even better storytelling.
MacEachern is a poet from P.E.I., who now lives in Montreal where she teaches English literature. Her writing has appeared in journals and anthologies across Canada. Her previous poetry collection was A Number of Stunning Attacks.
MacEachern was on the longlist for the 2018 CBC Poetry Prize.
The Northern by Jacob McArthur Mooney
In the summer of 1952, three men are hired by an upstart Mormon baseball card company in Western Ontario. Their two weeks in the Northern League will have them living in an ever-growing chaos. The Northern depicts a world shaped by the trauma of World War II and those left behind by it. The book is a character study on grief, adolescence, and family.
Jacob McArthur Mooney's previous collections have been shortlisted for the Trillium Book Award in Poetry and the Dylan Thomas Prize. Originally from Nova Scotia, he now lives in Toronto. His fourth book was titled Frank's Wing.
Mooney was on the longlist for the CBC Poetry Prize in 2014 for a poetry collection titled Bindled Back: Three Travel Poems.
From a lovelorn journalist entering a diabolical pact to a tourist attempting to stay sober, Dead Writers is a collection of short stories exploring what the ever-changing concept of "bargain" means, and the heavy price that comes with corrupting your soul.
Regina-raised Cassidy McFadzean is a past finalist for the CBC Poetry Prize and The Walrus Poetry Prize. Her previous works include the poetry books Drolleries, Crying Dress and Hacker Packer, which won two Saskatchewan Book Awards. She also wrote a crown of sonnets called Third State of Being. She currently lives in Toronto.
McFadzean was a finalist for the CBC Poetry Prize in 2013.
We, the Kindling by Otoniya J. Okot Bitek
In We, the Kindling, three women who, as children, survived the horrors of war in Uganda continue to experience the trauma of their past, even when they've started families of their own.
Otoniya J. Okot Bitek, a poet, fiction writer and scholar born in Kenya to Ugandan parents, currently lives in Kingston, Ont. Her first collection of poetry, 100 Days, won the 2017 IndieFab Book of the Year Award for poetry and the 2017 Glenna Lushei Prize for African Poetry. Her second poetry collection, A is for Acholi, won the 2023 Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize. She was also longlisted for the 2018 CBC Poetry Prize. We, the Kindling is her debut novel.
Planet Earth: Stories by Nicholas Ruddock
Planet Earth is a collection of short stories and novellas that explores themes of love and passion with a specific awareness of humans' carelessness in burning up the world in fresh and unexpected ways. The provocative and contemplative stories are humorous, quick-witted, paradoxically positive with a fondness for humans and their failings.
When you can read it: Nov. 4, 2025.
Nicholas Ruddock is a physician and writer who has worked in Newfoundland and Labrador, Quebec, Yukon and Ontario. He has had novels, short stories, poetry published since 2002 in Canada, U.K., Ireland and Germany. He is the author of the 2021 novel Last Hummingbird of West Chile.
Ruddock has been a finalist for each of the CBC Literary Prizes. He made the 2016 CBC Poetry Prize longlist for Storm as well as the 2016 CBC Nonfiction Prize longlist for The Hummingbirds. Most recently, Ruddock was shortlisted for the 2023 CBC Short Story Prize for his story Marriage.
Goalie by Ben von Jagow
From rookie to retirement, the collection of poems in Goalie vividly captures the highs, lows and everything in-between of a hockey career — exploring the glorious moments of ambitious pursuit and the vulnerable times of facing set-backs.
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