Literary Prizes

Lynn Crosbie, Olive Senior and Billy-Ray Belcourt to judge 2019 CBC Poetry Prize

The winner will receive $6,000, will attend a two-week writing residency in Banff and will have their work published on CBC Books.
From left: Lynn Crosbie, Olive Senior, and Billy-Ray Belcourt. They will judge the 2019 CBC Poetry Prize. (Laura Jane Petelko, David Helman, Tenille Campbell)

Lynn Crosbie, Olive Senior and Billy-Ray Belcourt will judge the 2019 CBC Poetry Prize.

The CBC Poetry Prize recognizes original, unpublished Canadian poetry. The winning author will receive $6,000 from the Canada Council for the Arts, will attend a two-week writing residency at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity and will have their work published on CBC Books. Four finalists will receive $1,000 from the Canada Council for the Arts and will have their work published on CBC Books.

The 2019 CBC Poetry Prize is open for submissions until May 31, 2019.

The 2019 finalists will be announced in the fall.

Crosbie is a poet, novelist and columnist. She is the author of six books of poetry including Liar and The Corpses of the Future. She was a finalist for the 2016 Trillium Book Award for her book Where Did You Sleep Last Night. Her most recent book is the novel Chicken. It was recently optioned as a film by Shadow Shows. Crosbie is currently teaching poetry to children as part of the Poetry in Voice program in Toronto.

Senior is the author of 18 books, including poetry, fiction, nonfiction and children's literature. Her collection Over the Roofs of the World was shortlisted for the 2005 Governor General's Literary Award for poetry. Her collection Gardening in the Tropics was in both the International Baccalaureate syllabus and the CAPE syllabus for Caribbean schools. Her latest book is the children's picture book Boonoonoonous Hair, which was illustrated by Laura James.

Belcourt is a poet from the Driftpile Cree Nation. He won the 2018 Griffin Poetry Prize for his debut collection This Wound is a World and was a finalist for the 2018 Governor General's Literary Award for poetry. He is currently a PhD candidate and a 2018 Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation scholar in the department of English and film studies at the University of Alberta. His next book is called NDN Coping Mechanisms: Notes from the Field, it will be available in fall 2019.

The 2018 CBC Poetry Prize winner was Natalie Lim for Arrhythmia. You can read all the 2018 finalists' poems here.

The CBC Literary Prizes have been recognizing Canadian writers for 40 years. Past winners include Michael OndaatjeCarol ShieldsMichael Winter and Frances Itani.​