Catherine Lewis has made the 2023 CBC Poetry Prize longlist for Brideprice.

The shortlist will be announced on Nov. 16 and the winner will be announced on Nov. 23.

About Catherine Lewis 

Catherine Lewis is a bisexual Chinese Canadian writer and poet based in Vancouver. Her debut poetry chapbook Zipless, published by 845 Press, is a finalist for two Bisexual Book Awards, including Bi Writer of the Year. Her writing has been published in Prism international, The Humber Literary Review, Pulp Literature and Plenitude Magazine. First runner-up for Pulp Literature’s 2023 Magpie Award for Poetry, she has been shortlisted in creative nonfiction contests hosted by The Fiddlehead and Room Magazine. A graduate of the Writer’s Studio at Simon Fraser University, she is a Banff Centre Literary Arts alumna.

Entry in five-ish words

“Love can leave us untethered.”

The poems’ source of inspiration

“As part of a National Poetry Month challenge to write 30 poems in 30 days, one of the challenge’s daily prompts was to write about a tradition or ritual in order to explore a broader cultural matter. As a woman whose queer sexuality emerged in midlife, I chose to write about the Chinese tradition of the groom bargaining for the bride, revisiting this ritual from a queer perspective.”

First lines

Surrounded by massive white meringue
(I swear it seemed smaller at the store),

I teeter up the aisle on Daddy’s arm,
to be given away. Three hours earlier,

my groom had bought me from my parents’
door. Slipped Canadian Tire money through

The winner of the 2023 CBC Poetry Prize will receive $6,000 from the Canada Council for the Arts, a writing residency and 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.

If you’re interested in the CBC Literary Prizes, the CBC Nonfiction Prize opens in January and the CBC Poetry Prize opens in April.