Chimwemwe Undi, Shani Mootoo, Bren Simmers among poets longlisted for League of Canadian Poets prizes

CBC Books

· Posted: Apr 30, 2025 2:11 PM EDT | Last Updated: 28 minutes ago

Chimwemwe Undi, Shani Mootoo and Bren Simmers are among the Canadian poets longlisted for the League of Canadian Poets' poesy awards for books published successful 2024.

The enactment administers 3 poesy prizes to observe the past year's champion published works — the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award for debut books, Pat Lowther Memorial Award for books by Canadian women and Raymond Souster Award for books by League members. The victor of each prize receives $2,000.

Undi's Scientific Marvel is nominated for some the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award and the Raymond Souster Award. 

Scientific Marvel is a poesy postulation that looks into the past of and existent beingness successful Winnipeg. With humour and surprise, it delves into deeper themes of racism, queerness and colonialism portion keeping idiosyncratic lived experiences adjacent to the page. 

Scientific Marvel won the 2024 Governor General's Literary Award for poetry.

• The Poetry of Why: writer Chimwemwe Undi connected a beingness of questions successful verse

Chimwemwe Undi is simply a Winnipeg-based poet, exertion and lawyer. She was the Winnipeg writer laureate for 2023 and 2024. She won the 2022 John Hirsch Emerging Writer Award from the Manitoba Book Awards and her enactment tin beryllium recovered successful Brick, Border Crossings, Canadian Literature and BBC World. Undi was longlisted for the 2020 CBC Poetry Prize.

If you're funny successful poetry, the 2025 CBC Poetry Prize is presently accepting submissions. You tin taxable an original, unpublished poem oregon postulation of poems from April 1-June 1.

• The 2025 CBC Poetry Prize is accepting submissions!

LISTEN | Chimwemwe Undi discusses Scientific Marvel: 

Shani Mootoo and Bren Simmers are some longlisted for the Pat Lowther Memorial Award.

Mootoo is being recognized for the poesy collection Oh Witness Dey!

With nary grounds of however they got determination and wherever they're primitively from, Shani Mootoo's great-great-grandparents were brought to Trinidad by the British. Oh Witness Dey! discusses the conception of "origin" done an exploration of history, displacements and legacy, starting with her own. 

• Shani Mootoo connected chocolate, location chores and cryptic notes

Mootoo is simply a writer and ocular creator who presently lives successful Ontario. Her debut caller was 1997's Cereus Blooms astatine Night. Her novel Polar Vortex was shortlisted for the 2020 Scotiabank Giller Prize. Her different books see the novels Cane | Fire, Moving Forward Sideways similar a Crab and Valmiki's Daughter. In 2022, she won the Writers' Trust Engel Findley Award for fabrication writers successful the mediate of their career. 

Bren Simmers is nominated for her poesy postulation The Work.

The poems successful The Work research the themes of nonaccomplishment and grief and however 1 tin marque themselves full again aft being broken. From the abrupt decease of her father, her mother's dementia and her sister-in-law's terminal illness, Simmers' poems amusement america however healing tin travel from love.

The Work was among the finalists for the 2024 Governor General's Literary Award for poetry. 

• P.E.I. writer Bren Simmers wins 2022 CBC Poetry Prize for enactment inspired by however Alzheimer's affects language

Bren Simmers is the writer of 4 books, including the wilderness memoir Pivot Point and Hastings-Sunrise, which was a finalist for the Vancouver Book Award arsenic good arsenic a postulation of poesy titled If, When. Simmers won the 2022 CBC Poetry Prize for her poesy postulation Spell World Backwards, which is included successful The Work. She was antecedently longlisted for the CBC Poetry Prize successful 2013 and successful 2012 for Science Lessons.

LISTEN | Bren Simmers connected winning the CBC Poetry Prize: 

Shō Yamagushiku and Zehra Naqvi are some nominated for the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award and the Raymond Souster Award.

Yamagushiku is nominated for shima, a poesy postulation that questions some the past and aboriginal of a assemblage exiled, anchored successful the narration of a begetter and son. It shows the fragility of representation with a dependable astatine erstwhile yearning and precise. 

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Yamagushiku is simply a writer and researcher surviving successful Victoria. In 2022, Yamagushiku was selected arsenic a mentee by Kaie Kellough through the Writers' Trust of Canada's mentorship program. shima is his debut poesy collection. 

Naqvi is being recognized for The Knot of My Tongue, which uses a assortment of poetic forms to seizure a formed of characters arsenic they effort to explicit the inexpressible, from a caller migrant to Canada trying to talk a caller connection to the story of Philomena searching for ways to pass aft her hubby cuts disconnected her tongue. 

Naqvi is simply a Vancouver-based writer who was calved successful Karachi. She won the 2021 RBC Bronwen Wallace Award for Emerging Writers. The Knot of My Tongue is her debut poesy collection. 

LISTEN | Zehra Naqvi discusses her poesy postulation connected Q: 

Barbara Tran is the lone writer to receive 3 nominations for her postulation Precedented Parroting, which explores themes of loss, the earthy world, Asian stereotypes and our feathered friends. It's besides a publication astir endurance done generations and however some nonaccomplishment and feathers tin alteration and necessitate flight.

• The champion Canadian poesy of 2024

Tran is simply a writer whose enactment has appeared successful Women's Review of Books, Ploughshares and The New Yorker. Her honours see a MacDowell Colony Gerald Freund Fellowship, Pushcart Prize and Lannan Foundation Writing Residency. She was calved successful New York City and presently lives successful Toronto. Precedented Parroting was a finalist for the 2024 Governor General's Literary Award for Poetry.

In 2018, Tran was connected the longlist for the CBC Nonfiction Prize. 

2025 Gerald Lampert Memorial Award longlist:

• The Seventh Town of Ghosts by Faith Arkorful 
• I Hate Parties by Jes Battis 
• Blood Belies by Ellen Chang-Richardson 
• Aqueous by Nathanael Jones 
• Wrap successful a Big White Towel by Callista Markotich 
• What Fills Your House Like Smoke by E. McGregor
• The Knot of My Tongue by Zehra Naqvi 
• Last Hours by Jennifer May Newhook 
• Dayo by Marc Perez 
• Precedented Parroting by Barbara Tran 
• Scientific Marvel by Chimwemwe Undi 
• shima by shō yamagushiku 

2025 Pat Lowther Memorial Award longlist:

• The Seventh Town of Ghosts by Faith Arkorful
• Heliotropia by Manahil Bandukwala 
• I Will Get Up Of Of by Simina Banu 
• impact connection by Jody Chan 
• Farm: Lot 23 by Tonya Lailey 
• Empires of the Everyday by Anna Lee-Popham 
• Good Want by Domenica Martinello
• Oh Witness Dey! by Shani Mootoo 
• The Knot of My Tongue by Zehra Naqvi 
• The Work by Bren Simmers 
• Invisible Lives by Cristalle Smith 
• Precedented Parroting by Barbara Tran 

2025 Raymond Souster Award longlist:

• Heliotropia by Manahil Bandukwala 
• WAKEWord by Wakefield Brewster 
• Ox Lost, Snow Deep by Alice Burdick 
• In the Key of Decay by Em Dial 
• Graphis scripta / penning lichen by Clare Goulet 
• Aqueous by Nathanael Jones
• The Knot of My Tongue by Zehra Naqvi 
• echolalia echolalia by Jane Shi 
• Weather by Rob Taylor 
• Precedented Parroting by Barbara Tran
• Scientific Marvel by Chimwemwe Undi 
• shima by shō yamagushiku 

The shortlisted titles for each grant volition beryllium announced connected May 7, 2025.

Last year's winners were Hannah Green, Sandra Ridley and Bradley Peters.