Tourists Stroll a Victoria Waterway makes CBC longlist!
Short list announced Wednesday, November 15th!
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Tourists Stroll a Victoria Waterway (the first of four sections)
1. The double-decker. The preserved, random address book: Tiffany, Jasmine, Jill, Crystal, Kelly, Warren. Clouds the colour of tea, afternoon, the Inner harbour. Journal and English schoolgirl Nivea cream in her backpack. She was finding her voice like the social worker said. She hadn't written a word. Was found inscribed on Portage Inlet, Craigflower Bridge, the last overpass before the cigarette stubbed into her forehead. Call it Bindi, her mother said, but black. There were Greyhound busses rolling past the Empress, girls gliding through the school halls on platform heels, saying No you're not. |
I’m thrilled Tourists Stroll a Victoria Waterway is one of 33 long-listed poems (selected from more than 2,400 English-language submissions) for the CBC Poetry Prize. Four finalists will be announced on November 15, 2017. “Tourists Stroll a Victoria Waterway” is a long poem, 20 years in the making. These poems are based on the newspaper clippings my Mother sent to me about Reena Virk's murder in Victoria's Gorge waterway, as well as my research and other books such as Heather Spear’s “Required Reading.”I still have the now-yellow newspaper articles.
