The best Canadian poetry of 2024

Posted on December 16, 2024 by Peggy

Here are the CBC Books picks for the top Canadian poetry of the year!

A book cover of two eggs balancing on top of one another at the edge of a table. A Black woman leans on her hand resting on a wooden table. — Scientific Marvel is a poetry book by Chimwemwe Undi. (House of Anansi Press, Imalka Nilmalgoda)

Scientific Marvel is a poetry collection that looks into the history of and current life in Winnipeg. With humour and surprise, it delves into deeper themes of racism, queerness and colonialism while keeping personal lived experiences close to the page.

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

Chimwemwe Undi is a Winnipeg-based poet, editor and lawyer. She was the Winnipeg poet laureate for 2023 and 2024. She won the 2022 John Hirsch Emerging Writer Award from the Manitoba Book Awards and her work can be found in Brick, Border Crossings, Canadian Literature and BBC World. Undi was longlisted for the 2020 CBC Poetry Prize.

LISTEN | Chimwemwe Undi discusses Scientific Marvel:

Information Radio – MB7:25Winnipeg’s former poet laureate is now a governor General literary award winner

Chimwemwe Undi tells host Marcy Markusa about her book, Scientific Marvel, that won the poetry category, which comes with a $25,000 prize

A book cover with a nun on it. A white woman with blonde hair and glasses wearing a black beanie. — Gay Girl Prayers is a poetry collection by Emily Austin. (Brick Books, Bridget Forberg)

Gay Girl Prayers is a poetry collection that reclaims Catholic prayers and passages from the Bible to empower young women and members of the LGBTQIA+ community. At once sassy and funny, this book celebrates cultural and societal differences.

Emily Austin is an Ottawa-based writer. Her debut novel, Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead, was longlisted for The Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour and shortlisted for the Amazon First Novel Award and the Ottawa Book Award. Her second book is Interesting Facts About Space.

LISTEN | Emily Austin reads from Gay Girl Prayers:

12:19Emily Austin reads from Gay Girl Prayers

Plus, what’s your relationship like with holy texts? Canadian poet Emily Austin sat down and rewrote some parts of the Bible that didn’t sit right with her as a queer woman. She tells Tom what inspired her, and reads a poem from her new collection of poetry, “Gay Girl Prayers.”

A Black woman with long dreadlocks wearing a grey crewneck and the book cover of hand with oranges and leaves. — Faith Arkorful is the author of the poetry collection The Seventh Town of Ghosts. (Sarah Bodri, McClelland & Stewart)

The Seventh Town of Ghosts explores these titular towns through songs that help readers grapple with the challenges of existence and independence. The book offers insight into the power of connection, tenderness and the human spirit.

Faith Arkorful has had her work published in Guts, Peach Mag, Prism International, Hobart, Without/pretend, The Puritan and Canthius, among others. She was a semi-finalist in the 2019 92Y Discovery Contest. Faith was born in Toronto, where she still resides. In 2020, she was shortlisted for the CBC Poetry Prize.

A black book cover with an image of teeth made out of beads. A man wearing a black t-shirt and glasses crosses his tattooed arms. — Teeth is a poetry collcetion by Dallas Hunt. (Nightwood Editions, Conor McNally)

Teeth is a poetry collection that explores the consequences of colonization and why it continues to repeat itself in today’s society. The book also celebrates the successes of Indigenous peoples and looks into the realities they face.

Dallas Hunt is Cree and a member of Wapsewsipi (Swan River First Nation) in Treaty Eight territory in northern Alberta. His children’s book, Awâsis and the World-Famous Bannock, illustrated by Amanda Strong, was nominated for several awards and was one of the 2024 CBC Kids Reads contenders. Hunt lives in Vancouver.

The book cover with a blue background and the letters 'TH W RK Br n S mm rs' and the author photo of a woman with curly brown hair wearing a yellow sweater and red scarf — The Work is a poetry collection by Bren Simmers. (Gaspereau Press, Vivienne McMaster)

The poems in The Work explore the themes of loss and grief and how one can make themselves whole again after being broken. From the sudden death of her father, her mother’s dementia and her sister-in-law’s terminal illness, Simmers’ poems show us how healing can come from love.

The Work was the 2024 Governor General’s Literary Award for poetry.

Bren Simmers is the author of four books, including the wilderness memoir Pivot Point and Hastings-Sunrise, which was a finalist for the Vancouver Book Award as well as a collection of poetry titled If, When. Simmers won the 2022 CBC Poetry Prize for her poetry collection Spell World Backwards, which is included in The Work. She was previously longlisted for the CBC Poetry Prize in 2013 and in 2012 for Science Lessons.

A composite of the author photo: an Asian woman with dark hair wearing a grey beads necklace and black top; and the book cover featuring an illustration of a sea shore — Precedented Parroting is a poetry collection by Barbara Tran. (Barbara Tran, Palimpsest Press)

The poems in Precedented Parroting explore themes of loss, the natural world, Asian stereotypes and our feathered friends. It’s also a book about survival through generations and how both loss and feathers can enable and necessitate flight.

Precedented Parroting was a finalist for the 2024 Governor General’s Literary Award for poetry.

Born in New York City, Barbara Tran is a poet whose work has appeared in Women’s Review of Books, Ploughshares and The New Yorker. Honours include a MacDowell Colony Gerald Freund Fellowship, Pushcart Prize and Lannan Foundation Writing Residency. She was longlisted for the 2018 CBC Nonfiction Prize. She currently lives in Toronto.

The All + Flesh by Brandi Bird. Illustrated book cover of a red sea and bright yellow sunset. Picture of an Indigenous writer with long black hair and bangs. — The All + Flesh is a poetry collection by Brandi Bird. (Anansi, Heather Saluti)

The All + Flesh is a debut collection that explores both internal and external cultural landscapes and lineages from the perspective of a Saulteaux, Cree and Métis writer.

The All + Flesh won the 2024 Indigenous Voices Award for poetry and was shortlisted for two League of Canadian Poets prizes.

Bird is an Indigiqueer writer from Treaty 1 territory who is currently studying at the University of British Columbia. Their poems have been featured in various publications such as Catapult and Room Magazine. The All + Flesh is their first book.

Sonnets from a Cell by Bradley Peters. Illustrated book cover of red background with grey lines resembling prison bars. Black and white portrait of the poet. — Sonnets from a Cell is a debut poetry collection by Bradley Peters. (Brick Books, Bradley Peters)

In his debut collection, Sonnets from a Cell, Bradley Peters writes from personal experiences as a young man in the Canadian prison system. Combining lyrical verse with inmate speech, Sonnets from a Cell offers empathy and grace within moments of isolation and fear.

Sonnets from a Cell won the Raymond Souster Award and was a finalist for the 2024 Governor General’s Literary Award for poetry.

Peters is a poet and actor currently based in Mission, B.C. His poetry has been featured in numerous literary magazines. Sonnets from a Cell is his debut poetry collection.

LISTEN | Bradley Peters discusses Sonnets from a Cell:

Q22:45Bradley Peters: Sonnets from a Cell, solitary confinement, and how a sonnet is like prison

When the poet Bradley Peters discovered sonnets while studying poetry and creative writing, he knew it was the perfect form to write about his experience with incarceration as a teenager and young adult. Bradley talks to Tom about his new poetry collection, “Sonnets from a Cell,” what it felt like to be in solitary confinement, and how he “held on to his humanity” in prison.

The book cover: an illustration of a lake with ducks floating on the water and the author photo: a bearded man wearing glasses and a hat writing in a journal — The Sky Above is a poetry collection by Windsor poet, Marty Gervais. (Guernica Editions, Ted Kloske)

The Sky Above is a selection of poems from the perspective of a writer who crafts a story in many forms, be it journalism, photography or poetry. Canadian poet Marty Gervais’s book tells everyday stories of being a father, weathering storms and occasionally talking to people like Mother Teresa in a Detroit church basement.

Gervais is an Ontario journalist, poet, playwright, historian, photographer and editor. In 2018, he was nominated as the City of Windsor’s Poet Laureate Emeritus. He is founder of Black Moss Press, one of Canada’s oldest literary publishing firms, and is managing editor of The Windsor Review.

The book cover with an illustration of tea mugs, one chipped and the other not. The author photo: a woman with short grey hair and small glasses — South Side of a Kinless River is a poetry collection by Marilyn Dumont. (Brick Books, Amanda Yakem)

Tackling the way Métis identity has been ignored and suppressed by the nation through poetry, South Side of a Kinless River is a collection focused on the voice of Marilyn Dumont. Closely looking at history, topics such as land loss, midwifery of Indigenous women and the relationships between Indigenous women and European men, the poems of this collection give voice to Métis women, the violence they are subjected to and the knowledge they hold.

Dumont is an Edmonton-based poet of Cree Métis descent. Dumont’s other works include Green Girl Dreams Mountains, The Pemmican Eaters and A Really Good Brown Girl, which is about Dumont coming to understand and embrace her Métis heritage. A Really Good Brown Girl won the 1997 Gerald Lampert Memorial Award.

The book cover featuring an illustration of Siamese twins' skeletons' and the author photo: a black and white portrait of a man with white curly hair holding a painting of a clown — The Sky is a Sky in the Sky is a poetry collection by Stuart Ross. (Coach House Books, Laurie Siblock)

The Sky is a Sky in the Sky is a collection of miscellaneous poems including one-line poems, prose and a remix of poetry by Stuart Ross’s friend Nelson Ball. Infused with humour, this collection imagines the poet’s many lives and the grief he endures.

Stuart Ross is an Ontario writer, editor and teacher. He is the author of several books of poetry, fiction and essays including You Exist, Pockets and A Sparrow Came Down Resplendent. He won the 2023 Trillium Book Award for his memoir The Book of Grief and Hamburgers.

The book cover featuring an illustration of an iceberg and the author photo: a man with short gray hair wearing a black shirt — The Flesh of Ice is a poetry collection by Garry Gottfriedson. (Caitlin Press, Farah Nosh)

Dedicated to survivors of Kamloops Indian Residential School (KIRS) and all residential schools in Canada The Flesh of Ice is a collection of poems and personal narratives of writer Garry Gottfriedson of the Secwépemc (Shuswap) First Nation. Where Gottfriedson’s last collection Bent Back Tongue discussed the history of Indigenous people in Canada as affected by the government of Canada and the Catholic Church, this book describes the lived realities of those who attended KIRS, citing their pain, their resilience and their necessary voices.

Gottfriedson is from Kamloops, B.C. He is strongly rooted in his Secwépemc (Shuswap) cultural teachings. In the late 1980s, Gottfriedson studied under Allen Ginsberg, Marianne Faithfull and others at the Naropa Institute in Colorado. He is the author of 13 books, including Skin Like Mine and Clinging to Bone. Gottfriedson received an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from the University of Northern British Columbia (UNBC) in 2023.

Gottfriedson was a juror for the 2024 CBC Poetry Prize.

A black and white portrait of a person with grey hair, a beard and sunglasses and the book cover featuring a cat peeking through a door — I Hate Parties is a poetry collection by Jes Battis. (Devin Wilger, Nightwood Editions)

I Hate Parties is a collection of 50 poems on Jes Battis’ experiences of being queer, autistic and nonbinary. Focusing on the feelings of intense anxiety that come with growing up in the nineties in Canada as a marginalized person, Battis writes of adolescence, queer parties and panic attacks through metaphor and honest verse.

Battis is a queer autistic writer and teacher at the University of Regina, splitting their time between the prairies and the west coast. They wrote the Occult Special Investigator series and Parallel Parks series. Battis’ first novel, Night Child, was shortlisted for the Sunburst Award. Their novel The Winter Knight was on the Canada Reads 2024 longlist.

A portrait of the author with long hair and looking sideways while smiling and the book cover: illustrated paper houses made out of application papers for permanent residency — Permission to Settle is a poetry collection by Holly Flauto. (Anvil Press)

In a collection of autobiographical poems Permission to Settle highlights the often impersonal and nerve-wracking experiences of immigration processes from applying to moving and then feeling a lack of belonging in your new home. The poet confronts what it means to be a settler in Canada and the colonial structures at work through playful and telling verse.

Originally from the U.S, Holly Flauto currently lives in Vancouver. Flauto is a writer and poet who teaches English and Creative Writing at Capilano University. Their writing has previously been published in The ex-Puritan, Joyland and The Rusty Toque.

The book cover featuring an illustration of a person with a snake wrapped around them and the author photo: an Asian woman with glasses and short black hair wearing a jeans jacket — echolalia echolalia is a poetry collection by Jane Shi. (Brick Books, Joy Gyamfi)

echolalia echolalia a collection of poems focus on the body politic and the experiences of being queer, disabled and in the diaspora. Reflecting on her own identities, author Jane Shi writes about chosen family and resisting colonial projects and ideologies that seek to dehumanize.

Jane Shi is a writer and poet based in B.C. Her writing has appeared in the Disability Visibility Blog and Queer Little Nightmares: An Anthology of Monstrous Fiction and Poetry. Shi graduated from the Writer’s Studio Online program at Simon Fraser University and StoryStudio Chicago. She is the winner of The Capilano Review’s 2022 In(ter)ventions in the Archive Contest.

A book cover of the tips of two pairs of shoes -- converse and brown boots. A woamn with short grey hair wearing blue. — Talking to Strangers is a poetry book by Rhea Tregebov. (From Véhicule Press, Sam Znaimer)

Talking to Strangers is a poetry collection that explores new encounters with people and objects. As is characteristic of celebrated poet Rhea Tregebov, the book dabbles in the art of recollection and elegy with skill and tenderness.

Talking to Strangers won the poetry prize for the 2024 Canadian Jewish Literary Awards.

Tregebov is a Vancouver-based poet, novelist and children’s writer. She’s written seven books of poetry and two novels, including Rue des Rosiers, and has won the J. I. Segal Award, the Nancy Richler Memorial Prize for Fiction, the Malahat Review Long Poem Prize, the Pat Lowther Award and the Prairie Schooner Readers’ Choice Award.

A composite of the book cover, a splash of green watercolour with the title and the portrait of the author: a Black man wearing a suit in front of cherry blossoms — West of West Indian is a poetry collection by Linzey Corridon. (Mawenzi House)

West of West Indian is a poetry collection that explores the Queer Caribbean experience, both the pain and pleasure, as an individual and a collective. It dives into themes of love and autonomy using language that is often used to unsettle queer life.

Linzey Corridon is a writer and educator. He was born in the Caribbean and he now lives in Canada.

A beige book cover. A man wearing a black shirt with white hair. — A Year of Last Things is a poetry collection by Michael Ondaatje. (Knopf)

A Year of Last Things is Michael Ondaatje’s long-awaited return to poetry. Drawing on his personal experiences, this collection goes back in time to all the borders that he’s crossed with imagery at once witty, moving and wise.

Ondaatje is a Canadian literary icon. His novels and poetry have earned international acclaim, and he was the first Canadian ever to win the Man Booker Prize — in 1992, for the wartime story The English Patient. Born in Sri Lanka and educated in England, Ondaatje moved to Canada when he was 18 to attend university.

Ondaatje began his writing career in 1967 as a poet, winning two Governor General’s Literary Awards for poetry before turning to fiction. Over his career, he’s won the Giller Prize, the Governor General’s Literary Award and France’s prestigious Prix Medicis.

In 1982, Ondaatje won the CBC Short Story Prize.

An abstract orange book cover with an eye. A black and white photo of a woman with glasses and short hair wearing a button-up. — Oh Witness Dey! is a poetry book by Shani Mootoo. (Book*hug Press, Darren Rampersad)

With no record of how they got there and where they’re originally from, Shani Mootoo’s great-great-grandparents were brought to Trinidad by the British. Oh Witness Dey! discusses the concept of “origin” through an exploration of history, displacements and legacy, starting with her own.

Mootoo is a writer and visual artist who currently lives in Ontario. Her debut novel was 1997’s Cereus Blooms at Night. Her novel Polar Vortex was shortlisted for the 2020 Scotiabank Giller Prize. Her other books include the novels Cane | Fire, Moving Forward Sideways like a Crab and Valmiki’s Daughter. In 2022, she won the Writers’ Trust Engel Findley Award for fiction writers in the middle of their career.

A black book cover with a little fly on red writing. A man with a beard poses outdoors. — Barfly is a poetry book by Michael Lista. (Biblioasis)

At once hilarious and raw, Barfly uses Byronic rhymes and Auden’s meters to discuss twenty-first century topics.

Michael Lista is a Toronto-based poet and journalist, whose work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Slate, The Walrus and Toronto Life. He is the author of several books of poetry and a collection of essays. Lista was the winner of the 2020 National Magazine Award Gold Medals for both Investigative Reporting and Long Form Feature Writing. His story, The Sting, is being adapted into a television series for Apple TV+.