Part two in a story about Canadian poets chasing $65K prize

Vancouver poet in the running for the Griffin Prize with a book about Black Womanhood

Last week the Caribbean Camera told readers about Guyanese Canadian poet Kale Kellough and his book Magnetic Equator that is in the consideration for the $65,000 Griffin Prize. This week, as part two of the story, we introduce you to Chantel Gibson the author of How She Read. It too is in the shortlist for Canada’s biggest and richest annual poetry prize.

Chantal Gibson is an artist and an award-winning teacher. She teaches writing and visual communication in the School of Interactive Arts & Technology at Simon Fraser University.

She lives Vancouver with deep roots in Nova Scotia’s black community. How She Read is Gibson’s debut book of poetry. Her poems challenge historic representations of Black womanhood and Otherness in the Canadian cultural imagination.

How She Read is a collection of genre-blurring poems about the representation of Black women, their hearts, minds and bodies, across the Canadian cultural imagination Using genre-bending dialogue poems and dramatic, descriptions, Gibson reveals the dehumanizing effects of mystifying and simplifying images of Blackness

In addition to the Canadian Poetry Award, the Griffith also awards $65,000 to the best International poetry book. In the running for the international prize are: Sharon Olds’s Arias, Abigail Chabitnoy’s How to Dress a Fish, Sarah Riggs’s Time and Natalie Scenters-Zapico’s Lima: Limón.

The two big winners, will be announced using the Griffith’s social media channels on Tuesday, May 19, will each be awarded $65,000. The other finalists – 3 International, and 2 Canadian, will be awarded $10,000.

PART TWO