Miss Mercy by A.B. Dillon

A.B. Dillon has made the 2018 CBC Poetry Prize longlist for Miss Mercy.

• 30 writers make longlist for the 2018CBC Poetry Prize

About A.B.

A.B. Dillon is a first-generation Canadian. Her parents emigrated from Ireland in 1959, joining the rest of the clan in Montreal before eventually moving to Windsor, Ont. She is, by day, an educator and counsellor for outreach studentsand, by night, a crafter of prose, poetryand personal essay. She has written for Swerve, the Calgary Herald, Where, Avenue Magazine and Toque & Canoe. Her poetry has been published in the Caf Beanoanthologies and FreeFall Magazine, where she won third prize in 2016. Matronalia is her first collection of prose poetry, published in 2018. She is currently working on her second book, Murmuration.

Entry in five-ish words

Divine merciful unheard murmuration gifties.

The poem's source of inspiration

"I read an article about a little girl who made friends with a crow. The crow gifted her with all manner of trinkets, which the girl categorized into a large collection. This collection of crow communication by gift took on a symbolic meaning for me, in terms of language as a living, breathing entity, across cultures and species. I wanted to explore the relationship of crow to human, in lore, legend and in our present workaday lives. In my work, this particular philosopher-crow tracks humans, and 'speaks' to them, having learned the nuances of their accents, which become enmeshed with his own an amalgam of Middle English and modern speak."

First lines

Brought her two shiny bits of glass this day,

from the edges of the bended river

where them bow reeds grow.

Her face

the tale I am loving to read,

speakens of silent thinkings and musings

and allsorts.

Yous tending to look to the light, erstwhile.

About the 2018CBCPoetry Prize

The winner of the 2018CBCPoetry Prizewill receive$6,000 from theCanada Council for the Arts, will have their work published onCBC Booksandwill have the opportunity to attend a writing residency atthe Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity. Four finalists will each receive $1,000 from theCanada Council for the Artsand have their work published onCBC Books.