Elegy by Mark Wagenaar

Mark Wagenaar has made the 2018 CBC Poetry Prize longlist for Elegy.

• 30 writers make longlist for the 2018CBC Poetry Prize

About Mark

Mark Wagenaar is the author of three award-winning collections of poetry, most recently the Saltman Prize-winning Southern Tongues Leave Us Shining,which contains the 2015 CBC Poetry Prize-winning poem String Theory.A father of twoand husband of poet Chelsea Wagenaar, he is an assistant professor at Valparaiso University, in Indiana.

Entry in five-ish words

Dead whale is blown apart.

The poem's source of inspiration

"The recurring phenomena of whales washing ashore."

First lines

Because there's nothing else to be done about a beached fifty-ton body.

Because our imagination failed us, as our language does.

Because the mayor asked you with a grin what do you charge for a charge?

Because he then asked what do you imagine when you set the charges, and you answered grasshopper leaving the window of a blueprint.

You wanted to say name erased from the bottom of a painting.

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 attheBanff Centre for Arts and Creativity. Four finalists will each receive $1,000 from theCanada Council for the Artsand have their work published onCBC Books.