The Archibald Lampman Award recognizes an outstanding book of English-language poetry by an author living in the National Capital Region.
The jury for the 2010 award were Susan Gillis, Andrew Steeves and Matthew Tierney.
2010 Winner
“True Concessions” by Craig Poile
The poems in Craig Poile’s True Concessions are graceful, a perfectly smooth parallel-parking job, dexterous in the tight corners of both suburban and urban landscapes. Often he is at his best with things: suits laid out on the bed like “two black shovelfuls,” balloons, blankets, phones. Poile thrives when attuned to small displacements, as in one of his poems, the sonnet “Place Royale,” where the poses of chairs “revive what life was about / last night.” We glean our place, Poile is saying, from cues hovering on a kind of sensory surface tension, which may or may not last. His prosody is strong, his voice assured. A fine collection. [2010 Judges]
Craig Poile’s poems have appeared in The New Quarterly, the Malahat Review, Arc, and Best Canadian Poetry. His first book, First Crack, was shortlisted for the 1999 Gerald Lampert Memorial Award. A playwright, technical writer, and bookseller, Craig is the co-owner of Collected Works Bookstore in Ottawa.
2010 Shortlist
“Slide” by Barbara Myers
Slide moves around in the eternal present, the nunc stans, taking us through time and space, over three continents, into a so-called past and possible futures–where people, places and events continue to coexist in memory, in the body and in shared experience.
Barbara Myers writes and works in communications consulting. Since the mid-1990’s, she has published poems in journals and anthologies, and is a past associate editor of Arc Poetry Magazine, to which she continues to contribute as a reviewer and essayist.
“Crossing Arcs: Alzheimer’s, my mother, and me” by Susan McMaster
Crossing Arcs pairs poetry about Alzheimer’s with direct commentary by the person fighting the disease–the poet’s mother Betty Page. The work encompasses the spectrum of aging and loss but not with passive fatalism.
Susan McMaster is the author of eight poetry books, four recordings with First Draft and Geode Music &Poetry, and editor of anthologies such as Waging Peace and Siolence: Women, Violence, and Silence.
“The Craving of Knives” by Blaine Marchand
The Craving of Knives is the poetry of a man who asks difficult questions, meets his fears and moves beyond an obscurant life to one of transformation. The work confronts the specter of loss while providing glimpses of something profoundly alive–a duality that marks this collection.
Blaine Marchand has published five books of poetry, a young adult novel and a work of non-fiction. He has won several literary awards including the Archibald Lampman Award for A Garden Enclosed. He is the past president of the League of Canadian Poets, and was co-founder of Sparks Magazine.
Arc is grateful for the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, the City of Ottawa, as well as many individual supporters. For further information contact Arc Poetry Magazine at managingeditor@arcpoetry.ca.