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 2024 award were Alice Burdick (Nova Scotia), Michael Fraser (Ontario), and Annick MacAskill (Nova Scotia).
2024 Winner
Vixen by Sandra Ridley
Vixen is a gorgeous matrix of fierce, suspenseful, and sorrowful poems that appeals to the senses, a hauntingly poignant and expertly-crafted revelation teetering on the edge of “spark and cinder.” Ridley’s experimentation is thoughtful, masterfully layering internal forms to successfully embody the reader as both hunter and hunted. Vixen is an intricate, haunting work that remains “after the trembling takes hold.” Like many of the best poetry collections, this is a book that rewards multiple readings. [2024 Judges]
Sandra Ridley is the author of three chapbooks and five books of poetry, including Silvija, a finalist for the 2017 Griffin Poetry Prize, and Vixen, winner of the 2024 Pat Lowther Award. She is currently a mentor for the P.K. Page Mentorship program administered by the League of Canadian Poets.
2024 Shortlist
Cluster Flux by D.S. Stymeist
Cluster Flux is a complex, expansive collection of poems “pregnant with ceremony” and united by Stymeist’s contemplative and introspective attention to sound and emotion. Employing a lush and rhythmic lyric that weaves together the personal and social, there is a tactile quality to Stymeist’s level of considered description. Cluster Flux is a smorgasbord of loss, movement, love, growth, and celebration of our being collectively situated in the ever-evolving now.
Recently published with Frontenac House, Cluster Flux is D.S. Stymeist’s newest collection of poetry. His well-received debut, The Bone Weir, was a finalist for the Canadian Author’s Association Poetry Award. He currently teaches creative writing at Carleton University and helped organize VERSeFest, Ottawa’s international poetry festival, as their former president.
World’s End, by rob mclennan
The poems in World’s End, accumulate into an expansive reverie of passages that detail the moments that illuminate. Though divided into eight extended poem-sections, in many ways mclennan’s World’s End, reads as a continuous ode on the beauty of the everyday, exalting domesticity and unearthing the profound wonder and awe anchoring our diurnal existence. In World’s End, we’re reminded that one’s sense of place is “shadowed like a sentence.”
rob mclennan is the author of more than thirty books. He won the Council for the Arts in Ottawa Mid-Career Award in 2014, and was inducted into the VERSe Ottawa Hall of Honour in 2016. His most recent titles include On Beauty (University of Alberta Press, 2024) and World’s End, (ARP Books, 2023).
Other 2024 Nominees
| Book | Poet | Publisher |
|---|---|---|
| Murmuration | John Baglow | McGill-Queen’s University Press |
| Beast Body Epic | Amanda Earl | AngelHousePress |
| Asking for Directions | Matthew Firth | Anvil Press |
| If I Were A River | Doris Fiszer | Silver Bow Publishing |
| Elementary Particles | Sneha Madhavan-Reese | Brick Books |
| (Un)spoken | Marjorie Silverman | Now Or Never Publishing |
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.