Nothing Bothers to Remain by Ross Belot

Ross Belot has made the 2018CBC Poetry Prize longlist for Nothing Bothers to Remain.

• 30writers make longlist for the 2018CBC Poetry Prize

About Ross

Ross Belot is a poet, photographer, documentary filmmaker and an energy and climate change columnist. He previously worked for a major Canadian petroleum company for decades. Now he writes eco-poetics and diatribes about government climate change inaction. Ross was a finalist for the 2016 CBC Poetry Prize andhis first collection, Swimming In The Dark, was published in 2008. His second collection, Nothing Bothers To Remain, was just accepted by Wolsak and Wynn for spring 2020 publication. In 2017, he completed an MFA at Saint Mary's College of California. He frequently lives in Hamilton with his longtime cat companion, Vince.

Entry in five-ish words

Please save our planet now.

The poem's source of inspiration

"I wanted to deal with the cognitive dissonance of being aware of the advantages of living in a fossil fuel society while knowing truly terrible things result from that fact. Thepoem also deals with another cognitive dissonance, looking out on beautiful scenery while also knowing the land was brutally taken from others and there is ongoing brutality associated with those historic actions. And also highlighting our political leaders will not resolve this dissonance for us, perhaps even thrive on it."

First lines

9 cormorants skim English Bay's surface, in a line stretching. 9 ocean going freighters parked a mile out, wait to be summoned past First Narrows to offload cargo, spread across English Bay's mouth, weight not just in holds, but in tonnes of carbon to get here. That harbour seal spinning in the water. Then under and gone. Captain Vancouver landed in 1792, not first, that was Jos Mara Narvez a year before. Back before any Europeans: so good later it had to be clear cut.

About the 2018CBC Poetry 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.