Solo. by Emily Leduc Gagn

Emily Leduc Gagn has made the 2018 CBC Poetry Prize longlist for Solo.

• 30 writers make longlist for the 2018CBC Poetry Prize

About Emily

Emily Leduc Gagn is a current MFA student in creative writing at UBC and a law student at the University of Toronto. Before that, she was a professional ballet dancer for 10 years. Emily lives in Toronto with her husband, Rocky, and her two children, Ty and Luc. She speaks French at home with her family.

Entry in five-ish words

Pressurized, quick step, balloon imploding.

The poem's source of inspiration

"In my first summer as a law student, I interned at a legal aid clinic in Baie-Comeau, La Cte-Nord. My job was to research statutes and case law to help our clients who were accused of crimes. One client was accused of trafficking drugs in a prison. Her crime held a mandatory minimum sentence of two years in prison. If she went to prison, she would lose her kids. But this woman was not the big fish. The big fish was her ex-husband. He was a gang leader and he beat her, threatened herand ordered her to stuff the drugs in the pocket of a pair of jeans and give those jeans to an inmate during prison visiting hours. In return, he promised her $400. This woman was an indigent alcoholic who was behind on rent. So, she did it. As I researched cases to find attenuating factors that would lighten her sentence, I thought about how my own life had changed. As a dancer, the only person affected by my failures rejections at auditions, difficult shows, struggling with weight was me. As a lawyer, I could save people's lives. It was an altogether different kind of pressure."

First lines

It's the pressure,
like the triple-boned corset
of my Blue Bird tutu, on loan
from The National. A prison that crunched
ribs and deflated lungs, until my body looked fragile
as a gosling's wing. Chan Hong Go was thinner; I stretched
her feathers. But still, I was not big enough to fill her tutu. This weight

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.