I Am a Scar, Falling by Jane Eaton Hamilton

Jane Eaton Hamilton has made the 2018 CBC Poetry Prize longlist for I Am a Scar, Falling.

• 30 writers make longlist for the 2018CBC Poetry Prize

About Jane

Jane Eaton Hamilton has published ninebooks, most recently thenovelWeekendand the poetryLove Will Burst into a Thousand Shapes.Theywon the CBCShort StoryPrizein 2014 and 2003 and has had three Notables in Best American series, including in BAE 2018 for an essay published in The Sun. Their memoir,No More Hurt, was a Sunday Times bestseller and was on the Guardian's best of the year list. They've published in the Globe, Rumpus, Macleans,the New York Times and many other places.

Entry in five-ish words

Being a scar in free fall.

The poem's source of inspiration

"Living with someone's mental illness."

First lines

The sting of the shower, you say
You stand on the bottom stair
hair wet and gleaming
your mouth shaping "O." We hand-sanded
the banister. In a hundred years
three children carved their initials
(P/TJ/R). One spindle
was dog-chewed
sculpted together with putty
melting under the heat gun

About the 2018CBCPoetry Prize

The winner of the 2018CBCPoetry Prizewill receive$6,000 from theCanada Council for the Arts, will have their work published onCBCBooksandwill 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 onCBCBooks.