Migrations by Mark Wagenaar

Mark Wagenaar has made the 2018 CBC Poetry Prize longlist for Migrations.

• 30 writers make longlist for the 2018CBC Poetry Prize

About Mark

Mark Wagenaar is the author of three award-winning collections of poetry, most recently the Saltman Prize-winning Southern Tongues Leave Us Shining,which contains the 2015 CBC Poetry Prize-winning poem String Theory.A father of twoand husband of poet Chelsea Wagenaar, he is an assistant professor at Valparaiso University, in Indiana.

Entry in five-ish words

Tracing the movements of people.

The poem's source of inspiration

"This poem begins with a child my child moving into language, then charts the migrations of various people, animals, phenomenaand, finally, the speaker's life."

First lines

Sparrow, I answer, when our two year old
points to the tea towel & asksalready
she's moved from bird to robin, cardinal,
etc, & now sparrow, already the language
fails us. I say sparrow & mean so much more
than little songfinchlike gleaner, doubled
achene, scrabbler, driveway dust bather,
passerine keener of the near-at-hand, even
Egyptian hieroglyph, even Christ-lesson

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 attheBanff Centre for Arts and Creativity. Four finalists will each receive $1,000 from theCanada Council for the Artsand have their story published onCBC Books.