Variations on Genesis by Jillian Clasky

Jillian Clasky has made the 2023 CBC Poetry Prize shortlist for Variations on Genesis.

She will receive $1,000 from the Canada Council for the Arts and her work has been published on CBC Books.

The winner of the 2023 CBC Poetry Prize will be announced Nov. 23. They will receive $6,000 from the Canada Council for the Arts, a writing residency and have their work published on CBC Books.

Jillian Clasky is a poet and fiction writer from Toronto. She is currently in the final year of her BA in English at the University of Ottawa. Her work has appeared in journals such as Prisminternational, flo.and Rust & Moth and has been recognized by the Adroit Prizes and the Norma Epstein National Award in Creative Writing.

LISTEN | Jillian Clasky on being named a finalist for the 2023 CBC Poetry Prize:

All in a Day8:59Jillian Clasky is a finalist for the $6000 CBC Poetry Prize

Jillian talks with Alan about her poem "Variations on Genesis"

Clasky told CBC Books about writing Variations on Genesis: "I built this poem out of fragments I collected over the past few years, mostly stemming from ruminations on lighthearted topics like embodiment and mortality and our received ideas about death, including the strangeness of biblical stories and religious rituals."

You can read Variations on Genesis below.

I. Variations

In the beginning, light said let there be God, and there was God. He rose
from the dirt, clawing toward the brightness until it settled in his gut

and seeped into his bones. Man created God in his own image, so God
said let there be darkness, and darkness said let there be light, and light said

let there be God.
Or: in the beginning, a woman stood alone in the shade
of a cedar. She placed her palm on her swollen belly and felt inside it

a world bursting with a thousand histories. She carved them into the soil,
prayed the flood would be gentle.
Or: in the beginning, I tore out my rib

and built myself a new body. The bone grew another bone and another
until all the fresh bones fused together as if forming the branches

of a tree. Then the tree curled into a skeleton, but it did not grow flesh on
its ownI had to cover it first with clay of the earth and etch my name

into its neck. Finally it breathed, and we were alive.
Or: in the beginning,
I swallowed a bird. A sparrow, I think, but I couldn't be sure. Its feathers

cut into the insides of my cheeks and the back of my throat. It tasted
dry, like chalk on my tongue, like a single grey hair baked into a loaf

of bread. But the bird took root in the pit of my stomach, bones and guts
and all, and I had wings.
Or: in the beginning, I knew how to sing.

II. New Bones

When we sit shiva we cover
all our mirrors. There are mystical
interpretations of this ritual
(we are blocking out evil spirits
that might visit us and latch onto
our reflections, our mindless,
lesser doubles, when we are at
our weakest), and practical ones
(we are not to adorn ourselves
during shiva, as a time of mourning
is not a time for vanity). Practices
like these apply only to Jews more
conscientious than me. I've never
grieved for a bird, but I imagine
the ritual would take a similar
form: swathes of fabric that sluice
down to shield the light of glass
from restless bones. By twelve
I knew the world was made of
so much water: I would never
hold it in my hands; it would only
slip through. Instead I thought
I could taste it, could cloud my eyes
and breathe in the sweetness until
it settled in my chest, deep enough
under the skin to keep quiet.

III. Kiddush

I tried to catch the truth in a net and trawl it to shore. I tried to
smash a bottle with my lips and suck in the poison. My first time
drunk enough to turn out my insides, I bent over a porcelain bowl

and shut my eyes, convinced I would die this way. I am an almost
woman trapped in the body of a ghost, built of threads and wisp-thin
filaments; I am an almost monster trapped in the body of a woman,

my monstrosity made clearest every time I stand over a cliffside
and end up driving home; I am an almost human trapped in the body
of a monster, pinching the skin of my throat to blanch out the blood.

Read the other finalists

• restitution OR Nanabush speaks to the settlersby Kateri Akiwenzie-Damm (Neyaashiinigmiing, Ont.)
• I Can Communicate If Communication Is Another Form of Sinkingby Jaclyn Desforges (Hamilton, Ont.)
• lotus flower blooming into breastsby Kyo Lee (Waterloo, Ont.)
• Sweetness | by Anna Swanson (Guelph, Ont.)

About the 2023 CBC Poetry Prize

The winner of the 2023 CBC Poetry Prize will receive $6,000 from the Canada Council for the Arts, a writing residency and have their work published on CBC Books. Four finalists will each receive $1,000 from the Canada Council for the Arts and have their work published on CBC Books.

If you're interested in the CBC Literary Prizes, the 2024CBC Nonfiction Prize opens in January and the 2024CBC Poetry Prize opens in April.The 2025CBC Short Story Prizewill open in September.