Congratulations to Sue Goyette, winner of the Pat Lowther Memorial Award!!

The winners of the 2012 Pat Lowther and Gerald Lampert Memorial Awards were announced on Saturday, June 16, 2012 at a special event at the LCP Poetry Fest and Conference in Saskatoon, SK.   Yi-Mei Tsiang  was the winner of the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award for her book Sweet Devilry (Oolichan Books), and Sue Goyette was the winner of the Pat Lowther Memorial Award for outskirts (Brick Books). 

The shortlist for this year’s awards: 

Gerald Lampert: 
True by Kirsty Elliot (Leaf Press)
Yes. by Rosemary Griebel (Frontenac House Media Ltd.)
Paramita, Little Black by Suzanne Robertson (Guernica Editions)
Do Not Call Me By My Name by Lisa Shatzky (Black Moss Press)
Sweet Devilry by Yi-Mei Tsiang (Oolichan Books)
Gulf by Leslie Vryenhoek (Oolichan Books) 

Pat Lowther:
A Page from the Wonders of Life on Earth by Stephanie Bolster (Brick Books)
Small Mechanics by Lorna Crozier (McClelland & Stewart Ltd.)
outskirts  by Sue Goyette (Brick Books)
Yes. by Rosemary Griebel (Frontenac House Media Ltd.) 
Groundwork by Amanda Jernigan (Biblioasis)
Forge by Jan Zwicky (Gaspereau Press)

Pat Lowther Memorial Award: The Pat Lowther Memorial Award is given for a book of poetry by a Canadian woman published in the preceding year, and is in memory of the late Pat Lowther, whose career was cut short by her untimely death in 1975. The award carries a $1,000 prize.

2012 Jury: Katherine Bitney, Sarah Klassen, Nela Rio

outskirts by Sue Goyette (Brick Books)

Judges’ Comments:
Sue Goyette’s poems are immediately inviting. She brings to her work a confident voice, fresh conversational language, energetic narrative style and a sure rhythms. Her unflinching attention to both the fraught territory of family life and the wider realm of the natural world garners material rich in tension and vitality. The resulting poems do not harangue, but speak with conviction, intelligence and a compassion so genuine the reader feels awed and implicated. Soaring above the details of description, narrative and imagery, these poems consistently demonstrate the clarity and wisdom of the poet’s vision and her mature craftsmanship.

Bio: Sue Goyette has published two books of poems, The True Names of Birds (Brick Books) and Undone (Brick Books), and has been nominated for the Governor General’s award, the Pat Lowther Award, the Plantos/Acron Award for Poetry and the Dartmouth Book Award. Her novel, Lures (HarperCollins), was short-listed for the Thomas Head Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award. She teaches creative writing at Dalhousie University. She also participates in the Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia’s Mentorship and Writers in Schools programs and has taught at Sage Hill, the Banff Centre Wired Writing Studio and the Blue Heron Workshop.

Tagged: League of Canadian Poets, outskirts, Pat Lowther Memorial Award, Sue goyette