Pearl Pirie’s the pet radish, shrunken is a finalist for the 2016 Archibald Lampman Award!
Congratulations to Pearl Pirie! Arc Poetry Magazine have announced the 2015 Archibald Lampman Award finalists and we’re thrilled that Pearl is shortlisted for her 3rd full collection, the pet radish, shrunken!
Hurray, Pearl! Go radish, go!
Credit: Brian Pirie
the pet radish, shrunken deals in the poetics of sound, language, and play. In true Pirie style, this fresh, quirky, and clear-seeing collection speaks in a range of forms and voices: From a military convoy of turtles, to a Kafkaesque conversation with a housefly, to the dissection of a fruit machine, Pirie offers oulipo found speech as it integrates and disintegrates, plays with and tumbles through language.
Congratulations as well to the other two finalists: David Groulx, author of Wabigoon River Poems (Kegedonce Press 2015) and N.W. Lea, author of Understander (Chaudiere Books, 2015).
The 2015 Archibald Lampman Award will be presented in conjunction with the City of Ottawa Book Awards in Ottawa on October 19, 2016.
Praise for the pet radish, shrunken:
“Like a difficult crossword puzzle or an advanced sudoku, Pirie’s poems are a stimulating exercise in cognition, where reading becomes a process of unravelling language.” —Quill & Quire
“[Pirie will] slip a hard edge into the most carefree poems to knock you out while other lines evoke giggles …. A radiant union of contemporary situations and classic themes… charming, playful, and immaculately skewed.” —Maisonneuve
“Pirie’s produced a poetry of pixels, of images that flash once then are gone.” —Winnipeg Free Press
“the pet radish, shrunken is not only comic, however ebullient Pirie’s ludic play is; it is also mindful of its politics without being po-faced about them. To read the collection solely for its quirky fun would be to sell Pirie short, for her wit is not frivolous but judiciously cut through with sharp takes on contemporary life.” — The Rusty Toque
“The Pet Radish, Shrunken is a wide-ranging potpourri of various & varied poems full of (often cutting & sardonic) wit, punning, & delight in the odd & transgressive.” —Eclectic Ruckus
“What becomes curious about Pirie’s writing is how she appears to utilize poetry as a way to understand how the world works and somehow navigate through the occasional confusion, whether the immediate day-to-day of existing, or something larger and more abstract.” —Small Press Book Review
From the official Arc Poetry Magazine announcement:
Each year, Arc Poetry Magazine honours Ottawa poets. Today, Arc is proud to present the three finalists for the $1,500 Archibald Lampman Award for an outstanding book of poetry by a National Capital Region author published in 2015.
The award is named in honour of Archibald Lampman (1861 – 1899), one of Canada’s finest nineteenth-century poets. Lampman moved to Ottawa in 1882, and much of his mature poetry was inspired by the National Capital Region.
Eleven books were entered in the 2015 competition and Arc congratulates all the finalists and their publishers! Arc would also like to thank the 2015 judges Sachiko Murakami, Liz Howard and Shane Book.
More info here.
