Shortlisted, City of Victoria Butler Book Prize
Longlisted, Raymond Souster Award and Fred Cogswell Award For Excellence In Poetry

Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art —
Breaking open John Keats’s “Last Sonnet,” Ali Blythe writes marginality into the canon, at once claiming, reviving, and un-fixing the Romantic vision.

Taking place over one night, the poet in bed next to a sleeping lover, Blythe’s revelatory poems struggle with questions of illusion and reality, immersion and escapism, that which endures and that which is transient. Held taut in formal quivers of short lines, each poem is shot through with eros — to address, to dress and undress, the subject of the love poem and perhaps love itself.

Ali Blythe is the author of two critically acclaimed poetry collections exploring trans-poetics. About Blythe, Stewart Cole writes, “It’s exciting to see a writer so conscious of building a body of work within and across collections, pursuing not just a set of ideas and concerns but an artistic vision.”

Blythe has held roles as a guest editor of special editions of literary magazines including for The League of Canadian Poets, Arc Magazine, and Malahat Review, and as editor-in-chief for the Claremont Review, an international literary magazine for youth. His poems and essays have been published in national and international literary journals and anthologies, including The Broadview Introduction to Literature, Best Canadian Essays, and Best Canadian Poetry.

Ali Blythe's profile page

• Long-listed, Fred Cogswell Award For Excellence In Poetry
• Long-listed, Raymond Souster Award
• Short-listed, City of Victoria Butler Book Prize