2025 LCP Book Awards: Shortlists
Celebrating the 2025 book award shortlists
Congratulations to all the poets and publishers featured on the shortlists of our Gerald Lampert Memorial Award, Pat Lowther Memorial Award, and Raymond Souster Award! We are thrilled to be highlighting six books on each shortlist, selected with care by a panel of jurors. Each award carries a $2,000 prize for the winner.
An online reading will be held on Tuesday, May 13, 2025 at 8pm ET to celebrate the shortlisted poets. The event will feature brief readings from shortlisted poets, and will not be recorded.
The Gerald Lampert Memorial Award, for a debut book of poetry, is given in the memory of Gerald Lampert, an arts administrator who organized authors’ tours and took a particular interest in the work of new writers.
The Pat Lowther Memorial Award is awarded in memory of the late Pat Lowther, whose career was cut short by her untimely death in 1975. As a women’s prize, the Pat Lowther Memorial Award is inclusive of cis women, trans women, and non-binary writers who feel comfortable being recognized by a women’s prize.
The Raymond Souster Award, which celebrates a new book of poetry by a League member, honors Raymond Souster, a founder of the League.
Winners coming May 14, 2025
2025 Gerald Lampert Memorial Award Longlist
For a debut book of poetry
Comments from the jurors:
2025 Pat Lowther Memorial Award Longlist
For a book of poetry by a woman
Comments from the jurors:
2024 Raymond Souster Award Longlist
For a new book of poetry by a League member
Comments from the jurors:
About the finalists
Faith Arkorful is a writer of Grenadian and Ghanaian descent. She is the author of The Seventh Town of Ghosts, published by McClelland and Stewart in 2024. Her work has appeared in GUTS Magazine, Peach Mag, PRISM International, Hobart Pulp, and Canthius Magazine, amongst other places. In 2021 she was a semi-finalist in the 92NY Discovery Poetry Contest and in 2019 she was shortlisted for the CBC Poetry Prize. Faith was born in Toronto, where she still resides.
When I published this book, my hope was that it would impact at least one person. It's an honour to be recognized by the League, which does important work to champion poets and our works. I hope with this recognition, the book can continue to reach more people.
Manahil Bandukwala is a writer and visual artist. She is the author of Heliotropia (Brick Books, 2024) and MONUMENT (Brick Books, 2022), which was shortlisted for the 2023 Gerald Lampert Award. She was selected as a Writer’s Trust of Canada Rising Star in 2023. See her work at manahilbandukwala.com.
The League of Canadian Poets is an integral organization to my community and career as a poet. It's so meaningful to be recognized by their awards, as well as my peers on the juries who read over a hundred books and make difficult decisions to come up with the final lists. I know I'm among an incredible community of poets here.
Ellen Chang-Richardson is an award-winning poet, multi-genre writer, judicial assistant, and editor of Taiwanese and Chinese Cambodian descent. The author of Blood Belies (Wolsak & Wynn, 2024), and author/co-author of six poetry chapbooks, their writing has appeared in Augur, the Ex-Puritan, the Fiddlehead, Grain, Plenitude, Watch Your Head, and more. They are the co-founder of Riverbed—an experimental reading series based out of the National Capital Region, a member of Room magazine’s editorial collective, and a member of the poetry collective VII. A third culture kid at heart, Ellen’s writing is informed by their love of contemporary art, their concern with humanity’s impact on the Earth, and their experience moving through various societies as a femme-presenting genderqueer.
It is an honour to be a finalist for the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award. I often wonder if readers are looking for the experimental form and research-heavy concepts that my writing brings to the page. Being a finalist tells me that someone out there is hungry for this type of poetry.
Nathanael Jones is an Afro-Caribbean Canadian writer and artist. Born in Montreal, he holds degrees from NSCAD University and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. His work has been exhibited and performed across North America and the United Kingdom, and has been published in DREGINALD, Ghost Proposal, Aurochs, Heavy Feather Review, TIMBER, and is forthcoming in Poetry Magazine. Jones' poetry collections include Aqueous, out now with The Porcupine's Quill, and the chapbooks ATG (HAIR CLUB 2016) and La Poésie Caraïbe (Damask Press, 2018).
I am very humbled to know that my work could move my peers to nominate this collection for a national award. It has always been a dream of mine to not only put my work out into the world but also have it connect with people: this nomination speaks to the capacity for that dream to come true.
Shani Mootoo was born in Ireland, raised in Trinidad, and has lived in Canada for more than forty years. Her poetry books include Oh Witness Dey!, Cane | Fire, and The Predicament of Or. She is the author of several novels, including Polar Vortex, Moving Forward Sideways Like a Crab, and Cereus Blooms at Night which is now a Penguin Modern Classic and a Vintage Classics book. Her work has been long and shortlisted for the Booker Prize, The Giller Prize, the Lambda Literary Prize, and the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, among others. She has been awarded the Doctor of Letters honoris causa degree from Western University, is a recipient of Lambda Literary's James Duggins Outstanding Mid-Career Novelist Prize, the Writers' Trust Engel Findley Award, and The National Library’s Library and Archives Scholar Award. She lives in Southern Ontario, Canada.
It is a real honour to be in the company of all the fine poets, past and present, who have been Pat Lowther Memorial Award nominees. I am deeply grateful!
Zehra Naqvi is the author of The Knot of My Tongue (McClelland & Stewart) and a recipient of the Bronwen Wallace Award for Poetry awarded by the Writers' Trust of Canada. Her writing has appeared in Tin House, The New Quarterly, The Capilano Review, Contemporary Verse 2, PRISM international and elsewhere. Her work has been commissioned by Amnesty International and UNHCR, and has been featured on CBC Radio and in the Toronto Star. Zehra received a residency from Queen’s University and has guest lectured at the University of Victoria and Stanford University. She holds Master’s degrees in Migration Studies and Social Anthropology from Oxford University where she studied as a Rhodes Scholar. She has a Bachelor’s in English and Creative Writing from UBC. Zehra was born in Karachi, Pakistan and grew up on Coast Salish territories (outside Vancouver).
It is a deep honour to have my collection read with such care and attention by fellow poets. The writing career of a poet can be challenging, unpredictable, and precarious. The recognition and support provided by the League goes a long way in making an author feel part of a broader community of poets, and gives reassurance that this challenging path is worthwhile. I am immensely grateful.
Marc Perez is the author of Dayo (Brick Books, 2024) and the chapbook, Domus (Anstruther Press, 2025). His work has appeared in The Fiddlehead, EVENT, CV2, PRISM International, and Vallum, among others. Originally from Manila, he currently lives with his family in Vancouver.
It's humbling to know that fellow poets read Dayo with such intent and depth.
Jane Shi is a poet, writer, and organizer living on the occupied, stolen, and unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and səlil̓ilw̓ətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) peoples. She is the author of the chapbook Leaving Chang’e on Read (Rahila’s Ghost Press, 2022) and the winner of The Capilano Review’s 2022 In(ter)ventions in the Archive Contest. Her debut poetry collection is echolalia echolalia (Brick Books, 2024). She wants to live in a world where love is not a limited resource, land is not mined, hearts are not filched, and bodies are not violated.
I’ve been writing poetry since I was eight years old. What was once childhood play soon morphed into a necessary form of survival—the lonely kind where language served as rebellion, buoy, and, at times, protection and distance. Since publishing echolalia echolalia with Brick Books I’ve been grateful to build friendships and community with other poets, and being a finalist for this award reminds me that we write to connect. I’m humbled that the growth and attempts at vulnerability I express in my work can reach others and, in turn, also change me.
Bren Simmers is the winner of the CBC Poetry Prize and The Malahat Review Long Poem Prize. Her latest poetry collection, The Work (Gaspereau Press), was a finalist for the 2024 Governor General’s Literary Awards and the J.M. Abraham Atlantic Poetry Award. She lives on Epekwitk/PEI.
Being a finalist for the Pat Lowther Memorial Award is a great honour both for me and for those I lost. I hope this recognition allows the book to reach readers who are going through their own grief journey.
Rob Taylor is the author of five poetry collections, including Weather and The News, which was a finalist for the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize. Rob is also the editor of What the Poets Are Doing: Canadian Poets in Conversation and Best Canadian Poetry 2019. He teaches creative writing at the University of the Fraser Valley, and lives with his family in Port Moody, BC, on the unceded territories of the kʷikʷəƛ̓əm (Kwikwetlem) and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) peoples.
Being named a finalist for the Raymond Souster Award is a delight! First, because it means three thoughtful readers connected with my book. Second, because it might bring a bit more attention to contemporary haiku being written in Canada. Third, because Raymond Souster once said, of Queen Anne’s Lace and poems, that “You'll never tire / of bending over to examine, / of marvelling at this / shyest filigree of wonder / born among grasses.”
Barbara Tran revels in blurring the lines between genres. She authored the titular character’s narration of "Madame Pirate: Becoming a Legend," a short VR film nominated for Best VR Story at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival. Her short fiction has garnered two National Magazine Award nominations. A lyric essay was longlisted for the CBC Nonfiction Prize. Precedented Parroting, a finalist for the 2024 Governor General’s Literary Award, is her debut book. She lives in Tkaronto and is a member of the international collectives AfroMundo and She Who Has No Master(s).
Joy. Pure joy. Being able to celebrate poetry is a huge win, especially in these times. Thank you, LCP and jury. Congratulations, poets!
Chimwemwe Undi is a poet, editor and lawyer living and writing on Treaty 1 territory in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Her debut collection, Scientific Marvel, won the 2024 Governor General's Literary Award. She is Canada's Parliamentary Poet Laureate for 2025 and 2026.
I am so grateful. Past lists of LCP Book Award finalists and winners have heavily influenced my reading lists and me, and I am moved to know that Scientific Marvel will be counted among them.
shō yamagushiku's work is grounded in a diasporic okinawan consciousness. He writes from the homelands of the Lekwungen and W̱SÁNEĆ peoples (Victoria, BC). His first poetry collection, entitled shima, reflects ancestors, violence, and tradition.
Being a finalist means inertia, clarity, fire moving forward and the chance to fortify the community roots and networks that continue to bring shima (to) life