The Killer and the Harpist by Catherine St. Denis
The Victoria writer is on the 2024 CBC Poetry Prize shortlist
Catherine St. Denis has made the 2024 CBC Poetry Prize shortlist for The Killer and the Harpist.
She will receive $1,000 from the Canada Council for the Arts and her poem has been published on CBC Books.
The winner of the 2024 CBC Poetry Prize will be announced Nov. 21. They will receive $6,000 from the Canada Council for the Arts, a two-week writing residency at Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity and have their work published on CBC Books.
This year's jury is composed of Shani Mootoo, Garry Gottfriedson and Emily Austin. The jury selects the shortlist and the eventual winner from the longlist, which is chosen by a reading committee of writers and editors from across the country. Submissions are judged anonymously on the basis of the participant's use of language, originality of subject and writing style.
For more on how the judging for the CBC Literary Prizes works, visit the FAQ page.
If you're interested in the CBC Literary Prizes, the 2025 CBC Nonfiction Prize opens in January and the 2025 CBC Poetry Prize will open in April.
About Catherine St. Denis
Catherine St. Denis (she/her) lives, writes, sings, teaches, and parents on the unceded territories of the Lekwungen peoples in Victoria. Her work recently appeared in Rattle, The Malahat Review, Grain, Arc, Canthius and The Humber Literary Review. She was shortlisted for The Far Horizons Award for Poetry, The Fiddlehead's Poetry Prize, The Toronto Arts and Letters Club Poetry Award and The Foster Poetry Prize. Catherine was a finalist for PEN Canada's New Voices Award in both 2022 and 2023. Her work is featured in Biblioasis' Best Canadian Poetry 2025.
St. Denis was on the 2024 CBC Poetry Prize longlist twice: for The Killer and the Harpist and Some Notes on Intoxication and Simile: Like Butterscotch.
St. Denis shared with CBC Books her inspiration to write The Killer and the Harpist: "Recently, I have been working on a collection of poetry that explores the loss of my daughter's father to a fentanyl overdose and the loss of my own father to alcoholic dementia. These topics are very dark, of course, but one theme that keeps emerging is the role that art in all its forms can play in allowing us to access the beauty in everything — even loss, even betrayal. How can music (or the music that is poetry) help us to transform our grief? What remains to be reckoned with after that transformation has occurred?
How can music (or the music that is poetry) help us to transform our grief?- Catherine St. Denis
"Each year, I marvel at the quality of the writing that rises to the top of the CBC Literary Prizes. I wanted to try my chance at joining the ranks of the gifted wordsmiths who place in this most quintessential of Canadian writing contests."
You can read The Killer and the Harpist below.
WARNING: This poem deals with issues around substance use and abuse. It also contains mentions of sexual violence that may affect those who have experienced sexual violence or know someone affected by it.
Everything is falling from the lip
of the sky—a father in a business suit, a lover
dressed in scrubs, their ash haloes chasing them
down, down. Below, the harpist waits.
She has harvested her instrument's strings
from the sinews within her limbs. Her fingertips
strum what once held her together.
The harp is heavy against her shoulder, her skirts,
billows of her moulted skins—opalescent children
gathered against her knees. Her fingers dance, whisper,
papillon, papillon. The plucked notes flutter.
The men are falling and everything is falling
with them: a VHS tape of Jake the Snake crushing
Andre the Giant, a navy leather baby slipper, empty
bottles of Canadian Club, a knockoff Teddy Ruxpin.
The harpist arcs her fingers and thrums.
Arpeggios lace themselves into her hair. Grace
notes kiss her lashes. The golden filigree
of the melody curls outward.
In the end, her father had drunk so much
only minnows sloshed about inside his skull,
his spent palms still branded
with the rune of her childhood vulva.
In the end, her lover slept, chin to chest, a winnowing
of pinwheels behind his eyes, crystalline
fentanyl glimmering under his tongue, the pull
of fatherhood too weak to keep him breathing.
The harpist wrenches crescendos from the soundboard,
tilts her chin backward, stomps the pedals in rhythm.
The antidote to grief is a song. But she cannot stop
the fall, the men cartwheeling from above,
their shocked "o" mouths, tendrils of smoke
snaking off their backs from where
the wings were singed away.
There will be no soft landing. She must protect
the children. She wants her father, her lover
to alight on their knees, penitent, vomiting
the gravel of apology from inside their liars' craws.
Instead, she strums hand over hand as the men plummet
past. They flail and crash through the seams of
the earth. Her music can mend nearly
anything, but the fall will have no end.
If you or someone you know is struggling with substance abuse, here's where to get help:
- Government of Canada list of resources and services
- Kids Help Phone: 1-800-668-6868. Text 686868. Live chat counselling on the website.
For anyone who has been sexually assaulted, there is support available through crisis lines and local support services via the Ending Violence Association of Canada database. If you're in immediate danger or fear for your safety or that of others around you, please call 911.
Read the other finalists
- There is no neutral way to say I was fourteen by Cicely Grace (Vancouver)
- 吃苦 (Eat the Bitterness) by Emily Yiling Ma (Burnaby, B.C.)
- Palimpsest County by Rachel Robb (Toronto)
- Northern Childhood by Eleonore Schönmaier (Ketch Harbour, N.S.)
About the 2024 CBC Poetry Prize
The winner of the 2024 CBC Poetry Prize will receive $6,000 from the Canada Council for the Arts, have their work published on CBC Books and win a two-week writing residency at Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity. 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 2025 CBC Nonfiction Prize opens in January and the 2025 CBC Poetry Prize opens in April. The 2026 CBC Short Story Prize will open in September.
