What I've Learned by M.W. Jaeggle

M.W. Jaeggle has made the 2018 CBC Poetry Prize longlist for What I've Learned.

• 30 writers make longlist for the 2018CBC Poetry Prize

About M.W.

M.W. Jaeggle was born and raised in Vancouver, B.C. After completing his Bachelor of Arts in English literature at Simon Fraser University, he moved east to pursue a Masters of Arts in English literature at McGill University. His writing has appeared in untethered, the Dalhousie Review, and more recently, in the anthology Refugium: Poems for the Pacific. Inspiration often strikes him while waiting for a bus in Montreal's Park Extension neighbourhood, or on the balcony of his family's cabin in the interior of B.C.

Entry in five-ish words

Receiving wisdom from a forebearer.

The poem's source of inspiration

"For a week last spring, I carried Phyllis Webb's Collected Poems in my backpack and read it whenever I had a spare moment. Motivated by her astute observations on nature and human character, generosity of spiritand at times acerbic yet always subtle wit, I began to take notes while reading. After some time and effort, these notes coalesced into What I've Learned,what could be called a record of poetic learning."

First lines

That there is an invisible orbit surrounding people
offering tenderness and reprieve to the patient,

that there is a difference between the limits of desire
and desire exhausting itself,

that there is a type of warmth to be found
in the reticence of a garden,

that it's okay to be as gentle as
peach fuzz, bamboo yarn, a secret,

that privacy itself can be a bright
lodestone free from intrusion,

About the 2018CBCPoetry Prize

The winner of the 2018CBCPoetry Prizewill receive$6,000 from theCanada Council for the Arts, will have their work published onCBC Booksandwill have the opportunity to attend a writing residency attheBanff Centre for Arts and Creativity. Four finalists will each receive $1,000 from theCanada Council for the Artsand have their work published onCBC Books.