Palimpsest County by Rachel Robb
The Toronto writer has won the 2024 CBC Poetry Prize
Rachel Robb has won the 2024 CBC Poetry Prize for Palimpsest County.
She will receive $6,000 from the Canada Council for the Arts, attend a two-week writing residency at Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity and her poem has been 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 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 Rachel Robb
Rachel Robb is a Tkaronto (Toronto)-based writer and educator of Jamaican Irish Canadian heritage. Her poetry has been featured as a finalist in the Bridport Prize anthology and shortlisted for The Fiddlehead's Ralph Gustafson Poetry Prize, The Alpine Fellowship, the VC International Poetry Prize (longlist), and most recently, the Montreal International Poetry Prize.
Her work has also appeared in anthologies for Hamilton's gritLit Festival and The Alice Munro Festival of the Short Story, where she placed first and second, respectively. A graduate of the Humber School for Writers, she is currently working on her first collection of poetry.
Robb told CBC Books about the inspiration behind Palimpsest County: "I was inspired by the contradictory layers of small-town Ontario history. The image of a palimpsest resonated with me as a metaphor for resistance; despite constant attempts at erasure through time, open hostility and commercialization of land, the presence of Indigenous people endures.
I wanted to explore the internal breaking open that must occur within a settler on this land before reconciliation can begin.- Rachel Robb
"Mostly, I wanted to explore the internal breaking open that must occur within a settler on this land before reconciliation can begin. This rupture takes different forms for different people; for some, it never happens.
For the narrator of this poem — an outsider, an immigrant — she attempts to situate herself on this shifting landscape. Ultimately, it is the beauty and vulnerability of the natural world that begins to shape her role in reconciliation."
You can read Palimpsest County below.
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.)
- Northern Childhood by Eleonore Schönmaier (Ketch Harbour, N.S.)
- The Killer and the Harpist by Catherine St. Denis (Victoria)
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.
