Emily Riddle went from CBC Poetry Prize finalist to winning the $10K Canadian First Book Prize
The nêhiyaw writer reflects on how she wrote The Big Melt and her literary success
Emily Riddle is a nêhiyaw writer who is a member of the Alexander First Nation (Kipohtakaw) in Treaty Six Territory. Riddle has won the first-ever Griffin Poetry Prize Canadian First Book Prize for her debut poetry collection The Big Melt published in 2022.
The inaugural prize is awarded for a Canadian first book of poetry to a Canadian citizen, or permanent resident, for a first book written in English.
But this isn't the first time Riddle has been recognized for her poetry. She had previously made the 2020 CBC Poetry Prize shortlist. And, in fact, her CBC Poetry Prize entry, Learning to Count, is featured in The Big Melt.
The 2023 CBC Poetry Prize is currently accepting submissions. The winner will receive $6,000 from the Canada Council for the Arts and have their work published on CBC Books. They will also attend a writing residency at Artscape Gibraltar Point, a cultural hub on Toronto Island. The deadline to submit is next Wednesday, May 31, 2023 at 11:59 p.m. ET.
So how did Riddle put together an award-winning debut collection? Riddle talked about The Big Melt with CBC Books.
Choosing what to write about
"The Big Melt is my first poetry book. It's a collection that is quite personal, but it's also about matriarchal Indigenous governance on the Prairies. It's about moving from the West Coast back to Alberta, which is a typical journey. Lots of people from the Prairies move to Montreal or Toronto or Vancouver. So it's a story about coming back home, a story about, I would say, breakups, climate change, the nonlinearity of time and how to live.
"A thing that I find challenging, as an Indigenous writer, is determining what I want to share. I think some of the headlines about the book have been that it's really personal. But I am very specific about what I want to share, either about my personal life or my family. And also some cultural processes and ceremonial aspects of our lives too, about wanting to have clear boundaries on those things.
"I have a lot of poems that are sad, personal, sob story poems that I don't necessarily share with the with the world. I also want to strike a balance. I want to have a book that was also humorous while dealing with difficult topics."
The importance of structure
"I wanted it to be in four segments. So there's four sections of my book. Culturally, the number four is a significant number for us. Like nêhiyaw, there's a few different meanings of it, but it means like the four bodied people: emotional, physical, spiritual and intellectual. I wanted to divide the book into four — I knew that.
I wanted to divide the book into four — I knew that. And then, there was actually a debate about which kind of tone to start with.- Emily Riddle
"Then there was a debate about which kind of tone to start with. We start with The Big Melt in the book, which is mostly breakup poems, romantic poems, which is kind of splashy. Then we get more into discriminations on colour and their cultural significance, and then poems about kinship and imagining a future or thinking about time as nonlinear. What does life look like here on the Prairies in a hopeful way?"
Thinking about the audience
"I think they'd be surprised that there is a fair amount of archival research and cultural research that I've done with elders. It's also quite archival, and it's thinking about treaty history and Alberta — Edmonton in particular — of Frank Oliver and other folks in the city as well of significant chiefs and treaties.
I hope that they find little bits of themselves reflected back, especially other Cree people or other Indigenous friends reading the book.- Emily Riddle
"I hope they find themselves in conversation with it, and I hope that they find little bits of themselves reflected back, especially other Cree people or other Indigenous friends reading the book."
Where she writes
"I live in a really old apartment building in Edmonton. This one was built in 1912 and I live on the top floor. It has an old elevator shaft, which is my small office. They got rid of the elevator so it's my small office with good windows that face West or face East. So lots of light and that is my writing space that I try and write in. But I also do write in bed sometimes too."
The importance of awards and support for writers
"There's a lot of attention on the CBC Poetry Prize. It definitely helped me make connections with other people, have more access to media opportunities. And that poem [Learning to Count] did end up in the book, so it helped me refine that as well.
"I think because the market is smaller in Canada, most people in Canada are not making full-time living from their writing. So to be supported in that manner and having dedicated time to write and create and let your thoughts ruminate and play is really important. It's something I'm grateful with this new Griffin Prize and the CBC Poetry Prize."
Emily Riddle's comments have been edited for length and clarity.
