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WINNER OF THE 2016 TRILLIUM BOOK AWARD
SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2016 GRIFFIN POETRY PRIZE
A collection of poems partially based on the Reena Virk murder case.
Virk was an Asian adolescent whose drowned body was found in the Gorge Waterway in a Victoria, BC suburb, in 1997. Some of the poems use found material from court transcripts. The murder made international headlines due to the viciousness employed by Virk's assailants: seven girls and one boy between the ages of 13 and 16, five of whom were white. The poems examine in part the poet's remembrances of girlhood, the unease of adolescence, and the circumstances that enable some to pass through adolescence unhurt.
"Harrowing and deeply empathetic, Tell: poems for a girlhood traces the events surrounding the 1997 murder of teenager Reena Virk by a group of high school classmates. Peerbaye bears brave witness to the unspeakable brutality of these events, drawing from testimonies of the convicted, the victim's autopsy report, and a history of the landscape itself. And yet, the power of this book derives only partly from the unbearable facts of violence, hatred, and alienation. The true miracle of Tell is not merely its choice to sing of such things, but its ability to sing in such a way as to urge the reader to embrace painful sympathies. Peerbaye's language becomes a vehicle not just for exploring what others in the world may be capable of, but also of drawing readers into excruciating proximity with our own adolescent longing, fear, shame and rage."—from the jury of the Griffin Poetry Prize
"Peerbaye’s collection serves both as poetry of witness and as a reminder of our collective responsibility to remember those who have been lost."—Andrea MacPherson, Canadian Literature
"Peerbaye's brilliance—and yes, this poetry is transcendentally brilliant—is her commitment to image as memory, and memory as empathy."—Corrine Gilroy, Understory Magazine
"Peerbaye’s perception is the chief engine of this book"—Roy Wang, Arc Poetry Magazine
"An uncommonly meaningful collection."—Dr. Bakul Banerjee
,Soraya Peerbaye's first collection of poetry, Poems for the Advisory Committee on Antarctic Names (Goose Lane, 2008), was nominated for the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award. Tell: poems for a girlhood (Pedlar Press, 2015) was nominated for the Griffin Poetry Prize and the recipient of the Trillium Award. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Guelph, and is an advocate for equity in the arts. She lives in Toronto with her daughter.