Goose Lane Editions and icehouse poetry congratulates Fredericton poet Sue Sinclair following the news that her 2022 collection Almost Beauty was shortlisted for the prestigious Derek Walcott Prize for Poetry. Almost Beauty contains both new and selected poetry spanning across Sinclair’s 20+ year career. Notably, it’s one of just two Canadian books on this year’s Walcott shortlist.

In June, Almost Beauty won the New Brunswick Book Award for Poetry, and was later awarded an Alcuin Society Book Design third prize.  The collection drew praise from critics, including Andre Fenton with Atlantic Books Today, who called the book “a riveting collection of self-acceptance and profound empathy. Highly recommended for poetry readers.”

Sinclair was thrilled to learn of the shortlisting, saying: “The Walcott always has judges and shortlists of remarkable quality, so I feel like I’m in great company.”

Almost Beauty is Sinclair’s second book published by Goose Lane and icehouse poetry, following The Drunken, Lovely Bird in 2004. That collection earned Sinclair the American Independent Publishers Poetry Prize.

The Walcott Prize is presented annually to a full-length book of poems by a living poet who is not a U.S. citizen. It’s presented through a partnership between Arrowsmith Press; the Derek Walcott Festival in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad; and the Boston Playwrights’ Theatre.

The winning author earns a cash prize of $1,000 and an invitation to read at the Boston Playwrights’ Theatre. The winning title will be announced on November 2, 2023.

Derek Walcott was a decorated Caribbean poet, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1992 and the T.S. Eliot Prize in 2011. Walcott was just the second Black writer to become a Nobel laureate.