Charmaine Cadeau winner of the Brockman-Campbell Award

Charmaine Cadeau

Charmaine Cadeau of High Point is this year's Brockman-Campbell winner for her collection"Placeholder" (Brick Books). A native Toronto, Cadeau is an assistant professor at High Point University. The Brockman-Campbell is awarded each year to a poet whose book is judged to be the best collection of poetry by a North Carolinian published in the preceding year. Finalists for the prize were Joseph Bathanti, former N.C. poet laureate, and Susan Meyers, a graduate of the Queens University MFA program. The award was presented earlier this month at Weymouth in Southern Pines.

 
KEEP TO YOURSELF

Draw closed the seine over
aaaaaaaa silver dashes, sleek impulses, water slipping through
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa cupped hands.

aaaaaaa a What’s been lost
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa quietly resurrects in cursive letters, the hammock of
the lowercase r, the question mark an ear tuned
for the bolt’s slide from inside.

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa Carve pages
from a book to put what matters between the covers. And sling
aaaaaaaa the rest in the t-shirt you’re wearing,
aaaaaaaaaaaaaa overflow of apples harvested for a pie
bulging out like zeros.

Some part prefers the dark, presses up in a locket,
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa would change in the telling.


-- from Placeholder, by Charmaine Cadeau, Brick Books