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The Walrus Foundation joins the Ontario Media Development Corporation in celebrating the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Trillium Book Award, Ontario’s leading literary prize. At walrusmagazine.com/trillium, we’ve grouped the finalists for the 2012 Trillium Book Award and the Trillium Book Award for Poetry alongside a select collection of past winners and Walrus contributors, including Margaret Atwood, Austin Clarke, Thomas King, and Karen Solie.

Here on The Walrus Blog, we are publishing a series of written interviews with this year’s English-language contenders. Yesterday, we completed our conversations with finalists for the Trillium Book Award; today, we are hustling through finalists for the Trillium Book Award for Poetry, which is given to “emerging” poets who have published a maximum of three books. Both awards, along with their French-language equivalents, will be announced this evening in Toronto.

Last in our group of three: Nick Thran, who is nominated for his collection Earworm.

Joseph MacKinnon: How did you react to this Trillium nomination for Earworm?

Nick Thran: I reacted with a mix of elation and temperance. With a celebratory spirit, then a long hard look in the convex mirror.

Joseph MacKinnon: The poetry award is designated for new and emerging artists, though it is evident from this and previous work that you’ve clearly set out a distinct style and voice, which I imagine took some time. That being said, do you feel as though you’re still a new and emerging writer?

Nick Thran: I am always new to the task of the poem at hand. I am also emerging into the concept that one may spend their whole life writing in a state of perpetual but rigorously inquisitive uncertainty — both about the kinds of work one wants to write and the tools one chooses or ends up with in order to bring the final product (ink) into existence.  (more…)

Tags: Earworm, Nick Thran, poetry, Trillium Book Award for Poetry, Trillium Book Awards
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