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Shortlisted for the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award

Emergencies, faith, truancy, and poverty intersect in this wry debut that volunteers a transfusion of the unpredictable for those who yearn to transition beyond a muralized Olive Garden world.

Stevie Howell's Sharps] takes its cue from an Egyptian hieroglyph used interchangeably to represent "waters," the letter N, and all prepositions within a sentence. Similarly, Sharps] alters its structure and functionality from page to page. The Queen launches an advertising campaign to procure our envy. The last unicorn crochets a sweater out of the sisal cords of the books. The falsity of Billy Joel's New York propaganda is grounds for libel. We discover the one thing you can do "With a sawed-off rifle, a low IQ, and curiosity/about human biology."

From certain angles, Sharps] embraces the possibilities of poetry -- from others, it engages in a protracted street fight with language.

Stevie Howell's poetry and literary criticism has appeared in publications throughout Canada and abroad. She has released two chapbooks, Royal and Ringsend, and a pamphlet entitled Looting the Museum. In 2013 Howell's poem "Brief Review" won the 2013 Arc Poetry Journal Critic's Desk Award. She has also been a finalist for the Montreal International Poetry Prize. For her day job, she works as an editor for Spacing magazine. She lives in Toronto.