In addition to the Griffin Poetry Prize shortlist, Karen Solie's first book of poems, Short Haul Engine, also recently won the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize, sponsored by the B.C. Book Prizes. As well, the book is shortlisted for the League of Canadian Poets' Gerald Lampert Award, and for the National Magazine Award for poetry. Karen Solie's poetry, fiction and non-fiction have appeared in numerous North American journals, including The Fiddlehead, The Malahat Review, Event, Indiana Review, ARC, Other Voices, and The Capilano Review. She has also had her poetry published in the anthologies Breathing Fire (Harbour, 1995), Hammer and Tongs (Smoking Lung, 1999), and Introductions: Poets Present Poets (Fitzhenry and Whiteside, 2001) and one of her short stories featured in The Journey Prize Anthology 12. Born in Moose Jaw, Solie grew up on the family farm in southwest Saskatchewan. Over the years, she has worked as a farm hand, an espresso jerk, a groundskeeper, a newspaper reporter/photographer, an academic research assistant, and presently, an English teacher. She lives in Victoria, British Columbia.

Judges' Citation

Karen Solie's first book of poems, Short Haul Engine - a nice phrase for poetry - stood out for its mix of physical impressions, perceptual strength, and - especially - mental grace. A kind of liveliness, agility, connectivity. In "Early in Winter,"; one of her many car poems, she writes: "feet cold, heart wagging its little tail."; Grief shows: "what is not in everything/ there is; and all/ it wants to talk about/ is you."; A monstrous old fish, a sturgeon, is hauled out of the water by some teenagers, but then, "... when he began to heave and thrash over yards of rock/ to the water's edge and, unbelievably, in,/ we couldn't hold him though we were teenaged/ and bigger than everything. Could not contain/ the old current he had for a mind, its pull,/ and his body a muscle called river, called spawn.";

There is toughness here, as well as grace. Often in her pages, we encounter wisdom of a severity that we would almost rather not know. A cold person is a different species; there is a dismal companionship in grief, the water stays in the fish, even when the fish is out of the water. Short Haul Engine is not just an exceptional debut, it is an exceptional book.