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Mercedes Eng was the surprise, and surprised winner of the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize at the B.C. Book Prizes in 2018 for her debut poetry collection, Prison Industrial Complex Explodes (Talonbooks $17.95). Judges Jordan Abel, Chelene Knight and Carl Leggo were struck by her juxtoposition of deeply-felt personal writing by her father and the carefully aloof, cold and impersonal rigidity of correspondence from govermental officialdom. This work arises from the author's belief and awareness that "the incarceration of Indigenous people, refugees, and people of colour is rapidly increasing as corporations eagerly court the government for private-public partnerships to fund the building of new prisons and detention centres."
Prison Industrial Complex Explodes was prompted and inspired by the discovery of Eng's father's prison correspondence. According to the publisher, this cache of material included letters from the federal government stating their intention to deport him because of his criminal record; letters from prison justice advocate Michael Jackson advising her father on deportation; letters from the RCMP regarding the theft of her father's property, a gold necklace, while in transport to prison; letters from family members and friends; letters from Eng and her brother.
Previously Eng had published several chapbooks, February 2010 (2010) and knuckle sandwich (2011), plus Mercenary English (CUE Books, 2013; Mercenary Press, 2016),a long poem about "violence and resistance" in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver. Her writing has also appeared in Jacket 2, The Downtown East, The Volcano, on the sides of the Burrard and Granville Bridges as contributions to public art projects. She is currently working on a detective novel set in her grandfather's Chinatown supper club, circa 1948.
Mercedes Eng's third collection of poems, my yt mama (Talonbooks $16.95) is about growing up with a white settler mother and a Chinese Canadian father in Medicine Hat. Eng describes watching the TV miniseries Roots and seeing a young black woman being whipped: "electric with fear I asked why / because she's black / my mom said, and this uncontextualized response is true but I don't / think she understood what that meant to not-yt-me."
Mercedes Eng writes on unceded Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh territories.
BOOKS
Mercenary English (CUE Books, 2013; Mercenary Press, 2016;Talonbooks; 3 edition 2019) $18.95 978-1772012194
Prison Industrial Complex Explodes (Talonbooks 2017) $17.95 9781772011814
my yt mama (Talonbooks 2020) $16.95 978-1-77201-255-2
[BCBW 2020]
Prison Industrial Complex Explodes was prompted and inspired by the discovery of Eng's father's prison correspondence. According to the publisher, this cache of material included letters from the federal government stating their intention to deport him because of his criminal record; letters from prison justice advocate Michael Jackson advising her father on deportation; letters from the RCMP regarding the theft of her father's property, a gold necklace, while in transport to prison; letters from family members and friends; letters from Eng and her brother.
Previously Eng had published several chapbooks, February 2010 (2010) and knuckle sandwich (2011), plus Mercenary English (CUE Books, 2013; Mercenary Press, 2016),a long poem about "violence and resistance" in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver. Her writing has also appeared in Jacket 2, The Downtown East, The Volcano, on the sides of the Burrard and Granville Bridges as contributions to public art projects. She is currently working on a detective novel set in her grandfather's Chinatown supper club, circa 1948.
Mercedes Eng's third collection of poems, my yt mama (Talonbooks $16.95) is about growing up with a white settler mother and a Chinese Canadian father in Medicine Hat. Eng describes watching the TV miniseries Roots and seeing a young black woman being whipped: "electric with fear I asked why / because she's black / my mom said, and this uncontextualized response is true but I don't / think she understood what that meant to not-yt-me."
Mercedes Eng writes on unceded Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh territories.
BOOKS
Mercenary English (CUE Books, 2013; Mercenary Press, 2016;Talonbooks; 3 edition 2019) $18.95 978-1772012194
Prison Industrial Complex Explodes (Talonbooks 2017) $17.95 9781772011814
my yt mama (Talonbooks 2020) $16.95 978-1-77201-255-2
[BCBW 2020]
