About:
Cornelia Hoogland is 2023 winner of the Colleen Thibaudeau Outstanding Achievement in Poetry Award given by the League of Canadian Poets. Trailer Park Elegy, (Harbour, 2017), was a finalist for the Raymond Souster award. Woods Wolf Girl (Wolsak and Wynn, 2011) was a finalist for the ReLit Award for Poetry. Tourists Stroll a Victoria Waterway was a finalist for the 2017 CBC Poetry Awards and her long poem, “Sea Level,” short-listed for the CBC Nonfiction Awards, was published as a chapbook (Baseline Press, 2012). Cosmic Bowling, A Girl Walks into the Woods, a graphic novel with Londoner Diana Tamblyn, and Dressed in Only a Cardigan She Picks up Her Tracks in the Snow (Baseline), are her latest books. Hoogland was the 2019 writer-in-residence for the Al Purdy A-Frame and the Whistler Festival. www.corneliahoogland.com
Cornelia is based on Hornby Island.
Book(s):
Cosmic Bowling (see below)
Trailer Park Elegy (Harbour)
“Not a linear narrative, but one…of echolocation…best read through from start to finish, as the physical soundings are enriched by their multiple associations.” Colebrook Peace, Malahat Review
Woods Wolf Girl (Wolsak & Wynn)
“Red Riding Hood like you’ve never encountered her before. Hoogland has nailed it in this chilling contemporary retelling of the age-old tale. Smart as hell.” Jeannette Lynes
Crow
​Hoogland’s familiar is crow. Watch him peril the backyard, hustle the birds: who gets what/when at the feeder. In crow’s shadow squirrel stops on a dime, splays his body against the tree, becomes bark. But when it comes to the dog, crow fluffs his throat feathers, tin-soldiers along the fence rail, caws for the beagle’s attention. And his humour–his bald caw caw obscene as your mother’s moans from the guest bedroom the night her boyfriend sleeps over. ​ (excerpt)
Cuba Journal (Black Moss Press)
That’s how it goes. I write words down; I catch
the men red-handed- I should feel like the director
casting roles and doling out the good lines-
Instead I think of my literary foremothers
who swam deep into a foreign text- All that churned-up; wide-
open water; and they like white caps making
everybody angry-
One stroke at a time; one breath, one self-
bestowed permission. ​ (excerpt)
You are Home (Black Moss Press)
​​She had wild hair-steel wire snapping in its own current. When she pulled and it came out in clumps after the chemo I cried but tufts of it she threw out the car window for birds she said for nests.​ (excerpt)
