Ben
Ladouceur
Ben Ladouceur’s first collection of poems, Otter, was selected as a best book of 2015 by the National Post, awarded the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award, and nominated for a Lambda Literary Award. He won the 2012 Earle Birney Poetry Prize, which is presented by PRISM International, for his poem “Gran Vals.” Ladouceur is the prose editor for Arc Poetry Magazine and a regular columnist for Open Book. He lives in Ottawa.
Award History
Jury Citation
“Ben Ladouceur’s Otter is a supremely, almost eerily assured first collection. His poetry is cunning and supple, chatty and tender, artfully antic. Sifting through these pieces one gets the sense of an artist who has long ago absorbed and synthesized his influences, who is incapable of the derivative or the repetitive. Ladouceur’s innate wit and feel for narrative indicate an expansive sensibility that will effortlessly span genres in years to come. He is all one could hope for in a new writer: someone with chops and fodder, someone fully formed and bent on risk.” -- 2018 Dayne Ogilvie Prize for LGBTQ Emerging Writers Jury (Ali Blythe, Greg Kearney, and Shannon Webb-Campbell)
