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Emerging Artists
Skylar Kay
2024
- Literary
To quote Skylar Kay’s own artist statement, “the perfect poem is the balance of weight and lift . . . a conceit or message gives weight to a poem which must be lifted via effective language and poetic devices.” Note the word “perfect”. Kay’s standard is what she’s achieved, a poetry where opposites meet and dissolve: in content they are intimate insight into an identity that defies social barriers; in form, poetry’s longest-held traditions are given fresh life.
– Emerging Artist adjudicators
Skylar Kay is a poet, born and raised in Calgary. After dropping out of grad school, she has once again returned to Calgary to live, write, and marvel at the mountains whenever possible. Her poetry often uses the lyric ‘I’ and is heavily imagistic, detailing the minutiae of the world around her as a trans woman. Her recent work explores the idea of transness and queerness, parsing the fluid boundaries of sexuality, gender, country, and reality—flipping the inherent otherness and perceived monstrosity of trans people on its head through re-imagined fairytales.
Her debut collection of poetry, Transcribing Moonlight (Frontenac House, 2022), was shortlisted for the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award—an award for the best debut book of poetry handed out by League of Canadian Poets. Transcribing Moonlight was also the winner of the Book Publishers Association of Alberta’s Robert Kroetsch Award for poetry.
Skylar Kay’s writing is phenomenal – it is engaging, meticulous in craft, and expansive in philosophical point-of-view. She is a visionary way beyond her years and works tirelessly to expand her decisive talent and distinctive voice, which I respect intensely.
Sheri-D Wilson C.M. D. Litt, Poet
NEWS AND OTHER WORK
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