Bren Simmers

I still can’t believe this happened?! As I said at the ceremony, I owe a debt to all the books I have read and that have shaped who I am as a person and a poet. Thank you to the judges, Jenna Butler, Chimwemwe Undi, and Rob McLennan, for your faith in my work! I know that there are many poets deserving of this honour. And I hope we will share those names with each other. For poetry is its own ecosystem. We read each other’s work, borrow each other’s lines for epigraphs and share nutrients much like a forest does underground. Thank you, fellow writers, for your nourishment all these years.

Photo: The 2025 Writers’ Trust Award winners from left to right: Kim Thúy, Maria Reva, Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, Roza Nozari, Bren Simmers, Sheree Fitch and Laurie Martella (representing Julie Flett). (Tom Pandi/Writers’ Trust)