Going against the advice of B.C. Book Prize organizers for all nominees to prepare a three-minute speech just in case they won, Sarah de Leeuw had no comments ready, so she had to wing it when she was announced as the winner of the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize during last Saturday's 29th annual Lieutnenant Governor's gala.
"I was like, oh, I don't need to do that because there's no way that I've won," said de Leeuw, a UNBC professor, who was nominated for her book, Geographies of a Lover. "How stupid of me! As I was walking up and feeling very faint and literally shaking, it did come to me that I had to acknowledge the wonderful company that I was in, including Evelyn Lau and Patricia Young who are true icons of B.C. women's poetry and I was so honoured to be in the same room as people like Bill Gaston and other amazing, amazing B.C. authors like Patrick Lane and Esi Edugyan but then it suddenly struck me there were other people that I had to thank -- librarians."
Because de Leeuw, who has a PhD in historical-cultural geography, grew up in Clements on Haida Gwaii and Queen Charlotte City, where there were no book stores, libraries became very important.
"Libraries, I think, are the most inspirational of public places where people can spend time with books," said de Leeuw. "You don't have to be rich, and you don't have to be an academic. You can be anyone and you can be provided with books and you can be a young woman and aspire to be a feminist author in the presence of people in history like Dorothy Livesay and that happens in libraries. So I'm forever and eternally grateful to libraries and librarians and I sure hope those public spaces are with us forever. And that's what I ended up saying in my un-prepared thank you speech."
de Leeuw was up against Colin Browne for The Properties; Roger Farr for IKMQ; Vancouver poet laureate Evelyn Lau for A Grain of Rice; and Patricia Young for Night-Eater.
Geographies of a Lover is an erotic book, and more than just being sexually provocative, it fits in the genre of eco-poetics where she looked at really deep, physical, sexual connection with landscape.
Being a recipient of the Dorothy Livesay prize is especially dear to de Leeuw.
"Dorothy Livesay is a hero, especially for women, and for feminist women trying to do innovative, creative work with poetry and for this book to be honoured in her name is an incredible privilege and it feels impossibly perfect."
Sarah de Leeuw's Geographies of a Lover (NeWest Press), a free-verse narrative, is available at Books & Co., 1685 Third Ave.
