Dear friends and fellow writers:

Recently, the shortlist for the Governor General's Award for poetry was released. As usual, there were choices I agreed with, choices I disagreed with and omissions that irked me. Of the latter category, I was especially disappointed to see that Goran Simic's collection, From Sarajevo, with Sorrow, was left off the list. If you haven't read this book, I urge you to. It is powerful poetry and it's the sort of book that makes the vast majority of what passes for contemporary literature look trivial. It is also important as a work of translation, because it constitutes a rebuttal of previous translations of Simic's work, in England, by David Harsent in the collection Sprinting from the Graveyard. Anyone interested in reading a more developed opinion of the book can do so in the latest issue of Books in Canada, where I've reviewed it.

If this were a simple case of the book being passed over because of the taste of the jurors, it would not be cause for alarm, as such things, like it or not, are routine. However, I've learned that, although Simic's publisher did submit the book for the English language poetry award, the Canada Council has questioned its eligibility. Although 16 of the book's 44 poems were either written in English by Simic (a recent immigrant to Canada from Bosnia) or translated from his native Serbo-Croatian by himself, because most of the book's content is translated from a language other than French, it does not fit into any of the too-neat bureaucratic categories the CC has developed for literary works.

I and others have written in recent months about the systemic institutional barriers in place that, unintentionally no doubt, make it very difficult for foreign-language authors now resident in Canada to have their work heard and recognized. Funds are not readily available for the translation of such works and once they are tranlsated, they are not recognized as Canadian content.

In the hopes of correcting this shameful bias, I am taking up a collection to fund a one-time award for Simic's book, an award that will simultaneously honour a great poet for a great book and that will demonstrate that, even if our government institutions lag behind in their appreciation of certain categories of immigrant writers, at least our citizens do not. Hopefully, with enough media exposure and with letters to the CC and the federal minister responsible for culture, regulations and criteria can be amended to better reflect this country's diverse citizenry in the arts.

Funds will go toward the purchase of a handcrafted prize, with the balance going to Simic in the form of a cheque. For starters, I have pledged my review fee for the Books in Canada essay, and I have already received several hundred dollars in pledges from writers across the country. If you are interested in joining them, please respond by email (zachwells@gmail.com), indicating how much you would like to donate, or send a cheque/money order to me: 5280 Richmond St./Halifax, NS/B3K 2L3.

Thank you very much for giving this important matter your time and attention. And please circulate this message to anyone who might be interested.

In solidarity,

Zach Wells