Jessica
Bebenek
Jessica Bebenek is a queer poet, risograph printer, bookmaker, and interdisciplinary artist. Her writing has been longlisted for The Journey Prize and twice nominated for the Pushcart Prize. Bebenek’s recent poetry can be found in PRISM, CV2, filling Station, and 30 Under 30: An Anthology of Canadian Millennial Poets. Her third lyric poetry chapbook, Fourth Walk, was released by Desert Pets Press and she is currently completing her first full collection of poetry, No One Knows Us There. Bebenek is currently based in Tiohtià:ke (Montreal).
Award History
2021 Finalist
RBC Bronwen Wallace Award for Emerging Writersfor Selections from No One Knows Us There
Jury Citation
“Jessica Bebenek’s ‘Selections from No One Knows Us There’ is full of ambitious, exploratory poems about grief and its after-effects. Written with a big red broken heart, but built on a base of technical acumen and sturdy music, it brings the whole chaos of youthful mourning to light in episodes of drama, insight, and humour. Its achievement is one of poetry’s most difficult: to raise despair to an aesthetic act by honouring, and not merely decorating, its core of personal tragedy.”
— 2021 RBC Bronwen Wallace Award poetry jury (Irfan Ali, Domenica Martinello, and Jacob McArthur Mooney)
