Winner of the Governor General's Award for English-Language Poetry (2022)
Shortlisted for the Pat Lowther Memorial Award (League of Canadian Poets) (2023)
Shortlisted for the J.M. Abraham Award (Atlantic Book Awards) (2023)
Shadow Blight considers the pain and isolation of pregnancy loss through the lens of classical myth. Drawing on the stories of Niobe—whose monumental suffering at the loss of her children literally turned her to stone—and others, this collection explores the experience of being swept away by grief and silenced by the world. Skirting the tropes (“o how beautiful / the poets make our catastrophes”), MacAskill interweaves the ancient with the contemporary in a way that opens possibilities and offers a new language for those “shut up in stillness.”
