True Value
Liz Howard’s debut collection Infinite Citizen of the Shaking Tent won the 2016 Griffin Poetry Prize, was shortlisted for the 2015 Governor General’s Award for poetry, and was named a Globe and Mail top 100 book. A National Magazine Award finalist, her recent work has appeared in Canadian Art, The Fiddlehead, Poetry, The Walrus, and Best Canadian Poetry. Howard received an Honours Bachelor of Science with High Distinction from the University of Toronto and an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Guelph. She served as the 2018–19 Distinguished Canadian Writer in Residence at the University of Calgary, and has completed creative writing and Indigenous arts residencies at UBC Kelowna, Douglas College, and Sheridan College. Howard is of mixed settler and Anishinaabe heritage. Born and raised on Treaty 9 territory in northern Ontario, she currently lives in Toronto.
The sky was never my court date.
If I died once. If I left the body.
Habeas corpus.
This is not my grave.
The value in a dead woman
is that she cannot be killed
again or cross-examined.
The value in being the dead
woman at trial is the Crown
doesn’t represent you
regardless.
The value in being
dead is that it’s impolite
to speak ill
of you.
What is called
wellness,
victim-witness?
A swab taken
of every orifice.
Were there any
identifying marks?
Were you in fact
on the moon
that night,
Miss Howard?
Did you make a choice?
I made a cut—it released something.
I broke the line.
Liz Howard’s debut collection Infinite Citizen of the Shaking Tent won the 2016 Griffin Poetry Prize, was shortlisted for the 2015 Governor General’s Award for poetry, and was named a Globe and Mail top 100 book. A National Magazine Award finalist, her recent work has appeared in Canadian Art, The Fiddlehead, Poetry, The Walrus, and Best Canadian Poetry. Howard received an Honours Bachelor of Science with High Distinction from the University of Toronto and an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Guelph. She served as the 2018–19 Distinguished Canadian Writer in Residence at the University of Calgary, and has completed creative writing and Indigenous arts residencies at UBC Kelowna, Douglas College, and Sheridan College. Howard is of mixed settler and Anishinaabe heritage. Born and raised on Treaty 9 territory in northern Ontario, she currently lives in Toronto.