Nancy Holmes, associate professor of creative writing and poetry in the Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies at UBC's Okanagan campus, has been named a finalist for the Raymond Souster Award, a prestigious national poetry prize.

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Holmes’ most recent collection of poetry, The Flicker Tree: Okanagan Poems (Ronsdale Press), is being considered for the Souster honour. This is the inaugural year for the award, which will be presented annually by the League of Canadian Poets for a book of poetry published in the preceding year.

Holmes writes short fiction and poetry. She has five collections of poetry, and her poetry and fiction are widely published in literary periodicals.

A co-editor of the journal Lake: a Journal of Arts and Environment, Holmes also organizes eco-art projects in the Okanagan and is currently Associate Dean of Research and Graduate Studies in the Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies.

The winner of the Souster Award and other poetry prizes will be announced at the League of Canadian Poets Poetry Fest and Conference in Toronto on June 8.

The award carries cash prize of $1,000 and honours the late Raymond Souster, an early founder of the League of Canadian Poets.

Souster, who died last year at age 91, was a poet in his own right. Along with Canadian literary giants Irving Layton and Louis Dudek, he formed the publishing house Contact Press in 1952. Contact was the publisher for such luminaries as Margaret Atwood, Michael Ondaatje, Leonard Cohen, and P.K. Page.