Biography
Shirley Camia is an award-winning Filipina-Canadian poet, and the author of four books of poetry. Her most recent collection, Mercy, a finalist at the High Plains Book Awards in 2020, chronicles her journey through grief and bereavement after the death of her mother. The book’s poignant title poem, “Novena”—an ancient ritual of nine days of prayer that begin the night of a person’s death—is written in Camia’s spare poetic style, with strings of short, abrupt thoughts and vivid imagery. “Novena” was also made into a poetry animation film that has been screened at festivals in Argentina, Canada, Germany, Greece, and the US. Camia is a founding member of Pluma, a collective of Filipinx-Canadian writers whose work spans genres and generations. Born in Winnipeg, she has lived across Canada, the Philippines, Japan, and Kenya. Camia currently divides her time between Toronto, Canada and Copenhagen, Denmark.