Dionne Brand gets the Griffin

In handing out the 2011 Griffin Poetry Prize, prize founder Scott Griffin spoke of the borderless quality of great poetry.

That sentiment was echoed by this year’s Canadian winner, Dionne Brand, who, in accepting the $65,000 prize, thanked a long, varied list of poets who had “kept [her] company” over her decades-long career, from Frederico García Lorca to Derek Walcott to Dorothy Livesay to Sappho.

“They produced the kind of poetry that reached across all of our humanity, that reached across nation, reached across space, reached across time, so that I could sit with them in an apartment on Raglan Avenue [where she grew up in Toronto],” Brand said afterward. “I wanted to make work that did that, too.”

Brand won for her collection Ossuaries, published by McClelland & Stewart, which juror Colm Toíbín described as “a long dream journey” and an “eloquent act of mourning and recovery.” The other shortlisted Canadian authors were veteran John Steffler for Lookout (M&S) and newcomer Suzanne Buffam for The Irrationalist (House of Anansi Press).

This is the fourth time a book from M&S has won the Griffin in the prize’s 11-year history, more than any other publisher. Brand, who has won numerous literary prizes for her fiction and poetry, including the Governor General’s Literary Award, the Trillium Book Award, and the City of Toronto Book Award, had previously been nominated for the Griffin for her 2002 collection thirsty.

The international Griffin prize, also worth $75,000, was awarded to U.S. poet Gjertrud Schnackenberg for Heavenly Questions (Farrar, Strauss and Giroux). Schnackenberg, who was born in Tacoma, Washington, was up against Syrian poet Adonis’s Selected Poems (Yale University Press), translated from the Arabic by Khaled Mattawa; French poet François Jacqmin’s The Book of Snow (Arc Publications), translated by Philip Mosley; and Irish poet Seamus Heaney’s Human Chain (FSG).

In keeping with its growing international reach, this was the first year a book from the Arab world was nominated for the Griffin.

Gerald Lampert and Pat Lowther shortlists announced

Shortlists for the annual Gerald Lampert Award and the Pat Lowther Memorial Award were announced last night at the National Poetry Month launch event in Toronto.

The Gerald Lampert Award recognizes the best debut poetry collection published by a Canadian. The shortlisted books are:

• The Crow’s Vow, Susan Briscoe (Signal Editions)
• That Other Beauty, Karen Enns (Brick Books)
• Tiny, Frantic, Stronger, Jeff Latosik (Insomniac Press)
• [sic], Nikki Reimer (Frontenac Press)
• Here Is Where We Disembark, Clea Roberts (Freehand Books)
• The Nights Also, Anna Swanson (Tightrope Books)

The Pat Lowther Award is presented to a book of poetry published by a Canadian woman. The shortlisted books are:

• Ossuaries, Dionne Brand (McClelland & Stewart)
• Walking to Mojácar, Di Brandt (Turnstone Press)
• Living Under Plastic, Evelyn Lau (Oolichan Books)
• Memory’s Daughter, Alice Major (University of Alberta Press)
• Cathedral, Pamela Porter (Ronsdale Press)
• La luna, Tango, siempre la luna / The Moon, Tango, Always the Moon, Nela Rio (Broken Jaw Press)

It’s been a fine week so far for Brand, who today was also nominated for the 2011 Griffin Poetry Prize.

Winners of both awards, worth $1,000 each, will be announced June 11 at the LCP Poetry Fest and Conference in Toronto.

Brand, Buffam, Steffler vie for 2011 Griffin Prize

The 2011 Griffin Poetry Prize pits two established Canadian poets against a relative newcomer.

McClelland & Stewart, the publisher with the most wins in the prize’s 11-year history, has two titles on the Canadian shortlist: Ossuaries by Governor General’s Literary Award winner Dionne Brand and Lookout by former Parliamentary poet laureate John Steffler. They’re up against The Irrationalist (House of Anansi Press), the second collection by Suzanne Buffam. Anansi, which published the two previous winners (Karen Solie and A.F. Moritz), could become the first publisher to win three consecutive Griffins.

The three Canadian nominees are vying for the $65,000 top prize, with each nominated poet receiving an additional $10,000. The judges for this year’s prize are Canadian poet Tim Lilburn, Irish author Colm Toíbín, and U.S. poet Chase Twichell.

Prize founder Scott Griffin emphasized the international scope of the prize at the shortlist announcement in Toronto Tuesday morning, noting this year’s 450 submissions – up from around 400 last year – came from 37 countries and were translated from more than 20 languages. The submissions included three poets from the Arab world.

Griffin said he was personally pleased the international shortlist includes Adonis, whom he described as “probably the best living Arab poet.” The Syrian poet is nominated for Adonis: Selected Poems (Yale University Press), translated from the Arabic by Khaled Mattawa.

The international shortlist is rounded out by Irish Nobel Laureate Seamus Heaney’s Human Chain (Farrar, Straus and Giroux), U.S. poet Gjertrud Schnackenberg’s Heavenly Questions (FSG), and Belgian poet François Jacqmin’s The Book of the Snow (Arc Publications), translated from the French by Philip Mosley.

The winners of the 2011 Griffin Poetry Prize will be announced at a gala event in Toronto on June 1. The announcement will be preceded by a reading from the shortlisted authors on May 31 at Toronto’s Koerner Hall.

Scott Griffin brings poetry into Canadian schools

Canadian literary benefactor Scott Griffin is taking his passion for poetry – in particular, the live recitation of poetry – into schools across Canada with a new bilingual recitation contest that will award $10,000 to students and school libraries.

Griffin announced the initiative, known as Poetry in Voice, at a press conference in Toronto on Tuesday. A pilot program is currently underway at a dozen Ontario high schools, and the plan is to expand to Quebec in 2011–12 and across the country in 2012–13.

Griffin, who recites a favourite poem from memory at each annual Griffin Poetry Prize shortlist announcement, spoke of the importance of recitation in discovering poetry. “The best way to know a poem short of writing it is to memorize it,” he said. “It’s amazing how different emotional settings or scenes will resurrect that particular poem because it strikes exactly what you’re experiencing at the time.”

Griffin wants to change the negative attitude many people have toward the rote memorization of poetry. “We hope this program … will excite students to want to memorize [poetry], and then they will discover the value of the poem,” he said.

Students participating in the pilot program can choose three poems from an online anthology that currently comprises more than 100 English-language and 25 French-language poems in the public domain, as selected by Poetry in Voice director Damian Rogers (author of the collection Paper Radio, published by ECW Press) and three-time Governor General’s Literary Award–winning poet Pierre Nepveu.

According to Rogers, the contest will serve as a platform for bringing Canadian literature and contemporary poets into schools. “I want students to make the connection that poetry is part of the Canadian cultural landscape across the country,” said Rogers, who added that the group is currently in the process of securing rights to contemporary and Canadian poems.

Competing students will be judged according to a variety of criteria, including physical presence, voice and articulation, accuracy, and dramatization. Griffin says students who choose to recite at least one poem in their non-native tongue will have a slight advantage over other competitors.

The province-wide finalists will face off on April 12 at Toronto’s Soulpepper Theatre, with the winning student receiving $5,000, plus an additional $2,500 for the student’s school library. The runner-up will receive $1,000 (plus $500 for the library), while the third-place student will receive $500 (plus $500 for the library).

In addition to the $10,000 earmarked for the Poetry in Voice program, the Griffin Trust for Excellence in Poetry will hand out $200,000 to the nominees of the 2011 Griffin Poetry Prize.

Karen Solie takes home Griffin

The crowd leapt to their feet as though someone had scored a winning goal when juror Carl Phillips announced Karen Solie as the winner of the Griffin Poetry Prize at last night’s gala in Toronto’s distillery district. Solie, 43, won the $65,000 award for her third collection of poetry, Pigeon, published by House of Anansi Press. It was Anansi’s second Griffin win in a row.

Solie hugged her mother before walking calmly to the stage to accept the prize, fighting back tears as she began her acceptance speech. “I see so many people here whose work I have read and who made it possible for me to live,” she said. “I’m very grateful to have found something that – while it doesn’t always make a living – is a way to live.” Solie thanked her family who had traveled from Saskatchewan and Alberta to attend the ceremony.

After her speech, Solie told Q&Q she was “shocked” when she heard her name, and that she’d been more nervous about the prior night’s Griffin readings than the awards ceremony itself. Winning the award, she added, means that she can now take time off to focus solely on writing. “It’s always a battle to find time, and now I have that,” she said, adding that she’s currently working on some new poems and a novel. “It’s still early days. I’m just trying to see if I can do it.”

Ken Babstock, Solie’s editor at Anansi, told Q&Q he experienced more anxiety on Solie’s behalf than he felt for himself when he was nominated in 2007 for Airstream Land Yacht. “I’ve never been so relieved in my life,” Babstock said of Solie’s win. “I was trying to be objective, but I just deeply felt the book deserved the prize…. When they announced it, I jumped up on my chair and screamed like a football hooligan.”

Pigeon is Solie’s third collection of poetry, her second to be nominated for a Griffin, and her first to be published by Anansi. Solie was up against the late P.K. Page’s Coal and Roses (The Porcupine’s Quill) and newcomer Kate Hall’s The Certainty Dream (Coach House Books). Pigeon is also shortlisted for the Pat Lowther Memorial Award. Originally from Saskatchewan, she now lives in Toronto with her husband, poet David Seymour.

The international Griffin Poetry Prize went to Irish poet Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin’s The Sun-fish (The Gallery Press). After joking about the Irish mafia having had a hand in her win, Chuilleanáin took time out to express her admiration for the other writers on the shortlist, John Glenday, Louise Glück, and Susan Wicks.

Prior to the unveiling of the winners, the audience sat in near silence as Adrienne Rich, winner of the Griffin Trust Lifetime Recognition Award, read three poems, including one inspired by Canadian poet Lisa Robertson. And British poet and critic Glyn Maxwell got the audience giggling with a lively keynote speech. The judges for this year’s prizes were Canadian poet Anne Carson, Scottish poet Kathleen Jamie, and American poet Carl Philips.

Griffin fever!

The 2010 Griffin Poetry Prize will be handed out at a ceremony in Toronto this evening. Verse lovers are making bets on who will take home the world’s most lucrative award for a collection of poetry in English. One prize honours a Canadian poet, and another is awarded to an international poet.  This year the prize money has increased from $50,000 to $65,000 for both recipients, with each shortlisted author receiving $10,000.

The Canadian shortlist includes debut collection The Certainty Dream by Kate Hall (Coach House Books). The judges wrote in their citation: “I like the feeling her poems give that as we read them we are amidst an actual process of thought.” The book is regarded as a long-shot by some, as a first collection has yet to win a Griffin.

Coal and Roses by the late P.K. Page (Porcupine’s Quill), is a collection of 21 glosas by the iconic poet. “How heartening to be reminded that creativity, zest and curiosity can endure, even flourish, into great old age,” wrote the judges. Page’s collection Planet Earth was nominated for the Griffin in 2003, and some are speculating the 2010 award will go to her in part to honour her considerable life’s work.

Pigeon (House of Anansi Press) is Karen Solie’s third collection of poetry.  This is Solie’s second Griffin nomination, and some surmise this one might secure a win. From the judge’s citation: “Among the greatest of Solie’s talents, evident throughout the poems of Pigeon, is an ability to see at once into and through our daily struggle, often thwarted by our very selves, toward something like an honourable life.”

Over a thousand people attended last night’s Griffin readings at the Telus Centre for Performance and Learning. American poet Adrienne Rich was awarded the Griffin Trust for Excellence in Poetry’s Lifetime Recognition Award.

The judges for this year’s prize are Anne Carson, Kathleen Jamie, and Carl Phillips.

Griffin Poetry Prize pot doubles to $200,000

The world’s most lucrative poetry prize just got a little richer. In recognition of the 10th anniversary of the Griffin Poetry Prize, founder Scott Griffin announced this morning that annual prize winnings will double to $200,000, with each of the shortlisted authors receiving $10,000 and the winner in each category receiving $65,000.

This year’s shortlists were selected by a three-person jury comprising former Griffin winner Anne Carson and poets Kathleen Jamie and Carl Phillips. The nominees are as follows:

Canadian shortlist:

• The Certainty Dream by Kate Hall (Coach House Books)
• Coal and Roses by P.K. Page (The Porcupine’s Quill)
• Pigeon by Karen Solie (House of Anansi Press)

International shortlist:

• Grain by John Glenday (Picador)
• A Village Life by Louise Glück (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
• The Sun-fish by Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin (The Gallery Press)
• Cold Spring in Winter by Susan Wicks, translated from the French by Valérie Rouzeau (Arc Publications)

Cormorant Books to launch poetry line in 2011

Cormorant Books is set to launch a new poetry line, according to a press release sent out earlier today. Beginning in spring 2011, the Toronto-based publisher will release four poetry titles per year.

The new line will be overseen by Montreal-based poet Robyn Sarah, who has been published by Cormorant, as well as Biblioasis, The Porcupine’s Quill, and House of Anansi Press. Of the four annual titles, at least two will be new works by living poets and at least one will be an anthology or new edition of an out-of-print work.

Cormorant stated it is particuarly interested in “new manuscripts from poets under 35 who have already published at least one book, but we are open to poets at all stages and from all walks of life.”

Sarah said in the release that she is drawn to “poems that have lasting resonance, that invite re-reading and reading aloud, that balance sound with sense, and that go beyond mere personal biography or the topicalities of the day to evoke universal human questions and emotions.”

Cormorant began in 1987 with the publication of a work of poetry. The company’s decision to return to its roots “was inspired in no small measure by the success of the Griffin Prize for Poetry, which has raised the profile of and appreciation for this important genre in the reading public’s imagination.”

Bookmarks: Google Editions, and more

Sundry links from around the Web:

• Google announces that its online e-book service, known as Google Editions, will launch sometime in the first half of 2010. According to a report on CNET, Google will take a 37% cut on titles sold through its own website; for books sold through a third party – such as Amazon – the publisher would get a mere 45%
• Delivering the keynote at Frankfurt’s TOC conference, Cory Doctorow says that the publishing industry is bent on destroying itself through a restrictive approach to copyright
• The jurors for the 2010 Griffin Poetry Prize are: Anne Carson, Kathleen Jamie, and Carl Phillips

Why do people hate poetry?

Given the recent furor over the Oxford professor of poetry post, not to mention the hefty sums handed out to A.F. Moritz and C.D. Wright at the Griffin Poetry Prize ceremony last week, it might seem counterintuitive to argue that people feel antipathetic toward what Chaucer called “the craft so long to lerne.” But that’s precisely what Harry Eyres did in this weekend’s Financial Times online.

Beginning with the notion that the recent controversy in Britain exemplifies “much more nervousness and discomfort about the cardinal art form than genuine understanding and love,” Eyres goes on:

It might be better to ask ourselves why, on the whole, we hate poetry – that is to say why we ruthlessly marginalise it and exile it to a cold place of almost total neglect – than to utter dishonest platitudes about how great it is.

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Poetry is up against it in all sorts of ways. Unlike video games, reality television, amateur dance troupes, it is not a cultural phenomenon that is generally welcomed into people’s lives. But what could it do for us, if we would allow it?

What indeed? In response, Quillblog would like to direct Eyres’s attention to the words of James Wood, the critic for The New Yorker, and not exactly a literary slouch, who had this to say at the Griffin awards last week:

Poetry waves a flower in the face of a highly utilitarian age. That great secular hybrid, pragmatic evolutionary psychology and neuro-aesthetics, is busy telling us that art is a slightly puzzling evolutionary superfluity. Art is defended as “cognitive play,” crucial for the evolutionary development of homo sapiens. Art, for such people, must always somehow be justified. But poetry sings the song of itself, and offers a musical gratuity. Just as no one should have to justify, in pragmatic terms, playing the piano or listening to Bach, so no one should have to justify reading Keats or Wallace Stevens. And I am not making the weak case that poetry evades or exceeds such pragmatic cost-counting, but that it challenges such utilitarianism, makes it doubt itself. It faces down the enemy.

Even when the enemy surfaces in a respected British tabloid.