Griffin Poetry Prize

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Griffin Poetry Prize

The prize is for a first-edition collection, written in, or translated into English, and published during the preceding year.

The Griffin Trust For Excellence In Poetry supports poetry through several initiatives, focusing on the annual Griffin Poetry Prize, the world’s largest international poetry prize. The prize goes to a living poet or translator from any country, which may include Canada. Judges are selected annually by the trustees, and the prize is awarded in the spring of each year.

06/18/2026

"I think that constant, voracious reading is what helps writers move from being good writers to exceptional writers. And I also think that every writer has to be his—or her—own best editor."

Today's comes from our 2004 Griffin Poetry Prize winner, Canadian poet Anne Simpson, excerpted from an interview with Canadian Literature: https://canlit.ca/canlit_authors/anne-simpson/

What's one book that made you a better writer? Or a better reader?

06/17/2026

"Time / swings bones on circus wheels."

This week’s is from Anne Simpson's collection, 𝙇𝙤𝙤𝙥 (McClelland & Stewart), which won the Canadian Griffin Poetry Prize in 2004.

📖 To read the full poem, please visit our website: https://griffinpoetryprize.com/poem/from-seven-paintings-by-brueghel/

The 2004 judges praised her winning collection, saying "a troubled and generous spirit pervades and inspires Simpson’s achievement of craft and lyric in these poems."

What does this ekphrastic poem evoke for you?

Artwork: Detail of 𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝙏𝙧𝙞𝙪𝙢𝙥𝙝 𝙤𝙛 𝘿𝙚𝙖𝙩𝙝 by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, 1562, oil on panel, Museo del Prado, Madrid

06/16/2026

✨Listen to this bilingual reading of “The Desert of Atacama II” from one of Latin America´s most celebrated poets and the 2026 Lifetime Recognition Award recipient Raúl Zurita, and his translator Anna Deeny Morales (). This poem is from his collection 𝙋𝙪𝙧𝙜𝙖𝙩𝙤𝙧𝙮 ().

Zurita’s work has been translated into numerous languages. Zurita has been awarded the Chilean National Prize for Literature, the Pablo Neruda Ibero-American Poetry Prize and the Queen Sofía Ibero-American Poetry Prize. He has been nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature and has received honorary doctorates from Universidad de Alicante in Spain and from Universidad Santa María in Chile.

Do you have a favourite poem from Raúl Zurita?

06/12/2026

This week we revisit the magic that echoed in Koerner Hall at the 2026 Griffin Poetry Prize Readings.

✨The evening included readings by the 2026 shortlisted poets— Ian Williams who read on behalf of Gbenga Adesina, Daniel Borzutzky, Aracelis Girmay, Elvira Hernández, Ange Mlinko, Alec Schumacher, Kevin Young—as well as Joseph Kidney, the Canadian First Book Prize winner.

✨ Scott Griffin presented Raúl Zurita with the 2026 Lifetime Recognition Award, followed by a reading by Zurita alongside his translator Anna Deeny Morales. The reading took place within a live performance by Armenian-Canadian pianist and composer Eve Egoyan, with filmmakers Lior Shamriz and Chloé Griffin presenting a filmic homage to Zurita’s poetry throughout.

✨Melody Ovuakporoyecha, 2026 Finalist of Poetry in Voice/Les voix de la poésie, gave a moving recitation of “I Am” by Titilope Sonuga. Kevin Young () was announced the 2026 Griffin Poetry Prize winner.

You can rewatch the magic on our YouTube Page.

06/11/2026

"From the moment you try to impose a path on a poet, you pave the way for dictatorships. Poetry is free and can take the form it wants, but its ultimate goal is for life to be decent for everyone. Today, to speak of this world filled with dead and rubble and boots that step on that rubble is a crucial, absolutely necessary act. Poetry can give testimony to all the atrocities of this miserable and infinitely bombarded earth, to its atomic bombs, its fleets, its infamous madmen who sink defenseless rafts, who bomb schools and who kill and kill."

Today's comes from our 2026 Griffin Lifetime Recognition Award recipient, Chilean poet Raúl Zurita, excerpted from his recent interview with The Yale Review: https://buff.ly/aDjp7I2

Do you believe poetry has a responsibility to respond to the world around us? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

Photo: José Torres

06/10/2026

The Trustees of the International Griffin Poetry Prize are pleased to announce that, after reviewing the comments and recommendations of the Canadian poetry community, several changes will be implemented.

Please visit our website to read the full press release: https://buff.ly/3hfnE3d

06/09/2026

This week’s comes from 𝙋𝙪𝙧𝙜𝙖𝙩𝙤𝙧𝙮 (University of California Press) by 2026 Lifetime Recognition Award recipient Raúl Zurita, translated by Anna Deeny Morales.

Raúl Zurita (b. Santiago de Chile, 1950) is one of Latin America's most celebrated poets.

He was completing his studies in civil engineering when, on the morning of the military coup, September 11, 1973, he was arrested and tortured.

During the dictatorship (1973–1990), he published a trilogy of books (𝙋𝙪𝙧𝙜𝙖𝙩𝙤𝙧𝙮, 𝘼𝙣𝙩𝙚𝙥𝙖𝙧𝙖𝙙𝙞𝙨𝙚, and 𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝙉𝙚𝙬 𝙇𝙞𝙛𝙚) and, in 1979, co-founded the radical artistic collective C.A.D.A. carrying out provocative public art performances as acts of political dissent.

A verse from his book 𝙎𝙤𝙣𝙜 𝙛𝙤𝙧 𝙃𝙞𝙨 𝘿𝙞𝙨𝙖𝙥𝙥𝙚𝙖𝙧𝙚𝙙 𝙇𝙤𝙫𝙚 (1985) is inscribed in the Memorial of the Detained, Disappeared and the Politically Executed at the General Cemetery, in Santiago, Chile.

Discover more about Raúl Zurita on our website: https://griffinpoetryprize.com/lifetime-recognition/2026/

Art: Lior Shamriz

06/09/2026

✨ OUT TODAY! ✨
Celebrate another year of incredible poetry with this year's Griffin Poetry Prize Anthology, edited by Canadian poet and judge Luke Hathaway!

Featuring work by shortlisted poets and translators Gbenga Adesina, Daniel Borzutzky, Aracelis Girmay, Elvira Hernández, Ange Mlinko, Alec Schumacher, and Kevin Young. 𓂃🖊

🔗 Shop the Griffin Poetry Prize Anthology 2026 here: https://houseofanansi.com/products/griffin-poetry-prize-anthology-2026

06/08/2026

Kevin Young, winner of this year’s Griffin Poetry Prize, spent 16 years writing his prize-winning collection 𝙉𝙞𝙜𝙝𝙩 𝙒𝙖𝙩𝙘𝙝 (Alfred A. Knopf).

"I've really come to believe that poetry waits for you, and it waits for the right moment to appear. And so I'm glad it's coming now and thinks through a lot of these different things."

Young shared these reflections in a CBC Books interview.

Get to know this year’s winner on our website: https://griffinpoetryprize.com/poet/kevin-young/

📸: Alyssa K Faoro

06/04/2026

✨We’re delighted to announce 𝙉𝙞𝙜𝙝𝙩 𝙒𝙖𝙩𝙘𝙝 (Alfred A. Knopf) by Kevin Young as the 2026 Griffin Poetry Prize winner.

✨Young received C$130,000 in prize money, and the other finalists were each awarded C$10,000.

✨Judges Andrea Cote, Luke Hathaway, and Major Jackson each read 461 books of poetry, including 34 translations from 19 languages, submitted by 219 publishers from 42 different countries.

✨ The judges praised the winning collection, saying: “In his most experimental volume to date, Kevin Young’s 𝙉𝙞𝙜𝙝𝙩 𝙒𝙖𝙩𝙘𝙝 crafts a melancholic and haunting collection of sequence poems that layers multiple literary traditions with a dexterity that amounts to a provocation of sonic and epic proportions . . .”

✨ The announcement was made at the end of the Griffin Poetry Prize Readings held at Koerner Hall. The evening included readings by the 2026 shortlisted poets—Gbenga Adesina, Daniel Borzutzky, Aracelis Girmay, Elvira Hernández, Ange Mlinko, Alec Schumacher, Kevin Young—as well as Joseph Kidney, the Canadian First Book Prize winner.

✨ Scott Griffin presented Raúl Zurita with the 2026 Lifetime Recognition Award, followed by a reading by Zurita alongside his translator Anna Deeny Morales. The reading took place within a live performance by Armenian-Canadian pianist and composer Eve Egoyan, with filmmakers Lior Shamriz and Chloé Griffin presenting a filmic homage to Zurita’s poetry throughout.

✨ A special mention goes to Melody Ovuakporoyecha, 2026 Finalist of Poetry in Voice/Les voix de la poésie, who gave a moving recitation of “I Am” by Titilope Sonuga.

✨ Congratulations to Kevin Young and all the shortlisted authors and publishers!

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