And he’s putting his money where his belief is to create one big prize for a single book of poetry, with international and Canadian poets competing for a $130,000 award, making it the richest such prize in the world.
“It was time for a change,” Griffin told the Star in an interview before the changes were announced Thursday morning.
The Griffin Poetry Prize has been running more or less in its current form for 22 years, with two prizes being handed out for poetry written or translated into English, with one international winner and one Canadian winner each taking $65,000.
The optics of having a separate prize for the Canadians weren’t good, Griffin said, because “it was seen that the Canadians couldn’t measure up to the international poets, which was never really the case.”
He cited Margaret Atwood, Anne Carson and Robert Bringhurst as proof, among others.
There was nothing stopping the judges from awarding both the international and Canadian prizes to a Canadian poet, but Griffin said “the judges were never going to go there."
The trustees who, aside from Griffin, currently include Ian Williams and Karen Solie, all felt the necessity for the prize to evolve.
“There was a lot of debate amongst the trustees trying to get it right,” Griffin said. The format they’ve now settled on “raises the bar for the Canadians, but I believe they can compete and measure up to that higher objective.”
June was always Griffin month. For the past 22 years, barring the pandemic, the finalists would be flown to Toronto and feted over two nights: one an evening of readings at Koerner Hall; the next a gala where the winner would be announced in front of a crowd of invited guests.
That gala was affectionately called the “Poetry Prom” by those in the literary world. Filled with readings and dinner, and later a DJ spinning tunes, it was a night when you could see famous poets letting loose on the dance floor.
The party was “undemocratic,” Griffin said, because “we’d only have 300 people, while at Koerner Hall (the night before) we’d have over a thousand people and they wouldn’t know who the winners were.”
The “Poetry Prom” gala was also where the high school winner of the Poetry in Voice award mesmerized the audience with an unfailingly passionate reading of a favourite piece of poetry. The competition spans the country every year, with the winner flown in with their family.
Now there will be one big night of readings — with everyone on the same stage, experienced and novice alike — and awards, with a reception afterward at Koerner Hall.
The finalists will still be flown in. But where there used to be two short lists — four international finalists and three Canadian — there will now be a long list of 10 books announced in March 2023 and, in April, a short list of five books will be released. The winners will be announced on June 7, 2023.
There will also be a new $10,000 prize, awarded for a first book of poetry by a Canadian citizen or permanent resident, along with a six-week residency in Italy in partnership with the Civitella Ranieri Foundation.
