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The Griffin Poetry Prize has reinstated the $65,000 Canadian Poetry Prize, they announced in a press statement Wednesday.
This news comes after a town hall meeting last month, where the foundation and trustees heard from people unhappy with the changes made to the prize in 2022, namely the removal of the Canadian Poetry Prize.
Before 2022, the Griffin Poetry Prize used to be two book awards — one for an international poet and one for a Canadian — worth $65,000 apiece, but then, founder and trustee Scott Griffin announced he would combine the prizes into a single $130,000 pot open to all poets.
As part of those changes, a $10,000 prize was also awarded for a first poetry book written in English by a Canadian citizen or permanent resident.
Now, there are three book prizes: the $130,000 International Griffin Poetry Prize, the reinstated $65,000 Canadian Poetry Prize and the $10,000 Canadian First Book Prize. The $25,000 lifetime achievement award has remained as well.
“When we made these, the original changes to go to the international prize, we thought we were preparing an opportunity for Canadians to participate in that prize,” Griffin told CBC Books in a phone interview.
“We saw it as an opportunity, but the community saw it as a loss. And I think, in retrospect, we should have seen that that’s how they would have seen it.”
Griffin says that the new prize structure is “the best of both worlds” for Canadian authors, as they now have the opportunity to be considered for the strictly Canadian prizes and the international prize. The only caveat is that the same poet cannot win both awards.
Toronto poet Paul Vermeersch, who took issue with the removal of the Canadian Poetry Prize in 2022, told CBC Books that today’s changes feel “positive.”
“This feels like four years of agitating, of advocating, of asking to be heard, and I think we have been heard,” said Vermeersch.
“It’s an affirmation that Canadian poetry belongs on the same stage as poets from around the world. I think that this is a net positive for the poetry and the poetry publishing community in Canada.”
Vermeersch is the author of poetry collections The Reinvention of the Human Hand, Self-Defence for the Brave and Happy, Shared Universe and NMLCT, and works as an editor at Wolsak and Wynn Publishers.
WATCH | Paul Vermeersch on the Griffin Poetry Prize town hall:
“What I’ve always liked about the Griffin Prize, going back to its inception, was that it gave the world a reason to take a closer look at Canadian poetry, while at the same time, it gave Canadian poetry readers a good opportunity to look at what’s happening around the world,” he said.
“When we lost the Canadian Poetry Prize specifically, after the 2022 announcement, we lost, I think, that capacity for this particular award to function as the exporter of Canadian poetry to the rest of the world and I am very happy to see that capacity returning.”
Earlier this month, American writer Kevin Young won the 2026 Griffin Poetry Prize for his collection Night Watch.
There were no Canadians longlisted for this year’s international prize. No Canadian poet has won the prize in the last four years, aside from Vancouver translator George McWhirter in 2024.
Canadian past winners from before 2022 include Tolu Oloruntoba, Billy-Ray Belcourt, Anne Carson, Roo Borson, Dionne Brand and Jordan Abel.
