In 2022, businessman Scott Griffin and the board decided to consolidate its two $65,000 prizes − one given to a Canadian for the best poetry book of the year and another to a non-Canadian poet for the same achievement − into one international $130,000 prize, raising the ire of Canadian poets.Joy von Tiedemann/The Canadian Press
A meeting of the Canadian poetry community over a simmering, contentious issue erupted into thoughtful discourse and occasional moments of polite applause on Monday.
Canada’s Griffin Poetry Prize convened what it called a town hall at the University of Toronto’s Victoria College campus to discuss the format of the annual honour established in 2000.
Five books have been shortlisted for the Griffin Poetry Prize, none are Canadian
There really was only one matter at hand: In 2022, businessman Scott Griffin and the board of trustees controversially decided to consolidate its two $65,000 prizes − one given to a Canadian for the best poetry book of the year and another to a non-Canadian poet for the same achievement − into one international $130,000 prize. The 2026 winner will be announced at Toronto’s Koerner Hall on June 3.
For more than two decades, a Canadian poet was assured of a profile-boosting Griffin. That guarantee no longer holds, and the iambic pentameter people in this country are mourning the loss. The town hall was convened to encourage recommendations regarding prize categories going forward.
About 20 members of the poetry community showed up in person; more joined online. The sentiment was overwhelmingly in support of re-establishing the two-trophy system.
“Removing the Canadian prize in 2022 from the prize structure removed one of the last remaining opportunities for Canadian poets to reach a broader audience at home,” poet Paul Vermeersch said. “Canadian poetry has never been more cutting edge, more vital or interesting and more imaginative than it is today. But the opportunities for broader audiences to discover that are less and less and less and smaller and smaller and smaller.
“Our time has come, but our visibility has not.”
Poetry is no longer the cultural force it once was. Mainstream media, it was pointed out during the town hall, rarely review the art today. What little coverage poets receive in the general press is mostly limited to awards such as the Griffin Poetry Prize, and, since 2022, that prize is half what it used to be.
The long decline in poetry’s relevance was the reason Griffin and founding board trustees Margaret Atwood, Robert Hass, Michael Ondaatje, Robin Robertson and David Young created the prizes in the first place.
“Our objectives were first and foremost to raise the profile of poetry to a level that was equal, or if possible, even more so, than fiction and non-fiction,” said Griffin, who, along with fellow trustee Ian Williams, spoke on behalf of the Griffin Prize. “This was a pretty ambitious task.”
When asked by poet Matthew Tierney at the town hall why the category reserved for Canadian poets was eliminated, Griffin said there was a need for a format “refreshment” because the Canadian prize and the international prize were siloed. Also, he explained, there was a “churn” of repeat shortlisted poets nominated for the Canadian prize.
“We decided we would have one international prize and a pathway for Canadians to participate in that.”
Williams added that changing the format in 2022 without public discussion was a “mistake.”
Since the two prizes were combined, two international poets and one Canadian (Vancouver’s George McWhirter in 2024) have won the Griffin. This year and last, no Canadian poets made the shortlist.
The debate over a dedicated prize for Canadian poets mirrors the arguments over Canadian content regulations for radio, television and online streaming services. Griffin has said in the past that a dedicated prize for homegrown talent might imply that Canadian poets were unable to sit with the best in the world.
Aimée Dunn, publisher of Palimpsest Press in Windsor, Ont., spoke during the video conference segment about the positive impact of the Canadian prize. Her company published The Junta of Happenstance by British Columbia’s Tolu Oloruntoba, the last winner of the Canadian Griffin before it was discontinued after 2022.
“The bump for a small press on the national stage was huge, not in sales, but recognition,” she said. “I hate that that chance isn’t there for other publishers and other Canadian authors across Canada.”
Dunn said Canadian poets were demoralized over the loss of the Canadian category: “They recognize that something is gone now, and there is nothing to fill that gap.”
Griffin pointed out that the Griffin Trust created the Canadian First Book Prize after the merger of the Griffin prizes.
Christian Bök won the Canadian Griffin in 2002 for Eunoia. He was the rare poet who spoke in favour of the single prize at the town hall, saying the Griffin should be considered in the same terms as an Olympiad.
“Canadians really do have the capacity to be recognized on the global stage,” he said. “I would prefer to be competing favourably in such an environment.”
More than one person proposed changing the framing of the prize as the year’s “best” book of poetry to the one deemed most notable or worthy. “It’s a lot better terminology,” said poet, physicist and past Griffin jury member Kim Maltman.
The suggestion was well received. If there is one thing the poetry community can agree upon, it is that words matter.