Vancouver writer Jane Munro won a $65,000 Griffin Poetry Prize on Thursday for "Blue Sonoma," a collection of poems she penned while her late husband was suffering from Alzheimer's disease.
Munro said she was caring for him as they lived on the southwest coast of Vancouver Island "in relative isolation at the edge of the rainforest and the Pacific."
Her husband, who died in September 2012, had reached "the point where he couldn't feed himself, he couldn't stand. It was not what he wanted to go on living for."
"As the life closest to me was being erased frame by frame, dementia became a metaphor for me," she said after accepting the Griffin prize at a gala in Toronto.
"It was sort of like what I saw everywhere and I was forced to wrestle with every layer of myself. As the poems came through that experience, they began to assemble themselves as a complete work."
"Blue Sonoma" (Brick Books) is the sixth collection of poems from Munro, a longtime practitioner of Iyengar Yoga who has previously won the Bliss Carman Poetry Award and the Macmillan Prize for Poetry.
Jury members Tim Bowling (Canada), Fanny Howe (U.S.) and Piotr Sommer (Poland) called "Blue Sonoma" "hauntingly candid explorations of the hard truths of growing old."
The annual Griffin bash sees two poets — one Canadian and one international — win $65,000 apiece.
This year's international winner was Michael Longley of Belfast for "The Stairwell" (Jonathan Cape), which judges called "modest and unassuming, yet bold in its deceptively small meditations."
"To realize that other people are reading your poetry, that's important," said Longley, who has published nine collections of poems and won several other prizes throughout his career.
"One writes in isolation and it's an inner adventure and ... a big razzmatazz like this is marvellous."
Thursday's "razzmatazz" was a water-themed gala with halibut as the main course and a guest list including literary luminaries Colm Toibin and Michael Ondaatje, who both did readings.
Now into its 15th year, the Griffin is billed as the world's largest prize for a first edition single collection of poetry written in or translated into English.
Each finalist also receives $10,000 for participating in Wednesday evening's readings.
Toronto businessman Scott Griffin created the honour along with trustees including writers Margaret Atwood and Ondaatje.
This year's jury chose the finalists from a field of 560 books of poetry from 42 countries.
Last year's winners were Toronto-born Anne Carson and California-based Brenda Hillman.
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