The best books of poetry published in English internationally and in Canada are honoured each year with the $65,000 Griffin Poetry Prize, one of the world's most prestigious and valuable literary awards. Since 2001 this annual prize has acted as a tremendous spur to interest in and recognition of poetry, focusing worldwide attention on the formidable talent of poets writing in English. The judges for the 2012 Griffin Poetry Prize are Heather McHugh, David O'Meara, and Fiona Sampson. And each year the editor of The Griffin Poetry Prize Anthology gathers the work of the extraordinary poets shortlisted for the awards and introduces us to some of the finest poems in their collections. Royalties generated from The 2012 Griffin Poetry Prize Anthology will be donated to UNESCO's World Poetry Day, which was created to support linguistic diversity through poetic expression and to offer endangered languages the opportunity to be heard in their communities.

Lleshanaku’s poems are “full of objects and souls, transformed and given wings in Chagall-like metaphor” (Sasha Dugdale, Poetry Nation Review) *Shortlist for the Griffin International Poetry Prize* “Language arrived fragmentary / split in syllables / spasmodic / like code in times of war,” writes Luljeta Lleshanaku in the title poem to her powerful new collection Negative Space. In these lines, personal biography disperses into the history of an entire generation that grew up under the oppressive dictatorship of the poet’s native Albania. For Lleshanaku, the “unsaid, gestures” make up the negative space that “gives form to the woods / and to the mad woman—the silhouette of goddess Athena / wearing a pair of flip-flops / and an owl on top of a shoulder.” It is the negative space “that sketched my onomatopoeic profile / of body and shadow in an accidental encounter.” Lleshanaku instills ordinary objects and places—gloves, used books, acupuncture needles, small-town train stations—with subtle humor and profound insight, as a child discovering a world in a grain of sand.

The prestigious and highly anticipated annual anthology of the best Canadian and international poetry from the shortlist of the 2019 Griffin Poetry Prize. Each year, the best books of poetry published in English internationally and in Canada are honoured with the Griffin Poetry Prize, one of the world’s most prestigious and richest literary awards. Since 2001 this annual prize has spurred interest in and recognition of poetry, focusing worldwide attention on the formidable talent of poets writing in English and works in translation.

The highly anticipated annual anthology of the best Canadian and international poetry. Each year, the best books of poetry published in English internationally and in Canada are honoured with the Griffin Poetry Prize, one of the world’s most prestigious and richest literary awards. Since 2001 this annual prize has tremendously spurred interest in and recognition of poetry, focusing worldwide attention on the formidable talent of poets writing in English and works in translation. Each year The Griffin Poetry Prize Anthology features the work of the extraordinary poets shortlisted for the awards and introduces us to some of the finest poems in their collections.

On a lonely wharf a clerk in an ink-blue coat inspects bales and bales of paper that hold a poet’s accumulated left-hand pages—the unwritten, the withheld, the unexpressed, the withdrawn, the restrained, the word-shard. In The Blue Clerk renowned poet Dionne Brand stages a conversation and an argument between the poet and the Blue Clerk, who is the keeper of the poet’s pages. In their dialogues—which take shape as a series of haunting prose poems—the poet and the clerk invoke a host of writers, philosophers, and artists, from Jacob Lawrence, Lola Kiepja, and Walter Benjamin to John Coltrane, Josephine Turalba, and Jorge Luis Borges. Through these essay poems, Brand explores memory, language, culture, and time while intimately interrogating the act and difficulty of writing, the relationship between the poet and the world, and the link between author and art. Inviting the reader to engage with the resonant meanings of the withheld, Brand offers a profound and moving philosophy of writing and a wide-ranging analysis of the present world.

Each year, the best books of poetry published in English internationally and in Canada are honoured with the Griffin Poetry Prize, one of the world’s most prestigious and richest literary awards. Since 2001 this annual prize has acted as a tremendous spur to interest in and recognition of poetry, focusing worldwide attention on the formidable talent of poets writing in English and works in translation. And each year The Griffin Poetry Prize Anthology features the work of the extraordinary poets shortlisted for the awards, and introduces us to some of the finest poems in their collections. This year, editor and prize juror Adam Sol’s selections from the international shortlist include poems from Norman Dubie’s The Quotations of Bone (Copper Canyon Press), Joy Harjo’s Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings (W. W. Norton & Company), Don Paterson’s 40 Sonnets (Faber and Faber), and Rowan Ricardo Phillips’s Heaven (Farrar, Straus and Giroux). The selections from the Canadian shortlist include poems from Per Brask and Patrick Friesen’s Frayed Opus for Strings & Wind Instruments (Brick Books), translated from the Danish written by Ulrikka S. Gernes, Infinite Citizen of the Shaking Tent by Liz Howard (McClelland & Stewart), and Tell: poems for a girlhood by Soraya Peerbaye (Pedlar Press). Royalties generated from The 2016 Griffin Poetry Prize Anthology will be donated to UNESCO’s World Poetry Day, which was created to support linguistic diversity through poetic expression and to offer endangered languages the opportunity to be heard in their communities. Shortlist to be announced: April 12, 2016 Readings: June 1, 2016 Prizes awarded: June 2, 2016

A masterful new collection by award-winning poet Russell Thornton. In “Greek Fire,” one of the poems in Russell Thornton’s astonishing new collection, the central image is of fire burning through water: “water is a bridge / for a fire to come into the world.” This image also illuminates the driving force that animates the poems in Answer to Blue. The stillness and quiet depth characteristic of Thornton’s poetry are here shot through with an irresistible vitality, a flame of mythic resonance. The past, both ancient and recent, exerts a gravitational pull throughout the collection, with Greek myths, family histories and biblical passages unearthed and examined, forgotten and returned to, giving way in a cyclical rhythm to the transient presence of young children, often caught flitting away just at the edge of vision. With a clarity that pierces through the mist of daily routine, Thornton gives attention to transitional states, pausing at the often rushed-through moments of change, and also examines the phenomenon of perception itself. This collection’s response to D.H. Lawrence’s question—“Oh what in you can answer to this blueness?”—is both an answer and a challenge, an achievement of beauty that contains the seed of something more enduring and sacred.

The highly anticipated annual anthology of the best Canadian and international poetry. Each year, the best books of poetry published in English internationally and in Canada are honoured with the Griffin Poetry Prize, one of the world’s most prestigious and richest literary awards. Since 2001 this annual prize has acted as a tremendous spur to interest in and recognition of poetry, focusing worldwide attention on the formidable talent of poets writing in English. And each year The Griffin Poetry Prize Anthology features the work of the extraordinary poets shortlisted for the awards, and introduces us to some of the finest poems in their collections. Royalties generated from The 2014 Griffin Poetry Prize Anthology will be donated to UNESCO’s World Poetry Day, which was created to support linguistic diversity through poetic expression and to offer endangered languages the opportunity to be heard in their communities. Shortlist to be announced: April 8, 2014 Readings: June 4, 2014 Prizes awarded: June 5, 2014

The prestigious and highly anticipated annual anthology of the best Canadian and international poetry from the shortlist of the 2021 Griffin Poetry Prize. Each year, the best books of poetry published in English internationally and in Canada are honoured with the Griffin Poetry Prize, one of the world’s most prestigious and richest literary awards. Since 2001, this annual prize has tremendously spurred interest in and recognition of poetry, focusing worldwide attention on the formidable talent of poets writing in English and works in translation. Annually, The Griffin Poetry Prize Anthology features the work of the extraordinary poets shortlisted for the awards and introduces us to some of the finest poems in their collections. Featuring works from shortlisted poets Victoria Chang, Changtai Bi, Joseph Dandurand, Canisia Lubrin, Valzhyna Mort, Srikanth Reddy, Yusuf Saadi, Tracy K. Smith, and Yi Lei.

The prestigious and highly anticipated annual anthology of the best Canadian and international poetry from the 2022 Griffin Poetry Prize shortlist. Each year, the best books of poetry published in Canada and internationally in English are honoured with the Griffin Poetry Prize, one of the world’s richest literary awards. Since 2001, this annual prize has spurred interest in and recognition of poetry, focusing worldwide attention on the formidable talent of poets.The Griffin Poetry Prize Anthology features the work of extraordinary poets shortlisted for the awards and introduces us to some of the finest poems from their collections. Featuring works from shortlisted poets Sharon Dolin, Gemma Gorga, Douglas Kearney, Ali Kinsella, Dzvinia Orlowsky, Natalka Bilotserkivets, Ed Roberson, David Bradford, Liz Howard, and Tolu Oloruntoba.