Congratulations to the 2018 Griffin Poetry Prize Winners!

Last night, at a star-studded ceremony in Toronto, the Griffin Trust awarded the 2018 Griffin Poetry Prize to Susan Howe's latest collection, Debths, and This Wound Is a World, by Billy-Ray Belcourt. Reporting on the evening's festivities for Toronto's Globe and Mail, Adina Bresge writes that "Belcourt sobbed as he took to the stage to accept his award." Let's read on from there: 

“This book was written not to be a book,” the 23-year-old said in his acceptance speech.

“It was written ... to allow me to figure out how to be in a world that I did not want, a world that many of us who are Indigenous did not want.

“It was written also to try to bring about the world that we do want collectively.”

The three-member judging panel praised This Wound is a World in their citation as a “politically necessary” meditation on queerness, Indigeneity, rebellion and survival.

American poet Susan Howe took home the $65,000 international honour for Debths (New Directions).

Founded in 2000 by businessman Scott Griffin and a group of trustees, the Griffin is billed as the world’s largest prize for a first-edition single collection of poetry written in or translated into English.

Notable guests at the dinner reception included former Governor General Adrienne Clarkson and former Toronto poet laureate Dionne Brand.

The reception hall was bathed in red light, with an array of candles arranged shaped in the shape of hearts in keeping with the soiree’s fiery theme, which Griffin said was inspired by the overtly political nature of the finalists’ work.

Learn more at the Globe and Mail. Congratulations to the winners and finalists!