World Class Poetry – 2013 Griffin Poetry Prize

The 13th annual Griffin Poetry Prizes have been awarded. Sponsored by the Griffin Trust for Excellence in Poetry, the prize is the most generous of it’s kind.

The winners each receive $65,000 in recognition of their talent and contributions to the world of poetry.

The 2013 winners are:

Canadian category:

What’s the Score? (M)
by David McFadden

“The often outrageous and always wise follow-up to 2008’s Governor General’s Award–nominated Be Calm, Honey shows David W. McFadden at his most inquisitive and provocative. Here you’ll find ninety-nine poems full of surprises by a Canadian long-distance poet in his sixth decade of writing, a writer who never rests on his laurels or allows himself to become complacent. This is a book full of mystics and Golden Age movie stars, friends of McFadden and long-dead philosophers, and their tales are all told in the poet’s deceptively plainspoken voice.” publisher

International category:

Like a Straw Bird it Follows Me, and Other Poems (M)
by Ghassan Zaqtan, translated by Fady Joudah 

“In this inspired translation of Like a Straw Bird It Follows Me, Ghassan Zaqtan’s tenth and most recent poetry collection, along with selected earlier poems, Fady Joudah brings to English-language readers the best work by one of the most important and original Palestinian poets of our time. With these poems Zaqtan enters new terrain, illuminating the vision of what Arabic poetry in general and Palestinian poetry in particular are capable of.”- publisher