News

TORONTO – Music for the Dead and Resurrected by Valzhyna Mort, (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) and The Dyzgraph^xst by Canisia Lubrin (McClelland & Stewart) are the International and Canadian winners of the 2021 Griffin Poetry Prize, each receiving C$65,000 in prize money. The other finalists will be awarded $10,000 each.

THE 2021 GRIFFIN POETRY PRIZE WINNERS

International

Music for the Dead and Resurrected
Valzhyna Mort

and

Canadian

The Dyzgraph^xst
Canisia Lubrin

The Griffin Poetry Prize was founded in 2000 to encourage and celebrate excellence in poetry. The prize is for first edition books of poetry written in, or translated into, English and submitted from anywhere in the world.

The judges for the 2020 Griffin Poetry Prize are Paula Meehan (Ireland), Kei Miller (Jamaica/UK) and Hoa Nguyen (Canada). These distinguished writers and poets each read 572 books of poetry, received from fourteen countries around the globe, including translations from eighteen different languages. The trustees of The Griffin Trust For Excellence In Poetry select the judges annually.

Valzhyna Mort, Belarus/USA

Music for the Dead and Resurrected International Winner

Farrar, Straus and Giroux, USA

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Canisia Lubrin, Canada/St. Lucia

The Dyzgraph^xst Canadian Winner

McClelland & Stewart, Canada

The 2021 Griffin Poetry Prize Shortlist:

International

• Victoria Chang’s Obit published by Copper Canyon Press
• Valzhyna Mort’s Music for the Dead and Resurrected, published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux
• Srikanth Reddy’s Underworld Lit published by Wave Books
• Tracy K. Smith’s and Changtai Bi’s translation, from the Chinese, of My Name Will Grow Wide Like a Tree, written by Yi Lei, published by Graywolf Press

Canadian

• Joseph Dandurand’s The East Side of It All, published by Nightwood Editions
• Canisia Lubrin’s Dyzgraph^xst, published by McClelland & Stewart
• Yusuf Saadi’s Pluviophile, published by Nightwood Editions

Note to Booksellers: Griffin Poetry Prize book stickers are supplied free of charge. Please contact Ruth Smith to place an order.

For further information, contact: