Griffin Poetry Prize merges Canadian and international categories at the expense of struggling poets at home

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It’s been a rough week for Canadian poets. The big news concerns The Griffin Poetry Prize. Previously awarded as two separate prizes – one for Canadian poetry, the other internationally – the Griffin is being merged into one super-sized jackpot. The already rich $65,000 awards are being combined into a $130,000 award for the work deemed to be the best book of poetry published in English the previous year.

That sounds fantastic – unless you’re a Canadian poet. Because now, the chances of winning (or even being shortlisted) are much reduced.

In announcing this shift, prize founder Scott Griffin said that Canadian poets are capable of competing on the world stage. “Yes, Canadians will not have this automatic prize each year,” he told me in an interview. “But in a sense, there is a statement here that’s saying Canadians can hold their own. And of course how great it would be if a Canadian wins the international prize?”

Ian Williams, a Griffin trustee, said that poetry in Canada has developed since the prize was introduced in 2000. “I don’t think Canadian poetry is embryonic anymore that it needs us to guard and shield it,” said Williams. But he also talked about the impact of being shortlisted for the Griffin in 2013. “The change that it made for my career, just being on the shortlist, has been irreversible and significant.”

Still, like Griffin, Williams is emphatic: It’s time. And Canadian poets can hold their own.

I know Canadian poets can compete with the big bards of the world. But why should they have to?

Sure we have the talent. But we don’t have the population or enough of a funding or publishing infrastructure to support that talent the way some other countries do. And we continue to lose that infrastructure: Just this week, Taddle Creek – the fiction and poetry journal – held its wind-down party. Even if we do punch above our weight, Canadian poets could still use the help.

With apologies to the late Canadian poet Gord Downie, I can tell you what the poets are doing: they’re scrambling to pay the rent, probably while working a bunch of day jobs. They are not spending time wishing they could compete with international poets for a prize they have little mathematical chance of winning. That $65,000 prize was out of reach for most Canadian poets – as was the $10,000 shortlist payout. But it was a glint of hope.

And beyond the actual prize payout, it was a boost – in exposure, which can turn into sales.

Last year, I interviewed Dina Del Bucchia (former senior editor of the now-defunct Poetry is Dead magazine) and she mentioned that she had received an advance of $200 for her 2014 collection, Blind Items. That is less than some businesspeople spend on lunch.

The Griffin has also announced a new prize of $10,000 for a Canadian first book of poetry. But many mid-career Canadian poets will not be eligible and are not ready for the Lifetime Recognition Award.

I’ve always been more interested in the Canadian list than in the international one. Does that make me a rube? Protectionist? Maybe, but I am excited by Canadian poetry, and I would like for it to have an opportunity to shine.

“My gut tells me that a Canadian will win this – not effortlessly, but just naturally,” Williams told me. “It will happen. In a way that I don’t know it would have happened with a double prize.” I don’t doubt that it will – someday. But when the Booker opened up to countries beyond the U.K., Ireland and the Commonwealth and Zimbabwe, the U.S. began to dominate. In this year’s Booker longlist, six of the 13 nominees were U.S. authors (two made the six-book shortlist).

Take a look at the winners of the international Griffin prize: U.S. poets (and translators) have dominated.

Griffin emphasized that this is not a Canadian prize; it’s a prize awarded in Canada. But with a goal to raise the profile of poets and poetry in Canada (as well as internationally), it seems important to recognize Canadians, every year.

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