West Coast poet and author Susan Musgrave remains in the running for the 2023 Griffin Poetry Prize as the lone Canadian on the shortlist of five nominees.Handout
The five shortlisted nominees for the 2023 Griffin Poetry Prize were announced on Wednesday, and one Canadian is still in the running.
Susan Musgrave, nominated for Exculpatory Lilies (McClelland & Stewart), is one of two Canadian authors on the list. She is joined by American authors Robyn Creswell for The Threshold (Farrar, Straus and Giroux), translated from the original Arabic book by Egyptian-Canadian writer Iman Mersal; Ada Limon, for The Hurting Kind (Corsair Poetry) and Roger Reeves for Best Barbarian (W. W. Norton). Vietnamese-American author Ocean Vuong rounds off the list of five nominees for his book Time Is a Mother (Cape Poetry and Penguin Press).
This year, for the first time, a single winner will receive the grand prize of $130,000. In previous years, the grand prize was split between two winners across two categories: Canadian and international. Each runner-up will receive $10,000.
Judges Nikola Madzirov from Macedonia, Gregory Scofield from Canada and Natasha Trethewey from the United States selected five shortlisted titles from a long list of 10 nominees, which was announced in March.
The winner of the 2023 Griffin Poetry Prize will be announced at a ceremony at Koerner Hall in Toronto on June 7.