Why the Griffin Poetry Prize combining its awards is bad news for Canadian poets

Shelfies is a column by writer Alicia Elliott that looks at arts and culture through the prism of the books on her shelf.

On September 8, the Canadian literary world was rocked by the announcement that the Griffin Poetry Prize would be combining its $65,000 award for the best Canadian book of poetry with its $65,000 award for the best international book of poetry, creating one massive, $130,000 global award.

In other words, the award will no longer be specifically rewarding poets in Canada; instead, it will have the distinction of being the largest award for a single book of poetry written in or translated into English in the world.

This is great news for international poets, and indeed great for the Griffin Poetry Prize itself, if what it's courting is international attention. However, it's a significant loss for poets in Canada — the very people benefactor Scott Griffin claimed he originally created the prize for.

Instead of three poets being shortlisted on the Canadian side, and four poets being shortlisted on the international side, the new combined award will have a longlist of ten, then a shortlist of five, then a winner. While the award is still based in Canada, it is certainly no longer an award for poets in Canada.

In the Toronto Star, Griffin argued that, prior to this change, "it was seen that the Canadians couldn't measure up to the international poets, which was never really the case." I am unsure who he claims saw poets in Canada — including those who were nominated for and won the Griffin Poetry Prize — that way. I'm also unclear why their opinions should outweigh the opinions of poets, publishers, festival organizers and readers in Canada.

What is clear is that those involved in this decision have their talking point: they claim that taking away a prize specifically for poets in Canada, and making it available instead to every poet writing in English in the world, is somehow good for poets in Canada. 

"The effect of being in the company of other great poets will always have a significant effect on the careers of Canadian poets… I just don't see Canadians being ignored from the… spirit of the prize," said Ian Williams, one of the Trustees responsible for this decision, in a recent interview with City News. Williams himself was shortlisted for the Griffin for his book Personals in 2013; in that same article, he said this put him on "a literary trajectory that would carry him to win the Scotiabank Giller Prize in 2019."

One presumes it wasn't just being in the "company of other great poets" that sent him on that trajectory, nor was it the "spirit of the prize" that helped Williams really launch his career. It was the fact that he was on the Canadian shortlist for the Griffin Poetry Prize that did that — a shortlist, I might add, that he might not have made had the prize been open to all international poets writing in English at the time.

For over 20 years, the Griffin Poetry Prize has been a powerful force for poetry in this country, offering a respected award with significant prize money to Canadian poets. Until this year, shortlisted authors received $10,000 just for being nominated, while winners have received $65,000 since 2010, the year that Karen Solie won for Pigeon. Solie is another Griffin Poetry Prize Trustee responsible for this monumental change — the only other Canadian poet, besides Williams, on the committee. (The remaining five poets on the committee are, perhaps unsurprisingly, international poets.)

Before this abrupt consolidation, the Canadian Griffin gave both Solie and Williams something that feels increasingly rare as a writer in Canada: a bit of economic stability. More than just the money, though, a nomination for the Griffin Poetry Prize gave prestige that could have a huge positive effect on a poet's career. It's an accolade that, once on their CV, could be leveraged to help that poet get a tenured job at a university, or obtain fellowships, grants, other awards and further book contracts. But under the new combined Griffin Poetry Prize, instead of three poets in Canada being guaranteed to reap these benefits every year, there could be no poets in Canada benefiting in any given year moving forward.

Strange, then, that this is being touted as "good" for poets in Canada.

Instead of three poets in Canada being guaranteed to reap these benefits every year, there could be no poets in Canada benefiting in any given year moving forward.

Surely Griffin knows this outcome is a distinct possibility. He himself told the told the Toronto Star that, despite there being no rule prohibiting Canadian poets' books from being nominated for the international portion of the prize in the past, "the judges were never going to go there." He never said why he believed judges were never going to nominate Canadian books for the international prize, nor why he thinks that this will change now that there are going to be five shortlisted books up for the international prize instead of the previous four. 

It's especially unfortunate that this move comes in the midst of a rather remarkable run for Black poets, Indigenous poets and poets of colour nominated for the Canadian portion of the Griffin Poetry Prize. Since Liz Howard won the award in 2016 for her book Infinite Citizen of the Shaking Tent, the Canadian shortlist has featured at least two BIPOC poets nearly every year. (The one exception was 2019.) This fact makes the sudden pivot to a single international prize fraught, to say the least.

Griffin claims that, after the prize giving poets in Canada "a leg up" internationally for 22 years, it's time for them to "compete on equal footing." Considering 46 out of the 66 of the books that have been nominated for the Griffin Poetry Prize were published by independent publishers in Canada, and considering most of those publishers rely upon government grants to operate, suggesting that any of these poets have ever been competing on "equal footing" with better funded and more widely reviewed international poets and publishers seems disingenuous at best.

Instead of Griffin's argument that this change "raises the bar" for Canadian poets, I'd argue that this change actually further undermines the value of Canadian art, feeding into the notion that Canadian literature — and, indeed, Canadian art more generally — is only relevant and worthwhile if it's being praised internationally. Despite so many Canadians proudly proclaiming their patriotism every Canada Day, hanging Canadian flags from their balconies and plastering their pride on their cars with maple-leaf bumper stickers, there seems to be this shrugging self-consciousness when it comes to Canadians actually embracing art made here. It's not enough to be brilliant within the borders of the country currently called Canada, because Canadians won't be proud of you until your brilliance is acknowledged internationally, particularly in the U.S.

"Wouldn't it be fantastic if somebody like Anne Carson wins that top prize?" Griffin gushed to City News. Anne Carson has already won; in fact, she won the Griffin twice. But apparently since her wins weren't international, they aren't as big of a deal. This becomes more evident as Griffin continues: "Obviously, she's going to get a lot of coverage in Canada, but she's got to get a lot of coverage worldwide."

Does she, really? If you need international validation for your prize to feel worthwhile, craving it the way a preteen craves the validation of his older sibling's teenage friends, then I suppose the answer is, sadly, yes.