Publisher's Synopsis
The highly anticipated annual anthology of the best Canadian and international poetry.
Each year, the best books of poetry published in English internationally and in Canada are honoured with the Griffin Poetry Prize, one of the world's most prestigious and richest literary awards. Since 2001 this annual prize has acted as a tremendous spur to interest in and recognition of poetry, focusing worldwide attention on the formidable talent of poets writing in English. And each year The Griffin Poetry Prize Anthology features the work of the extraordinary poets shortlisted for the awards, and introduces us to some of the finest poems in their collections.
This year, editor and prize juror Suzanne Buffam's selections from the international shortlist include poems from Jennifer Maiden's Liquid Nitrogen (Giramondo Publishing), Alan Shapiro's Night of the Republic (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt), Brenda Shaughnessy's Our Andromeda (Copper Canyon Press), and Ghassan Zaqtan's Like a Straw Bird it Follows Me, and Other Poems (Yale University Press), translated by Fady Joudah. The selections from the Canadian shortlist include poems from David W. McFadden's What's the Score (Mansfield Press), Sailing to Babylon by James Pollock (Able Muse Press), and Personals by Ian Williams (Freehand Books).
In choosing the 2013 shortlist, prize jurors Suzanne Buffam, Mark Doty, and Wang Ping considered more than 500 collections published in the previous year. The jury also wrote the citations that introduce the seven poets' nominated works.
Royalties generated from The 2013 Griffin Poetry Prize Anthology will be donated to UNESCO's World Poetry Day, which was created to support linguistic diversity through poetic expression and to offer endangered languages the opportunity to be heard in their communities.
Shortlist to be announced: Tuesday, April 9, 2013
Readings: Wednesday, June 12, 2013
Prizes awarded: Thursday, June 13, 2013
