Roger Reeves won the 2023 Griffin Poetry Prize, which is designed to "encourage and celebrate excellence in poetry," for his collection Best Barbarian. The winner receives C$130,000 (about US$97,445), with the other finalists awarded C$10,000 (about US$7,495).
The judges' citation noted: "Among the many remarkable poems in Best Barbarian is 'Journey to Satchidananda' in which the poet writes: 'The Japanese call it Kintsugi./ Where the vessel broken, only gold will permit/ Its healing. Its history.' The beauty of that repair, which does not hide nor erase the evidence of trauma--of history--but transforms it, is the abiding metaphor in this capacious and wide-ranging meditation. At the intersections of history and myth, elegy and celebration, these poems chart the ruptures and violences enacted across time and space--particularly against black humanity--while leaning always toward beauty. Beauty and tenderness abound in this collection that dares to risk both: a brilliant and ambitious book."
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The Big Melt by Emily Riddle has won the inaugural Canadian First Book Prize, sponsored by the Griffin Poetry Prize. Riddle receives C$10,000 (US$7,495).
The judges wrote: "Emily Riddle's The Big Melt is nêhiyaw governance, Cree governance, at its single most personal form of self-autonomy. The governance of heart and history, language and landscape, nêhiyaw-askiy, Cree earth/land, is embedded in these warrior-women poems. If there is a trail back to our ancestors and forward to ourselves, these poems call us to be still, and to listen to a new generation of storytellers."