The Woodlot

This is not really meant to be a gripe. This is not even meant to come across as a form of protest. But it is meant to be a kind of witnessing that what was once a terrific 100% Canadian prestigious poetry award is now a private party for other poets from other countries in Toronto.

When the trustees for the Griffin Poetry Prize announced their restructuring of the prize which eliminated the Canadian Poetry shortlist, the uproar and online condemnation by Canadian Poets was swift and fierce. This is because it had felt like our prize; it had been aspirational. 

If you had no chance of making that shortlist, there was a chance someone you knew, or had at least read, someone who had published with a small press (the very backbone of Canadian poetry) would stand on a glitzy stage in Toronto surrounded by peers and poetry lovers and International acclaimed poets, and finally be recognized for this thing all of us are trying to do well.

So much of writing poetry in Canada is difficult. There is the hustle to make ends meet, the years of learning to write–the weeks and months and years of failure–the sending out of poems and manuscripts to small presses who do not have enough staff or man-hours, and who still manage to turn out magnificent books year after year. 

My point is the Griffin Prize Canadian shortlist, like the Governor General’s Award, was a kind of free daydreaming for poets. Like buying a lottery ticket you don’t expect to win, but you like dreaming about winning. You could think if I work hard, get up at six in the morning to write for an hour, or put my pen to the grindstone, or if I just suck up the constant rejections and listen, really listen, to my editors, maybe I will publish a small book someday, maybe even win an award. Or someone I might know and respect might win an award which is just as great.

And yes, poets do not write poems for awards; they write poems because they have to. I tried giving up poetry after a failed Masters thesis in my Twenties, and I decided to spend my free time going to the gym instead. That lasted eight months. The poems always demand to be written. I get it. But when the coin of the realm in poetry is reputation, it always feels nice to be recognized too.

So back again to the Griffin Poetry Prize. I think what makes a lot of Canadian poets upset is not so much the aspirational part of the prize now feels out of reach, but there was another aspect of the prize since its restructuring which now is gone – it felt like a cultural exchange. The best kind. One that was purely Canadian; one that said hey, we would like to honour the best poetry of other countries, but also, look, here are some Canadian poets perhaps you have never heard of, but that can stand shoulder to shoulder with other poets on an International stage.

Going to The Griffin Prize readings, I learned about the poet Gjertrud Schnackenberg, and I got to see John Ashbery read in Toronto. Hopefully, Americans and International poetry lovers learned about Kevin Connelly and A.F. Moritz and Karen Solie and Dionne Brand from the sheer amount of publicity the award generates.

But now, it just feels like we are getting “culturally steamrolled” by the Americans at a time when there are threats about annexation. Everything feels wrongheaded about the award. There is no more cultural exchange. There is no more aspirational aspect to the Griffin Poetry Prize. It feels like a private party; one that is not inviting Canadian poets in.

The Griffin Poetry Prize since its restructuring has been overwhelmingly American with usually one Canadian poetry nomination, usually a legacy Canadian poet, but this year it was Dale Martin Smith for his small press book “The Size of Paradise”, and I am genuinely happy for him, as I am happy for Diane Seuss and Carl Phillips who are American poets I HUGELY admire.

But I wish there were more Canadian books on that shortlist. I wish for that kind of cultural exchange that the Griffin Poetry Prize once represented. That all feels gone. I am not sure I will attend this year’s Griffin Poetry Prize readings in June. When I used to attend, I felt part of a Canadian poetry ecosystem, and looked forward to seeing friends I only see maybe once every few years. 

Now I think most of us feel like outsiders looking in, and as poets, we understand that feeling all too well, sure, but at a poetry event? I think this is why you can expect the online furor at the mention of The Griffin Poetry Prize to continue for the foreseeable future. At least, in Canada. 

Those of us who care about Canadian poetry, who are actively trying to build a Canadian poetry ecosystem–the poetry community organizers, the Canadian poetry professors, the online reviewers, the small press literary super-heroes– cannot help but feel a little let down by the Griffin Poetry Prize, an award we once felt was part of our overall community that has now come to be a private party for elites.

Chris Banks is an award-winning, Pushcart-nominated Canadian poet and author of seven collections of poems, most recently Alternator with Nightwood Editions (Fall 2023). His first full-length collection, Bonfires, was awarded the Jack Chalmers Award for poetry by the Canadian Authors’ Association in 2004. Bonfires was also a finalist for the Gerald Lampert Award for best first book of poetry in Canada. His poetry has appeared in The New Quarterly, Arc Magazine, The Antigonish Review, Event, The Malahat Review, The Walrus, American Poetry Journal, The Glacier, Best American Poetry (blog), Prism International, among other publications. Chris was an associate editor with The New Quarterly, and is Editor in Chief of The Woodlot – A Canadian Poetry Reviews & Essays website. He lives with dual disorders–chronic major depression and generalized anxiety disorder– and writes in Kitchener, Ontario.