TORONTO – August 19, 2015 – The trustees of The Griffin Trust For Excellence In Poetry are pleased to announce that Alice Oswald (UK), Tracy K. Smith (US) and Adam Sol (Canada) are the judges for the 2016 Griffin Poetry Prize.
Alice Oswald has published six collections of poetry and Selected poems of both Thomas Wyatt and Ted Hughes. She has won several awards including the T.S. Eliot, Ted Hughes, Hawthornden, Cholmondley and Warwick. She works part time as a gardener and performs widely.
Tracy K. Smith is the author of three acclaimed books of poetry: The Body’s Question, winner of the Cave Canem Poetry Prize; Duende, winner of the James Laughlin Award of the Academy of American Poets and an Essence Literary Award; and, most recently, Life on Mars, winner of the 2012 Pulitzer Prize, a New York Times Notable Book, a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice and a New Yorker, Library Journal and Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year. Other honours include a Wallace Stegner Fellowship, a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Award, a Whiting Writers’ Award and an Academy of American Poets Fellowship. She is a professor of Creative Writing at Princeton University.
Adam Sol has published four collections of poetry, the latest of which, Complicity, was released in 2014. His previous collections include Jeremiah, Ohio, a novel in poems that was shortlisted for Ontario’s Trillium Award for Poetry; Crowd of Sounds, which won the award in 2004; and Jonah’s Promise. He has published fiction, scholarly essays and reviews for a variety of publications, including The Globe and Mail, Lemon Hound and Joyland.com. He teaches at Laurentian University’s campus in Barrie, Ontario and lives in Toronto with his wife, Rabbi Yael Splansky and their three sons.
All three judges understand the importance of the Griffin Poetry Prize’s international reach and may consequently call in books of English language poetry from around the world.
The shortlisted books (four international and three Canadian) will be announced on Tuesday, April 12, 2016.
The Griffin Trust For Excellence In Poetry is pleased to announce that the Shortlist Readings will take place in Koerner Hall at The Royal Conservatory in the TELUS Centre for Performance and Learning, on Wednesday, June 1, 2016 at 7.30 p.m.
The winners of the Griffin Poetry Prize will be named at an awards ceremony to be held in Toronto on Thursday, June 2, 2016.
Note to Publishers:
The submissions deadline for the 2015 Griffin Poetry Prize, for books published between January 1 and December 31, 2015, is Thursday, December 31, 2015. Submitted books must be postmarked no later than this date.
If you have any questions regarding the rules, or would like to download an entry form, please visit our web site, at: /how-to-enter/rules.
– 30 –
For further information, please contact:
Ruth Smith
Manager
Email: info@griffinpoetryprize.com
Tel: (905) 618 0420