Poets swap books of poetry during the PoemCity opening reception at Kellogg Hubbard Library, in Montpelier, Vt., Saturday, April 1, 2023. The winner of the Griffin Poetry Prize is set to be announced at an event at Toronto's Koerner Hall this evening. THE CANADIAN PRESS/AP-Lisa Rathke
TORONTO – American poet Roger Reeves has won the Griffin Poetry Prize for “Best Barbarian”
He took home the $130,000 award at a ceremony in Toronto on Wednesday evening.
Reeves is also the recipient of a Whiting Award and a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship.
The Griffin judges praise “Best Barbarian” for charting “the ruptures and violences enacted across time and space – particularly against Black humanity – while leaning always toward beauty.”
This is the first year the Griffin Poetry Prize has combined its categories for homegrown and international poets into a single global purse.
The other shortlisted works, which each receive $10,000, are “The Hurting Kind” by Ada Limón, “The Threshold” by Egyptian-Canadian Iman Mersal and translated by Robyn Creswell, “Exculpatory Lilies” by British Columbia-based writer Susan Musgrave and “Time Is a Mother” by Ocean Vuong.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 7, 2023.
