TORONTO — Renowned author and poet Margaret Atwood is getting this year’s Lifetime Recognition Award from the Griffin Poetry Prize.
The literary award is handed out periodically to international artists working in poetry, and more often than not has gone to a non-Canadian writer.
This year it puts a spotlight on the Toronto author as the race for the $130,000 Griffin Poetry Prize includes no Canadian finalists for the first time in the award’s 25-year history.
Shortlisted collections are written by U.S., European and Cuban poets and translators, who stand to get $10,000 as runners-up: Aaron Coleman, Durs Grünbein, Brian Henry, Karen Leeder, Carl Phillips and Diane Seuss.
The Griffin originally offered separate prizes for Canadian and international contenders but in 2023 merged them into a single prize open to all poets.
The winner will be announced June 4 at the Griffin Poetry Prize Readings in Toronto. A Canadian is guaranteed to win another award – the Canadian First Book Prize – set to be announced May 21.
Atwood earns the career honour after releasing “Paper Boat” In October 2024, a collection of new and selected poems from 1961 to 2023.
Before that, she published “Dearly” in 2020, her first collection of poetry in a decade.
Atwood is arguably best known for acclaimed novels including “Cat’s Eye,” “The Robber Bride,” “Alias Grace,” and the 1985 classic, “The Handmaid’s Tale.”
“The Testaments,” her 2019 bestselling sequel to “The Handmaid’s Tale,” won the Booker Prize.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 7, 2025.
The Canadian Press
