Griffin Poetry Prizes

Does anybody know who won? In the international section, I am rooting for Elaine Equi's The Ripple Effect.

Authors Margaret Atwood and Michael Ondaatje are among the literary stars set to celebrate the best in poetry tonight at a dinner in downtown Toronto.

The Griffin Poetry Prize Awards give $50,000 to the best book of Canadian poetry and $50,000 to the best book of international poetry published in English the preceding year.

The prize money is a considered a king's ransom within the low-profile world of poetry.

The Griffins, celebrating their eighth year, were created by Toronto businessman Scott Griffin.

This year's judges – George Bowering, James Lasdun and Pura Lopez Colome – read over 500 books of poetry from some 31 countries.

Unlike the Scotiabank Giller Prize, the Griffin is a more casual event, held in the city's trendy Distillery District.

Simon Fraser University professor emeritus Robin Blaser, considered one of North America's most outstanding poets of the postwar period, is on the Canadian shortlist for The Holy Forest: Collected Poems of Robin Blaser.

He'll be up against Montreal writer Robert Majzels and Calgary-born Erin Moure, who made the list for their English translation of Notebook of Roses and Civilization. The book, from noted Montreal poet and novelist Nicole Brossard, also earned Majzels and Moure nominations for the Governor General's Literary Award for translation last year. If they win the Griffin, they will share 40 per cent of the prize money with Brossard.

Rounding out the Canadian shortlist is Toronto author David McFadden for Why Are You So Sad? Selected Poems of David W. McFadden.

Four books are on the international shortlist: Notes From the Air: Selected Later Poems, from John Ashbery; Elaine Equi's Ripple Effect: New and Selected Poems; The Complete Poetry: A Bilingual Edition, by Clayton Eshleman, translated from the Spanish, written by Cesar Vallejo; and Selected Poems 1969-2005, from David Harsent.