{"id":576,"date":"2008-06-04T23:28:00","date_gmt":"2008-06-05T07:28:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/?p=576"},"modified":"2008-06-04T23:28:00","modified_gmt":"2008-06-05T07:28:00","slug":"griffin-poetry-prize-goes-to-blaser-and-ashbery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/griffin-poetry-prize-goes-to-blaser-and-ashbery\/","title":{"rendered":"Griffin Poetry Prize goes to Blaser and Ashbery"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Prestigious Griffin Poetry Prize goes to Blaser and Ashbery<\/span><\/div>\n

[from: The Canadian Press]<\/p>\n

TORONTO \u2014 Robin Blaser, poet and professor emeritus from Simon Fraser University, was handed the prestigious Griffin Prize for Canadian poetry on Wednesday night.
Blaser was joined by John Ashbery, who took home the international Griffin poetry prize.
\u201cThis is truly a great honour and one I didn\u2019t expect,\u201d said the 83-year-old Blaser, who added that poetry remains \u201cprimary\u201d in his life.
\u201cPoetry is the deepest language we\u2019ve got \u2026 I encourage you all to get busy and start writing,\u201d said the author of \u201cThe Holy Forest: Collected Poems of Robin Blaser\u201d (University of California Press).
Ashbery, who won for \u201cNotes From the Air: Selected Later Poems\u201d (HarperCollins Publishers\/Ecco), told a packed dining room in the historic Distillery District, \u201cI\u2019ve never experienced anything like this before.\u201d
\u201cPoetry doesn\u2019t usually get much attention but we poets have come to expect that,\u201d said Ashbery, who spent his youth on the southern shore of Lake Ontario, listening to CBC radio.
The English-language award hands out $50,000 to the best book of Canadian poetry and $50,000 to the best book of international poetry published last year.
While the $50,000 prize wouldn\u2019t be a major financial boost for J.K Rowling or Stephen King, the annual Griffin Prize is considered big bucks in the world of modern poetry.
\u201cIt\u2019s one of the most fabulous events of the year,\u201d said former Governor General Adrienne Clarkson, who arrived at the glitzy awards ceremony with her writer-husband John Ralston Saul.
As literary celebrities and publishing heavyweights snacked on scallops and sipped red wine, it\u2019s clear that in its eighth year, the Griffin Awards has truly become an international celebration.
\u201cNobody in the world has an event like this, where poets of the world are recognized and everybody celebrates them,\u201d said Clarkson.
This year\u2019s judges \u2013 George Bowering, James Lasdun and Pura Lopez Colome \u2013 read more than 500 books of poetry from 31 countries.
\u201cIt\u2019s nice to see poetry celebrated more than by politicians and from the press,\u201d said author Michael Ondaatje, a founding trustee of the awards.
\u201cIt\u2019s a great thing,\u201d he said, adding that having \u201cmaster\u201d poets such as Blaser, considered one of North America\u2019s most outstanding postwar poets, at the awards bolsters the event\u2019s international importance.
Blaser was up against Montreal writer Robert Majzels and Calgary-born poet Erin Moure, who made the list for their English translation of \u201cNotebook of Roses and Civilization\u201d (Coach House Books).
Rounding out the Canadian short list was Toronto author David McFadden for \u201cWhy Are You So Sad? Selected Poems of David W. McFadden\u201d (Insomniac Press\/4 a.m. Books).
The book, from noted Montreal poet and novelist Nicole Brossard, also earned Majzels and Moure nominations for the Governor General\u2019s Literary Award for translation last year.
\u201cOur big aim now is to try and get it internationally well-known,\u201d said the affable Scott Griffin, who spent much of the evening greeting guests and shaking hands.
\u201cWe\u2019ve gone to 23 different languages from more than 30 different countries \u2013 that\u2019s a big step from where we were a few years ago,\u201d he added.
\u201cAt first, a lot of people said translations couldn\u2019t compete with the originals, but translation is really the wrong word, it should be re-creation.\u201d
While many of the attendees chatted freely with a phalanx of reporters and their camera crews, McFadden seemed a little less comfortable with all the attention.
\u201cI should get a glass of wine,\u201d he said, adding he\u2019d just completed a television interview which didn\u2019t go so well.
Apart from Ashbery\u2019s work, three other books were on the international shortlist: Elaine Equi\u2019s \u201cRipple Effect: New and Selected Poems\u201d (Coffee House Press); \u201cThe Complete Poetry: A Bilingual Edition,\u201d by Clayton Eshleman, translated from the Spanish, written by Cesar Vallejo (University of California Press); and \u201cSelected Poems 1969-2005\u201d from David Harsent (Faber and Faber).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Prestigious Griffin Poetry Prize goes to Blaser and Ashbery [from: The Canadian Press] TORONTO \u2014 Robin Blaser, poet and professor emeritus from Simon Fraser University, was handed the prestigious Griffin Prize for Canadian poetry...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-576","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/576","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=576"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/576\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=576"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=576"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=576"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}