By Stephen Weir

“It is not about the money; it is about the poetry. But hey, $130,000 is a lot of cabbage, and Canada’s Griffin Poetry Prize is the world’s largest international prize for a single book of poetry written in or translated into English!

The huge annual Prize has been around for 22 years, and in recent times, it has been won by Caribbean-Canadian poets. This year, there are no Caribbean Canadians on the recently released Long List. However, Ishion Hutchinson from Port Antonio, Jamaica, is in the running for the big June 5th poetry prize.

The 40-year-old Jamaican is nominated for his book “School of Instructions.” This poetry book centers on the experience of West Indian volunteer soldiers in British regiments during the First World War. The poem gathers the psychic and physical terrors of these Black soldiers in the Middle East war theater and refracts their struggle against the colonial power they served. The narratives of the soldiers overlap with Godspeed, a young schoolboy living in rural Jamaica in the 1990s.

The Griffin Poetry Prize announced its 2024 longlist of ten poets in the running for the prize late last month. Canadian poets were not represented on this year’s list, though two of the translators of works from Mexico and France are Canadian.

The five shortlisted books will be announced on Wednesday, April 17, 2024. The winner will be announced at the Griffin Poetry Prize Readings to be held at Koerner Hall in Toronto on Wednesday, June 5, and will be awarded $130,000. The other shortlisted finalists will each receive $10,000.

A number of Caribbean-Canadian poets have won the Griffin in years gone by, including Kaie Kellough (Guyanese) and Canisia Lubrin (Saint Lucia). Dionne Brand (Trinidad), Toronto’s first Black poet laureate, won the prize in 2011 and was twice a finalist for the Prize.