Tim Bowling is the one Canadian among the 15 poets shortlisted for this year’s Walcott Prize.

He was named as a finalist for his 2024 collection In the Capital City of Autumn, published by Wolsak and Wynn Publishers.

The $2,000 prize is awarded to a full-length book of poems published in English, or English translation, by a living poet from outside the U.S. in the previous year. The prize is administered by Massachusetts-based Arrowsmith Press, in partnership with The Derek Walcott Festival in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad.

This winner will be announced in October. The judge for this year’s award is poet and Cornell University professor Ishion Hutchinson.

Canisia Lubrin was co-winner of the prize for her collection The Dyzgraphxst in 2020.

The prize is given in honour of the late St. Lucian–born Nobel Prize–winning poet and playwright Derek Walcott. Among the many prizes awarded to Walcott was the Griffin Trust For Excellence in Poetry Lifetime Recognition Award in 2015. His other connections to Canada include being the first distinguished scholar in residence at the University of Alberta from 2009 to 2012.