Joseph Kidney

Joseph Kidney has been named the winner of the Griffin Poetry Prize’s Canadian First Book Prize for his debut collection, Devotional Forensics (icehouse poetry/Goose Lane Editions).

In their citation, the judges called the book “an adventure for the poetic imagination, at once intellectually rigorous and sensuous, restless in its interrogation of constructed realities. Moving between fire and water—those elemental extremes of intensity—the poems approach history and the present not as static records but as lived vibration.”

Kidney splits his time between Vancouver and northern California’s Bay Area, where he is a lecturer at Stanford University.

The Canadian First Book Prize is awarded annually to a Canadian poet for a debut collection of poetry. The winning poet receives $10,000 in prize money along with a six-week residency in Italy, in partnership with the Civitella Ranieri Foundation.

As the prize winner, Kidney will be invited to participate at the Griffin Poetry Prize Readings on June 3, alongside the poets shortlisted for this year’s Griffin Poetry Prize.