The Griffin Poetry Prize has announced a shortlist of five books for the 2024 prize.

The winner of the $130,000 prize will be announced at the prize readings in Toronto on June 5.

The shortlisted titles are:

• A Crash Course in Molotov Cocktails by Amelia M. Glaser (USA) and Yuliya Ilchuk (Ukraine), translated from the Ukrainian written by Halyna Kruk, (Ukraine), published by Arrowsmith Press
• To 2040 by Jorie Graham (USA), published by Copper Canyon Press
• School of Instructions by Ishion Hutchinson (Jamaica), published by Faber & Faber, and Farrar, Straus & Giroux
• Door by Ann Lauterbach (USA), published by Penguin Books
• Self-Portrait in the Zone of Silence by George McWhirter (Northern Ireland/Canada), translated from the Spanish written by Homero Aridjis (Mexico), published by New Directions Publishing

The shortlisted titles were chosen from a 10-book longlist announced last month. Both lists were chosen by judges Albert F. Moritz (Canada), Jan Wagner (Germany), and Anne Waldman (USA). They read 592 books of poetry, including 49 translations from 22 languages, submitted by 235 publishers from 14 different countries.

Translator and poet George McWhirter is the lone Canadian on the shortlist for this year’s prize.

This is the second year that the prize is being awarded to a single book instead of two books in two different categories, international and Canadian. The Griffin Poetry Prize announced the merged award – and its merged purse – in the fall of 2022.

The recipient of the 2024 Lifetime Recognition Award was also announced on April 17. Award-winning Canadian poet Don McKay is the recipient of this year’s honour, which is bestowed periodically. McKay has published 14 poetry collections; the most recent, Lurch, was published in 2021. McKay has been nominated for the Griffin Prize three times, winning the prize in 2007 for Strike/Slip. He is also a two-time winner of the Governor General’s Award for poetry. McKay lives in St. John’s, N.L.