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Kaie Kellough wins 2020 Griffin Poetry Prize

Kaie Kellough

Montreal poet Kaie Kellough’s third collection, Magnetic Equator (McClelland & Stewart), has won the Canadian category of the 2020 Griffin Poetry Prize. American-French poet Sarah Riggs’s English translation of Etel Adnan’s French collection, Time (Nightboat Books), is the International winner. Riggs will take 60 per cent of the prize with the remaining 40 per cent going to Adnan.

Each prize is worth $65,000, the largest prize for a single volume of poetry in the world. The shortlisted poets will receive $10,000.

The announcement was made in a short film posted to the Griffin Poetry Prize’s YouTube channel on May 19. The annual gala presentation was cancelled this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The jury – Ireland’s Paula Meehan, Jamaica and Britain’s Kei Miller, and Canada’s Hoa Nguyen – read 572 collections from 14 countries. The shortlists follow.

Canadian

International

  • How to Dress a Fish, Abigail Chabitnoy (Wesleyan University Press)
  • Arias, Sharon Olds (Jonathan Cape and Alfred A. Knopf)
  • Time, Etel Adnan; Sarah Riggs, trans. (Nightboat Books)
  • Lima :: Limón, Natalie Scenters-Zapico (Copper Canyon Press)