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| The Ottawa Citizen |
TORONTO - Don McKay and Charles Wright have won the seventh annual Griffin Poetry Prize, the world's most lucrative prize for verse.
Mr. Wright, an American writer, won in the international category for his book Scar Tissue (Farrar, Straus and Giroux), while Mr. McKay, a two-time Governor-General's award winner from B.C., came through in the Canadian category for Strike/Slip (McClelland & Stewart).
The $100,000 award, announced at a gala dinner last night in Toronto, is split evenly between a Canadian and international winner each year. This year, seven writers made the short-list, six of whom happened to be men.
The competition is for first-edition books of poetry, including translations, published in English in 2006 and submitted from anywhere in the world.
"This is a deeply moving experience, and a great comfort," said Mr. McKay, who's been nominated twice before for the Griffin, upon accepting his prize.
"I don't think poetry's in any danger -- it runs deep, and it will survive."
Scott Griffin, founder of the prize, hosted the event at the Distillery District.
The judges this year included poets John Burnside, Charles Simic and Karen Solie, who read 483 books of poetry, including 18 translations from 15 countries.
Other poets on the 2006 Canadian shortlist were Ken Babstock of Toronto and York University professor Priscila Uppal. In the international category were British poet Paul Farley, American writer Rodney Jones and Frederick Seidel.
© The Ottawa Citizen 2007
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