The Griffin Poetry Prize is the world’s largest prize for a first edition single collection of poetry written in English. The shortlist was released on April 9, 2019, with candidates shortlisted in two categories: Canadian and International.
Eve Joseph is one of three shortlisted Canadian poets for her collection Quarrels, published by Anvil Press. Our congratulations to all the shortlisted poets and publishers!
As distillations of life, these poems, with beauty and charm, hold their own credibility
Of the nomination, the judges said, “In Quarrels, Eve Joseph’s delightful collection of prose poems, you enter the
“Perhaps these poems are crystallisations of a deeply human, spiritual knowledge, gathered over decades working in a hospice. Joseph’s previous book, the exceptional memoir, In the Slender Margin, renders this experience. Certainly, without gravity, poems wouldn’t be able to sing. As distillations of life, these poems, with beauty and charm, hold their own credibility: an omnipresent, merely-in-glimpses-tangible marvelousness, miraculously fastened to the pages of a single slender volume that will fit into most pockets and assure magnificent company on any given journey.”
Eve Joseph’s two previous books of poetry, The Startled Heart (Oolichan Books, 2004) and The Secret Signature of Things (Brick Books, 2010) were both nominated for the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize. Her nonfiction book, In the Slender Margin (HarperCollins, 2014) won the Hubert Evans Nonfiction Prize. Joseph grew up in North Vancouver and now lives in Victoria.
The authors of the seven shortlisted books —four International and three Canadian—will be invited to read in Toronto in June, and will each be awarded $10,000 for their participation in the Shortlist Readings. The two winners (one Canadian and one International), will be announced at the Griffin Poetry Prize Awards on Thursday, June 6 and each will be awarded $65,000.