The 2021 Griffin Poetry Prize Anthology Read online

  Copyright © 2021 House of Anansi Press Inc.

  Poems copyright © Individual poets

  Preface copyright © Souvankham Thammavongsa

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  Published in Canada in 2021 and the USA in 2021 by House of Anansi Press Inc.

  www.houseofanansi.com

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  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

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  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

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  Cataloguing data available from Library and Archives Canada

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  Cover design: Chloé Griffin and Kyra Griffin

  Inset cover artwork: Lois Dodd (American, b. 1927), Blue Sky Window, 1979; oil on linen, 56 × 36 inches; © Lois Dodd, courtesy Alexandre Gallery, New York

  Full cover image: Aerial view of Rainbow Mountains, sandstone hills in Gansu province, China

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  House of Anansi Press respectfully acknowledges that the land on which we operate is the Traditional Territory of many Nations, including the Anishinabeg, the Wendat, and the Haudenosaunee. It is also the Treaty Lands of the Mississaugas of the Credit.

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  We acknowledge for their financial support of our publishing program the Canada Council

  for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, and the Government of Canada.

  The

  Griffin

  Poetry

  Prize

  past winners and shortlists of

  the griffin poetry prize

  2001

  International

  Yehuda Amichai

  Translated by Chana Bloch and Chana Kronfeld

  Paul Celan

  Translated by Nikolai Popov and Heather McHugh

  Fanny Howe

  Les Murray

  Canadian

  Anne Carson

  Ghandl of the Qayahl Llaanas

  Translated by Robert Bringhurst

  Don McKay

  2002

  International

  Victor Hernández Cruz

  Christopher Logue

  Les Murray

  Alice Notley

  Canadian

  Christian Bök

  Eirin Moure

  Karen Solie

  2003

  International

  Kathleen Jamie

  Paul Muldoon

  Gerald Stern

  C. D. Wright

  Canadian

  Margaret Avison

  Dionne Brand

  P. K. Page

  2004

  International

  Suji Kwock Kim

  David Kirby

  August Kleinzahler

  Louis Simpson

  Canadian

  Di Brandt

  Leslie Greentree

  Anne Simpson

  2005

  International

  Fanny Howe

  Michael Symmons Roberts

  Matthew Rohrer

  Charles Simic

  Canadian

  Roo Borson

  George Bowering

  Don McKay

  2006

  International

  Kamau Brathwaite

  Durs Grünbein

  Translated by Michael Hofmann

  Michael Palmer

  Dunya Mikhail

  Translated by Elizabeth Winslow

  Canadian

  Phil Hall

  Sylvia Legris

  Erín Moure

  2007

  International

  Paul Farley

  Rodney Jones

  Frederick Seidel

  Charles Wright

  Canadian

  Ken Babstock

  Don McKay

  Priscila Uppal

  2008

  International

  John Ashbery

  Elaine Equi

  César Vallejo

  Translated by Clayton Eshleman

  David Harsent

  Canadian

  Robin Blaser

  Nicole Brossard

  Translated by Robert Majzels and Erín Moure

  David W. McFadden

  2009

  International

  Mick Imlah

  Derek Mahon

  C. D. Wright

  Dean Young

  Canadian

  Kevin Connolly

  Jeramy Dodds

  A. F. Moritz

  2010

  International

  John Glenday

  Louise Glück

  Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin

  Valérie Rouzeau

  Translated by Susan Wicks

  Canadian

  Kate Hall

  P. K. Page

  Karen Solie

  2011

  International

  Seamus Heaney

  Adonis

  Translated by Khaled Mattawa

  François Jacqmin

  Translated by Philip Mosley

  Gjertrud Schnackenberg

  Canadian

  Dionne Brand

  Suzanne Buffam

  John Steffler

  2012

  International

  David Harsent

  Yusef Komunyakaa

  Sean O’Brien

  Tadeusz Różewicz

  Translated by Joanna Trzeciak

  Canadian

  Ken Babstock

  Phil Hall

  Jan Zwicky

  2013

  International

  Ghassan Zaqtan

  Translated by Fady Joudah

  Jennifer Maiden

  Alan Shapiro

  Brenda Shaughnessy

  Canadian

  David W. McFadden

  James Pollock

  Ian Williams

  2014

  International

  Rachael Boast

  Brenda Hillman

  Carl Phillips

  Tomasz Różycki

  Translated by Mira Rosenthal

  Canadian

  Anne Carson

  Sue Goyette

  Anne Michaels

  2015

  International

  Wang Xiaoni

  Translated by Eleanor Goodman

  Wioletta Greg

  Translated by Marek Kazmierski

  Michael Longley

  Spencer Reece

  Canadian

  Shane Book

  Jane Munro

  Russell Thornton

  2016

  International

  Norman Dubie

  Joy Harjo

  Don Paterson

  Rowan Ricardo Ph
illips

  Canadian

  Ulrikka S. Gernes

  Translated by Per Brask and Patrick Friesen

  Liz Howard

  Soraya Peerbaye

  2017

  International

  Jane Mead

  Abdellatif Laâbi

  Translated by Donald Nicholson-Smith

  Alice Oswald

  Denise Riley

  Canadian

  Jordan Abel

  Hoa Nguyen

  Sandra Ridley

  2018

  International

  Tongo Eisen-Martin

  Susan Howe

  Layli Long Soldier

  Natalie Shapero

  Canadian

  Billy-Ray Belcourt

  Aisha Sasha John

  Donato Mancini

  2019

  International

  Raymond Antrobus

  Daniel Borzutzky

  Kim Hyesoon

  Translated by Don Mee Choi

  Luljeta Lleshanaku

  Translated by Ani Gjika

  Canadian

  Dionne Brand

  Eve Joseph

  Sarah Tolmie

  2020

  International

  Abigail Chabitnoy

  Sharon Olds

  Etel Adnan

  Translated by Sarah Riggs

  Natalie Scenters-Zapico

  Canadian

  Chantal Gibson

  Doyali Islam

  Kaie Kellough

  past recipients of the griffin trust for excellence in poetry lifetime recognition award

  Robin Blaser (2006)

  Tomas Tranströmer (2007)

  Ko Un (2008)

  Hans Magnus Enzensberger (2009)

  Adrienne Rich (2010)

  Yves Bonnefoy (2011)

  Seamus Heaney (2012)

  Adelia Prado (2014)

  Derek Walcott (2015)

  Adam Zagajewski (2016)

  Frank Bidart (2017)

  Ana Blandiana (2018)

  Nicole Brossard (2019)

  Preface

  The sight of banker’s boxes is not new to me. I worked in the financial district of Toronto, in a research department as an assistant, for fifteen years, and then went on to prepare taxes. When these boxes from the Griffin Poetry Prize were delivered to me, with more than 680 poetry books from around the world, what I saw was no different from financial or tax reports. Inside these boxes were still records and declarations and observations. Every word and voice survived to make it onto the page. However that is managed and accounted for. There is often very little glamour in poetry. Not so, at the Griffin Prize party each year. It begins with the envelope that holds the invitation. When I first received mine many years ago, I was a writer who printed and bound my own poetry books and sold them out of my school knapsack. I was no one. I would look at the envelope amazed. My name was handwritten, every letter correct. Someone there knew where I lived, the exact address, the street, the apartment number. I took the bus to the party wearing what I thought to be fancy, walked by myself on the cobblestones, and held my breath when someone checked to see if indeed I was invited. “Oh, yes, I see. Right here. Your name,” someone at the front door said. I learned one doesn’t arrive early at these things, but there I was in the room. I took in the sparkle and decorations. Each year they were different, the banners of poets and judges, their faces printed large. Once, I wanted to take away something from the evening. Something no one would notice. Nothing fancy. I saw a fork and took that. A few minutes later a new one was replaced by staff. I saw the poets arrive. They were famous in their countries, all over the world, or not at all. Confident, boisterous, shy, out of place. Helping themselves to the open bar several times, returning again and again. I saw them dance too. A small corner of the room. My favourite thing about the evening is the chocolate fountain. Over the years, I got to see Adrienne Rich, John Ashbery, Seamus Heaney, Tomas Tranströmer . . . Once, I knelt on one knee to talk to Adrienne Rich. She asked me what the title of my poetry book was, and I told her. She took my hand and held it, closed her eyes, and nodded. After some time, she said, “I remember that book.” Perhaps this is what you say to someone to give them the idea to imagine what is possible for themselves. True or not, does not matter — she made me feel like it was true. I am describing all this because I am thinking of Ilya Kaminsky and Aleš Šteger, who were there with me this year in our reading, but because of a pandemic we have not met in person and will not meet for now, won’t know about the readings we could have heard, or be at a party celebrating the poetry and the poets we listed. The small and private moments we would get to have just by observation or being in the same room with each other. The things we’d wish people wouldn’t know or the things people would see without our knowing. In our discussions, Ilya and Aleš too would say, “I remember that book.” And although this anthology is about the writers whose names and books we will know with this prize, I wish to take a moment to address those who are not in this book. It is unusual to do so, but I want to say: You have no idea how close you came, and however meaningful or meaningless that is to you — you can’t ever know just how close. Because it has been said to me before, and I know the feeling, I say this to you now, down on one knee: “I remember that book.”

  Souvankham Thammavongsa, Toronto, April 2021

  THE GRIFFIN POETRY PRIZE

  Anthology 2021

  international shortlist titles

  Victoria Chang

  Obit

  Victoria Chang’s Obit achieves a new form for grief and sorrow. Using the familiarity of the obituary, she repurposes the form with the truth that death makes clear, absurd, and funny. Death is not something that happens to someone else — it is yours too, up close and personal, and deeply particular. It is not just a name or person or relation that dies — it is a frontal lobe, language inside the phone, the voice mail, the view and experience, the language they made or didn’t make, their sounds too. The self that knew them. Privacy, friendships, gait, logic, optimism, ambition, tears, reason, a chair. Every bit of a lived life gets a spot. In this book, “grief takes many / forms, as tears or pinwheels . . . ,” “dying lasts / forever until it stops,” and “our sadness is plural, but grief is / singular.”

  My Father’s Frontal Lobe—died

  unpeacefully of a stroke on June 24,

  2009 at Scripps Memorial Hospital in

  San Diego, California. Born January

  20, 1940, the frontal lobe enjoyed a

  good life. The frontal lobe loved being

  the boss. It tried to talk again but

  someone put a bag over it. When the

  frontal lobe died, it sucked in its lips like

  a window pulled shut. At the funeral

  for his words, my father wouldn’t stop

  talking and his love passed through

  me, fell onto the ground that wasn’t

  there. I could hear someone stomping

  their feet. The body is as confusing as

  language—was the frontal lobe having

  a tantrum or dancing? When I took

  my father’s phone away, his words

  died in the plastic coffin. At the funeral

  for his words, we argued about my

  miscarriage. It’s not really a baby, he

  said. I ran out of words, stomped out to

  shake the dead baby awake. I thought

  of the tech who put the wand down,

  quietly left the room when she couldn’t

  find the heartbeat. I understood then

  that darkness is falling without an end.

  That darkness is not the absorption of

  color but the absorp
tion of language.

  Victoria Chang—died unknowingly on

  June 24, 2009 on the I-405 freeway.

  Born in the Motor City, it is fitting

  she died on a freeway. When her

  mother called about her father’s heart

  attack, she was living an indented

  life, a swallow that didn’t dip. This

  was not her first death. All her deaths

  had creases except this one. It didn’t

  matter that her mother was wrong (it

  was a stroke) but that Victoria Chang

  had to ask whether she should drive to

  see the frontal lobe. When her mother

  said yes, Victoria Chang had the

  feeling of not wanting to. Someone

  heard that feeling. Because he did

  not die but all of his words did. At the

  hospital, Victoria Chang cried when

  her father no longer made sense. This

  was before she understood the cruelty

  of his disease. It would be the last time

  she cried in front of it. She switched

  places with her shadow because

  suffering changes shape and happens

  secretly.

  Language—died, brilliant and beautiful

  on August 1, 2009 at 2:46 p.m. Lover

  of raising his hand, language lived

  a full life of questioning. His favorite

  was twisting what others said. His

  favorite was to write the world in black

  and white and then watch people try

  and read the words in color. Letters

  used to skim my father’s brain before

  they let go. Now his words are blind.

  Are pleated. Are the dispatcher, the

  dispatches, and the receiver. When

  my mother was dying, I made everyone

  stand around the bed for what would

  be the last group photo. Some of us

  even smiled. Because dying lasts

  forever until it stops. Someone said,

  Take a few. Someone said, Say

  cheese. Someone said, Thank you.

  Language fails us. In the way that

  breaking an arm means an arm’s bone

  can break but the arm itself can’t break

  off unless sawed or cut. My mother

  couldn’t speak but her eyes were the