Nick Laird, Anne Michaels and Tomasz Różycki to judge 2025 Griffin Poetry Prize

Canadian author and poet Anne Michaels and international writers Nick Laird and Tomasz Różycki have been announced as the judges for the 2025 Griffin Poetry Prize.

Founded in 2000 by Canadian entrepreneur and philanthropist Scott Griffin, the Griffin Poetry Prize is the world's largest international prize for a single book of poetry written in, or translated into English. The winner will receive $130,000. 

Michaels is a Toronto writer of poetry and fiction whose books have been translated into more than 45 languages and whose work has been adapted for the screen and the theatre. She is the winner of the Orange Prize for Fiction, the Guardian Fiction Prize, the Commonwealth Poetry Prize, the Trillium Book Award and a Guggenheim Fellowship.

• Anne Michaels latest book Held is a decades-spanning novel about desire, life and death — read an excerpt now

She has been shortlisted for the Governor General's Literary Award, the Griffin Poetry Prize and the Scotiabank Giller Prize.

Most recently, Michaels was announced as a finalist for the 2024 Booker Prize for her novel Held, which weaves together historical figures and events in a mysterious narrative that spans generations.

LISTEN | Anne Michaels on Q: 

30:51Anne Michaels: Held, how she knows she’s finished writing a book, and the unexpected reason she’s so private

Anne Michaels is an award-winning Canadian poet and novelist who just published her long-awaited third novel, “Held.” The story spans 115 years and deals in themes familiar to her work: history, grief and the power of love. Anne tells Tom why it took nearly 15 years to write the novel, why she’s so interested in writing about war, and why she chooses to live an intensely private life.

Laird is a poet, novelist, screenwriter and former lawyer born in Dungannon in Northern Ireland. He has been awarded the Betty Trask Prize, the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature, the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize, a Forward Prize, the Somerset Maugham Award and a Guggenheim Fellowship. He is a poetry professor at Queen's University in Belfast. 

Różycki is a Polish poet, translator and essayist best known for his book-length poem Twelve Stations and his poetry collection Colonies. His work, both in its original Polish and in translation, has won the Kościelski Prize, the Wisława Szymborska Award, Le Grand Continent Prize, the Samuel Bogumił Prize, the Vaclav Burian Prize, the Joseph Brodsky Award and the Northern California Book Award.

Różycki was awarded a fellowship by the DAAD Artist-in-Berlin Program in 2018 and a Senate of Berlin Fellowship in 2020.

• The CBC Short Story Prize is currently open: submit your short fiction now!

Mexican poet Homer Aridjis and Vancouver translator George McWhirter won the 2024 prize for the collection Self-Portrait in the Zone of Silence.

Past Canadian winners of the prize include Tolu Oloruntoba for The Junta of Happenstance, Canisia Lubrin for The Dyzgraphxst and Kaie Kellough for Magnetic Equator. 

• Tolu Oloruntoba reflects on seeking solace through poetry

In 2022, the Griffin Poetry Prize announced that they would be combining their international and Canadian prizes into one major award, which previously amounted to $65,000 each.

A $10,000 prize is also awarded for a Canadian First Book of poetry for a first book written in English by a Canadian citizen or permanent resident. The winner will complete a six-week residency in Italy in partnership with the Civitella Ranieri Foundation. 

The longlist for the prize will be announced in mid-March, while the shortlist will be released mid-April. 

The winner of the 2024 Griffin Poetry Prize will be revealed in June.