Six Years Later, the Finalist Wins Big

C. D. Wright, who was shortlisted for the Griffin International Poetry Prize in 2003 for Steal Away but lost to Paul Muldoon, took the top honor this year for her twelfth book, Rising, Falling, Hovering. She will receive $50,000 Canadian, or approximately $45,950. Rising, Falling, Hovering was published last April by Copper Canyon, the same press that published W. S. Merwin's 2009 Pulitzer Prize-winning volume The Shadow of Sirius. Wrighted edged out three other finalists, including Dean Young, whose collection Primitive Mentor was published by the University of Pittsburgh Press.

The winner of the Canadian prize is A. F. Moritz for The Sentinel (House of Anansi Press). In September, both winners will be invited to Reykjavik, Iceland, to read at the International Literary Festival.

The announcements were made yesterday in Toronto at an awards ceremony hosted by Scott Griffin, founder of the prize, and Margaret Atwood, Carolyn Forché, Robert Hass, Michael Ondaatje, Robin Robertson, and David Young.

German poet and essayist Hans Magnus Enzensberger was also honored at the ceremony with a Lifetime Achievement Award.