> From: "Griffin Poetry Prize" <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: 2003/09/25 Thu AM 11:21:25 EST
> To: "[log in to unmask]" <[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: The Griffin Trust for Excellence in Poetry Announces the Judges
>for the 2004 Griffin Poetry Prize
>
> The Griffin Trust for Excellence in Poetry Announces the Judges for the
> 2004 Griffin Poetry Prize
>
> TORONTO, September 25, 2003 - Distinguished poets Billy Collins (U.S.
> Poet Laureate 2001-2003), Bill Manhire (New Zealand's inaugural poet
> laureate) and Governor General Award-winner Phyllis Webb (Canada) have
> agreed to judge entries submitted by publishers around the world for the
> 2004 Griffin Poetry Prize, it was announced today by Scott Griffin,
> Chairman of the Griffin Trust for Excellence in Poetry.
>
> The judges are selected annually by the Trustees: Margaret Atwood,
> Robert Hass, Michael Ondaatje, Robin Robertson and David Young. Collins,
> Manhire and Webb will be judging books of poetry published in the 2003
> calendar year. The shortlist will be announced in New York on April 1st,
> 2004. The C$80,000 Griffin Poetry Prize, divided between the
> International and Canadian winners, will be presented at the awards
> event in Toronto on June 3rd, 2004, following the shortlisted poets'
> reading on June 2nd.
>
> The Griffin Trust was created to serve and encourage excellence in poetry
> written in English anywhere in the world. Eligible collections of poetry,
> which includes translations, must be submitted by publishers in the
> calendar year of their publication.
>
> Billy Collins was appointed United States Poet Laureate 2001-2003. His
> work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review and The American
> Scholar, and he is a Guggenheim fellow and New York Public Library
> "Literary Lion." Collin has published seven collections of poetry,
> including Questions About Angels, The Art of Drowning, and Picnic,
> Lightning. In May 2000, Picador in the UK published his collection of
> poems, Taking Off Emily Dickinson's Clothes. In September 2001, Random
> House published his collection of poems, Sailing Around the Room: New &
> Selected Poems. In the fall of 2002, Random House published his new
> collection of poems, Nine Horses, and in the spring 2003, Random House
> published an anthology of poems selected with an introduction by Billy
> Collins, Poetry 180: A Turning Back to Poetry. He is a professor of
> English at Lehman College of the City University of New York.
>
> Bill Manhire was New Zealand's inaugural Poet Laureate, and is a four-
> time winner of the New Zealand Book Award for poetry. His Collected
> Poems (2001) are published by Carcanet in the UK and by Victoria
> University Press in New Zealand, while a collection of short fiction,
> South Pacific aka Songs of My Life, is also in print. He recently
> published a short memoir, Under the Influence; a collection of essays
> and interviews, Doubtful Sounds, appeared in 2000. He is also well
> known for such anthologies as 100 New Zealand Poems, Six by Six, Some
> Other Country, and Soho Square IV. He founded the creative writing
> programme at Victoria University of Wellington, where he is currently
> director of the International Institute of Modern Letters, and
> inaugurated the electronic annual, Best New Zealand Poems. He is
> currently compiling an anthology of imaginative writing about
> Antarctica, The Wide White Page.
>
> Phyllis Webb won the Governor General's Award for Poetry for The Vision
> Tree in 1982, and was appointed an officer of the Order of Canada in
> 1992, among other honours. Her publications include Trio (with Gael
> Turnbull and Eli Mandel), Contact Press (1954); Even Your Right Eye,
> McClelland & Stewart (1956); The Sea is Also a Garden, Ryerson Press
> (1962); Naked Poems, Periwinkle Press (1965); Selected Poems 1954-65,
> edited by John Hulcoop, Talonbooks (1971); Wilson's Bowl, The Coach
> House Press (1980); the essays Talking, Quadrant (1982); The Vision
> Tree: Selected Poems, edited by Sharon Thesen, Talonbooks, (1982);
> Sunday Water: Thirteen Anti-Ghazals, Island Writing Series (1982);
> Water and Light: Ghazals and Anti-Ghazals, The Coach House Press
> (1984); Hanging Fire, The Coach House Press (1990) and Nothing But
> Brush Strokes, Selected Prose, NeWest Press (1995).
>
>                              - 30 -
>
> For more information, contact:
>
> Press and Publicity
> Prudence Emery, Publicity Director
> Griffin Trust for Excellence in Poetry
> Telephone: (905) 565-5993
> E-mail: [log in to unmask]
>
> General Inquiries
> Ruth Smith, Manager
> Griffin Trust for Excellence in Poetry
> Telephone: (905) 565-5993
> E-mail: [log in to unmask]
>
> Downloadable versions of judges' pictures are available upon request.
>
> THE GRIFFIN TRUST
> For Excellence In Poetry
> http://www.griffinpoetryprize.com/open/click.php?u=171&id=188656&c=48

Douglas Barbour
Department of English
University of Alberta
Edmonton Alberta Canada T6G 2E5
(h) [780] 436 3320      (b) [780] 492 0521
http://www.ualberta.ca/~dbarbour/dbhome.htm

The foreign city of two minds
is my home

        Michele Leggott