Holland-Batt longlisted for 2023 Griffin Poetry Prize

Sarah Holland-Batt’s poetry collection The Jaguar (UQP) has been longlisted for the 2023 Griffin Poetry Prize, worth C$130,000 (A$142,700).

The Griffin Poetry Prize is awarded annually for the best collection of poetry written in, or translated into, English. 

Other titles longlisted for the prize are:

• Tasos Livaditis—Poems, Volume II (Manolis Aligizakis, trans by Tasos Livaditis, Libros Libertad)
• The Study of Human Life (Joshua Bennett, Penguin)
• The Threshold (Robyn Creswell, trans by Iman Mersal, Farrar, Straus & Giroux)
• The Hurting Kind (Ada Limón, Corsair Poetry)
• Exculpatory Lilies (Susan Musgrave, McClelland & Stewart)
• Balladz (Sharon Olds, Knopf)
• Best Barbarian (Roger Reeves, W W Norton)
• Bless the Daughter Raised by a Voice in Her Head (Warsan Shire, Penguin Canada)
• Time Is a Mother (Ocean Vuong, Cape Poetry and Penguin Press)

Griffin judges Nikola Madzirov (Macedonia), Gregory Scofield (Canada), and Natasha Trethewey (US) each read 602 books of poetry, including 54 translations from 20 languages, submitted by 229 publishers from 20 different countries.

In The Jaguar, Sarah Holland-Batt ‘confronts what it means to be mortal in an astonishing and deeply humane portrait of a father’s Parkinson’s Disease, and a daughter forged by grief,’ writes UQP. The Jaguar has also been shortlisted in the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards and longlisted for the Stella Prize this year.

The five shortlisted books will be announced on 19 April and will each receive C$10,000 (A$10,980). The winner will be announced at the Griffin Poetry Prize Readings event in Toronto, Canada on 7 June. See the website for more information here.

Category: Awards Local news