Griffin Prize Giveaway! Win Two Tickets to the 2026 Readings, and a Poetry Prize Pack!

The Griffin Prize awards ceremony is right around the corner, and lucky poetry fans can hear all of the shortlisted authors at the upcoming Griffin Prize Poetry Readings right before the announcement of the winning book, all of which will take place on June 3rd at Koerner Hall in Toronto!

In anticipation of the award of this fabled prize, our friends at the Griffin Trust our giving away (2) TWO TICKETS to attend the readings, along with a poetry prize pack that includes all of the shortlisted titles!

The finalists this year, as announced late last month, are as follows:

Gbenga Adesina – Death Does Not End at the Sea (University of Nebraska Press)
A debut collection shaped as a kind of choral elegy, Adesina’s poems trace migration, memory, and the porous boundary between life and death with lyrical clarity and emotional force.

Daniel Borzutzky & Alec Schumacher translating Elvira Hernández – Bodies Found in Various Places (Cardboard House Press)
A powerful work of translation that carries Hernández’s fractured, politically charged poetics into English, preserving the urgency and instability at the heart of her language.

Aracelis Girmay – Green of All Heads (BOA Editions)
A luminous meditation on grief, kinship, and diasporic connection, where mourning becomes a way of seeing and a means of sustaining community across time and space.

Ange Mlinko – Foxglovewise (Faber & Faber)
Linguistically rich and playfully layered, Mlinko’s poems move across languages and histories, building intricate soundscapes that reward close—and repeated—reading.

Kevin Young – Night Watch (Alfred A. Knopf)
A formally ambitious and musically driven collection that blends blues rhythms with literary tradition, exploring loss, race, and memory through hypnotic, shifting sequences.

After reading 461 books submitted by publishers in 42 countries, judges Andrea Cote, Luke Hathaway, and Major Jackson have selected a shortlist that moves across continents, forms, and poetic traditions—including work in translation that continues to define the prize’s international scope.

The winner will be announced on June 3, 2026, at the Griffin Poetry Prize Readings at Koerner Hall, where each finalist will take the stage. The winning poet will receive $130,000, with the remaining finalists awarded $10,000 each.

To enter, simply send us an email at contests@open-book.ca and tell us which poet you're most looking forward to hearing from at the ceremony. Please include a mailing address and the subject line "Open Book Griffin Readings Contest." All entries must be received by 11:59p.m. EST on Sunday, May 31st, 2026 to be considered.

The Griffin Prize shortlist readings will be hosted at Koerner Hall, a beautiful concert venue located at 273 Bloor Street West, on June 3rd, 2026, beginning at 7:30pm. A winner must be able to attend the ceremony in person in order to claim their prize.

One winner will be chosen at random and notified via email. Tickets will also be delivered digitally, with books shipped to the appropriate address. One entry per person. This contest is open to Canadian residents only. Chance of winning depends on number of entries received.

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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. The remaining shortlisted writers will each receive $10,000.

In the event a winning book is a translation into English, the Griffin Poetry Prize will allocate 60 per cent of the prize to the translator and 40 per cent to the original poet.