Margaret Atwood is one of the founding trustees of the Griffin Poetry Prize, which was created in 2000 and awards $130,000 to international winners.Chris Young/The Canadian Press
In accepting her Lifetime Recognition Award at the Griffin Poetry Prize gala at Toronto’s Koerner Hall on Wednesday night, Margaret Atwood read a pair of her poems while sitting in a chair.
There were slight issues. The 85-year-old poet-novelist said that due to cataracts she would need to hold the pages near her face. She also had to clutch a microphone, which was, she said, “just slightly awkward.”
Griffin trustee and U.S. poet Carolyn Forché, the longtime friend who interviewed Atwood on stage, offered to hold the mic. Atwood declined the offer because, she explained, “It would involve you kneeling at my feet.”
The audience laughed at the notion, of course. But, then, Canada’s most illustrious writer − a literary goddess, couplet queen and dystopic-novel superstar − was being honoured for a lifetime of achievement. Kneeling at her feet?
If the metaphor fits.
Atwood had stepped on stage, carrying sheets of paper and her purse, to a standing ovation. After the presentation, Forché and Atwood walked off, the former raising the latter’s hand as she were a boxer who had just won a fight.
Hadn’t she though? Atwood was one of the founding trustees of the Griffin Poetry Prize, which was created in 2000 to help revitalize an art form thought to be dying.
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“Margaret Atwood is first and foremost a poet,” namesake prize founder Scott Griffin asserted at the end of night. Fans of The Handmaid’s Tale, Alias Grace, The Blind Assassin, Oryx and Crake might disagree with that assessment, but it is true that Atwood published five books of poetry before her 1969 debut novel, The Edible Woman, ever saw the light of day.
Besides, Canadian businessman and philanthropist Griffin was paying for the room, the open bar and the $25,000 attached to the lifetime recognition. What he says carries weight and all those trays of wine.
His biggest cheque went to Karen Leeder and Durs Grünbein, winners of the night’s main-event award, the 2025 Griffin Poetry Prize, for Psyche Running: Selected Poems, 2005-2022. The international prize is worth $130,000.
Sixty per cent of the money goes to British writer and scholar of German culture Leeder, who translated the poems of German poet and essayist Durs Grünbein into English. Grünbein receives 40 per cent of the prize.
“Do you want to say a few words, or do you just want to take the money and run?” Griffin joked to the winners.
Leeder stood up for translators − the unseen “bees” of the literary world − and praised Grünbein as a poet who is “generous with his comments but then leaves me alone to do it, which is what every translator wants.”
In his own acceptance speech, Grünbein said the pin on his lapel was not only in recognition of Ukraine’s existential fight with Russia: “This is now a war on Europe.” He expressed hope that poems supported ideas of democracy and humanity, saying, “That is why I am writing poetry.”
About Atwood’s earlier reading of her poem How to Tell One Country From Another, he noted that the lines focused on boundaries and “very important historical, political things.”
Atwood had spoken about her fascination with the rise and fall of dictators, a result of her being born in 1939. “Which is also the reason why I could never be a pacifist,” she said, “and also the reason I feel countries that have been invaded have a right to defend themselves.”
Asked by her American interviewer, “How are we going to get through all this?” Atwood said it was not too late for the United States: “It remains to be seen how this is going to play out, but cracks are already appearing in the Republican Party’s unified wall.”
Atwood is the 17th poet (and fourth Canadian) to earn the Griffin career achievement honour. She is the first recipient among the original board of trustees (which also included Robert Hass, Michael Ondaatje, Robin Robertson and David Young).
Her most recent book of poetry is Paper Boat: New and Selected Poems: 1961–2023, published last year. Her much-anticipated memoir, Book of Lives: A Memoir of Sorts, is due Nov. 4.
After Atwood’s presentation, Griffin jury member Anne Michaels spoke with Whitehorse poet Dawn Macdonald, this year’s Canadian First Book Prize winner for Northerny, published by University of Alberta Press.
“You know,” Macdonald said, “Margaret Atwood is a bit of a tough act to follow.”
