Spending the year with new(ish) books by friends, locals, and other Canadian poets old and new. Follow along daily on Instagram.

My first post for this week’s book started off with a statement that might be a little cryptic to those not involved in the Canadian poetry scene:

As we approach the Griffin prize announcement on June 3, let’s spend some time with past CANADIAN award winners starting with the 2014 Governor General’s Award for Poetry.

For those not in the know, the Griffin Poetry Prize was founded in April 2000 by Margaret Atwood, Robert Hass, Michael Ondaatje, Robin Robertson, David Young, and Scott Griffin. It is one of the richest literary prizes on the planet with the shortlisted poets each getting $10,000 and the winner taking home a staggering $130,000. The prize is open to both Canadian and International poets and until 2022, there were two categories of prize: International and Canadian. In 2023 these categories were combined and a new category for a first book by a Canadian poet was created. In 2024, Canadian poets made both the long and short lists. In 2025 there was a Canadian book on the long but not the short list. And this year there were no Canadian books on long list. For the first time in the Griffin’s history a book by a Canadian poet is not in the running to win the top prize.

Now, Scott Griffin (and the members of the Griffin Trust) can do whatever they like with Scott Griffin’s money. I’m not going to pick up my torch and pitchfork over this, though I would probably feel different if public money was involved, but it does seem a little off-kilter for there to be no Canadian in the running for a prize made in Canada. Perhaps if we weren’t still in “elbows up” mode this snub might not feel as rude as it does, but we are and so it does.

This is why I decided to look back a bit over the next few weeks and (re)read some Canadian prize-winners starting off with the winner of the2014 Governor General’s Award for Poetry, “Lake of Two Mountains” by Arleen Paré. This was the most Canadian of the Canadian prize winners I had sitting on my shelf and a book I’ve been meaning to revisit for some time now. Arleen comes from both the French and English bits of Canada and in this book is writing about the Lake. You know the Lake, those bodies of water splashed across the landscape of which Canada has the most of in the world. The place where pretty much all of us spent at least parts of a summer. The Lake and the beaver-riddled waters between the Lakes, the sacred channels for the life of the land, our spirits rise from those waters. Without the Lake there is no Canada.

I’m actually not going to talk about any of the individual poems in this book today. The photos from my week of slow reading are below and if you’re reading this, I suspect you’re already familiar with this book or are mentally adding it to your literary shopping list right now. What I want to draw your attention to this week is Arleen’s acknowledgements page, specifically:

Thanks to the people of L’ile-Cadieux, especially the mayor, his wife and the town’s secretary for their efforts to find accommodation for me;

This is Lake. This is Canada.

This is what has been driving my creativity this week: “the childhood experience of the Lake”