B.C. writer Tolu Oloruntoba wins $65K Griffin Poetry Prize for debut book

TORONTO – B.C. doctor-turned-writer Tolu Oloruntoba has been named the Canadian winner of this year’s Griffin Poetry Prize.

Oloruntoba received the $65,000 honour at an online ceremony Wednesday for his debut collection, “The Junta of Happenstance,” from Anstruther Books.

In the book, Oloruntoba draws from his medical knowledge to dissect illness, immigration and colonialism.

In their citation, jurors said the “exquisite poems leave an imprint both violent and terrifyingly beautiful.”

The international prize, also worth $65,000, went to St. Paul, Minn.-based wordsmith Douglas Kearney’s “Sho,’’ from Wave Books.

Oloruntoba started his career as a primary care physician in Nigeria before moving to the United States for graduate school and eventually settling in the Vancouver Metropolitan Area to work as a health-care manager.

Poetry has been a constant throughout Oloruntoba’s peripatetic trajectory. And he’s recently emerged as a name to watch in the Canadian literary scene.

“The Junta of Happenstance” won the English-language poetry prize at the 2021 Governor General’s Literary Awards.

His chapbook, “Manubrium,” was shortlisted for the 2020 bpNichol Chapbook Award. His poetry has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, and his work has appeared or is forthcoming in publications including Harvard Divinity Bulletin, PRISM International and Columbia Journal.

The Canadian runners-up were Montreal’s David Bradford for “Dream of No One But Myself,’’ published by Brick Books, and 2016 Griffin winner Liz Howard, who is based in Toronto, for ”Letters in a Bruised Cosmos’’ from McClelland & Stewart.

Also in the running for the international prize were: Ali Kinsella and Dzvinia Orlowsky’s translation of “Eccentric Days of Hope and Sorrow’’ by the Ukrainian poet Natalka Bilotserkivets, published by Lost Horse Press; Chicago writer Ed Roberson for ”Asked What Has Changed,’’ from Wesleyan University Press; and “Late to the House of Words,” Sharon Dolin’s translation of the Catalan work by Gemma Gorga of Barcelona, published by Saturnalia Books.

Each finalist received $10,000.

The contenders were selected from 639 books of poetry submitted by 236 publishers from 16 different countries, prize organizers say. This year’s jury consists of Canadian writer Adam Dickinson, Belarusian poet Valzhyna Mort and U.S. poet and playwright Claudia Rankine.

The Griffin is billed as the world’s largest prize for a first-edition single collection of poetry written in or translated into English.

The Griffin Trust was founded in 2000 by chairman Scott Griffin, along with trustees Margaret Atwood, Robert Hass, Michael Ondaatje, Robin Robertson and David Young.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 15, 2022.

SHARE: