Indigenous author wins $65,000 Griffin Poetry Prize
Belcourt youngest-ever winner of award for his collection This Wound is a World
Billy-Ray Belcourt sobbed as he accepted the $65,000 Griffin Poetry Prize on Thursday night, sharing his hopes that his writing can help bring about a world that Indigenous people would want to live in.
The 23-year-old of the Driftpile Cree Nation in Alberta was announced as the Canadian winner of the lucrative prize at a swanky Toronto gala for This Wound is a World, published by Frontenac House.
Belcourt, who organizers say is the youngest winner in the prize’s history, was rendered momentarily speechless by emotion as he took to the stage to address the crowd.
“This book was written not to be a book,” Belcourt said. “It was written ... to allow me to figure out how to be in a world that I did not want, a world that many of us who are Indigenous did not want.
“It was written also to try to bring about the world that we do want collectively.”
In an interview, Belcourt said he saw the award as an “investment” in not only his voice, but the voices of all people like him who are Indigenous, queer or gender nonconforming.
“Their voices have been silenced, and I think this is an opening,” he said. “This is a siren call from the future.”
Politics were front and centre at the typically decorous literary gathering, which Belcourt said was unavoidable given the current polarized climate.
“I think (poetry), can allow us to deliver a particular set of messages, ways of thinking to those who may not otherwise encounter them,” said Belcourt, wearing a “Justice for Colten” button pinned to his shirt.
“It does what a lot of writing doesn’t do. It firstly creates an emotional field, so in that field, we’re allowed to work through things that otherwise we would not be allowed to work through.”
The three-member judging panel praised This Wound is a World as a “politically necessary ” meditation on moving through the world in an Indigenous and queer body.
American poet Susan Howe took home the $65,000 international honour for Debths (New Directions).
Founded in 2000, by businessman Scott Griffin and a group of trustees, the Griffin is billed as the world’s largest prize for a first-edition single collection of poetry written in or translated into English.
Notable guests at the dinner reception included former governor general Adrienne Clarkson and former Toronto poet laureate Dionne Brand.