Scott Griffin and David Young introduce poets Carolyn Forché, Leslie Greentree, David Kirby, Robin Robertson, Gerard Stern and the Canadian and International winners of the 2005 Griffin Poetry Prize.

The Griffin Trust was created to serve and encourage excellence in poetry written in English anywhere in the world. The Griffin Trust is a Canadian initiative founded in April 2000 by Scott Griffin, its Chairman, with Trustees Margaret Atwood, Robert Hass, Michael Ondaatje, Robin Robertson, David Young and Carolyn Forché who joined last year.

The Griffin Trust’s support for poets, for poetry, and for the publishers of poetry includes two annual literary prizes worth $50,000 (Cdn) each. These prizes are awarded annually for collections of poetry published in English during the preceding year. Details of this year’s shortlisted titles can be found on the Griffin Trust website, www.griffinpoetryprize.com.

LESLIE GREENTREE
was born in Grande Prairie, Alberta, and has lived in various parts
of BC and Alberta. She works at the Red Deer Public Library as the Marketing Assistant and as an Information Services Assistant, "which means her mind is filled with useless bits of trivia she pulls out as her only party trick". Her first book, Guys Named Bill, was published by Frontenac House as part of their poetry series Quartet 2002. Her second book, Go-Go Dancing for Elvis, was shortlisted for the Griffin Poetry Prize.

DAVID KIRBY
has received many honours for his work, including the Brittingham Prize in Poetry and citations in Best American Poetry 2000 and 2001, and a Pushcart Prize XXV. He has been awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship and grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and Florida Arts Council. Kirby is the author or co- author of twenty-two books, including the poetry collections The Ha-Ha, The House of Blue Light, and The Traveling Library in addition to a collection of essays, What Is a Book? A member of the National Book Critics Circle, Kirby also writes regularly for the New York Times Book Review and The San Francisco Chronicle. He received his bachelor's degree in English from Louisiana State University and his doctoral degree in English from Johns Hopkins University in 1969. He is Robert O. Lawton Distinguished Professor of English at Florida State University, where he has taught since 1969.

ROBIN ROBERTSON's
poetry collection, A Painted Field, published in Britain and the US, won the 1997 Forward Prize for Best First Collection and the Scottish First Book of the Year Award. His second collection, Slow Air, appeared in 2002. His poetry appears regularly in the London Review of Books and the New Yorker and is represented in many anthologies. He has recently edited Mortification: Writers' Stories of Their Public Shame, which collects seventy commissioned pieces by international authors. In 2004, he received the E.M. Forster Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. From the northeast coast of Scotland, he now lives and works in London.

GERALD STERN
was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 1925. His books of poetry include Last Blue: Poems (2000), This Time: New and Selected Poems (1998), which won the National Book Award, Odd Mercy (1995), Bread Without Sugar (1992), winner of the Paterson Poetry Prize, Leaving Another Kingdom: Selected Poems (1990), Two Long Poems (1990), Lovesick (1987), Paradise Poems (1984), The Red Coal (1981), which received the Melville Caine Award from the Poetry

Society of America and Lucky Life, the 1977 Lamont Poetry Selection of The Academy of American Poets, which was also nominated for a National Book Critics Circle Award. His honors include the Paris Review's Bernard F. Conners Award, the Bess Hokin Award from Poetry, four National Endowment for the Arts grants, the Pennsylvania Governor's Award for Excellence in the Arts, and fellowships from The Academy of American Poets, the Guggenheim Foundation, and the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. For many years a teacher at the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop, he lives in Easton, Pennsylvania, and New York City.