Vancouver writer Tolu Oloruntoba shortlisted for 2022 Griffin Poetry Prize
Judges describe The Junta of Happenstance as a “dazzling” debut collection
Tolu Oloruntoba.
TOLU OLORUNTOBA, AUTHOR of The Junta of Happenstance (Anstruther Books/Palimpsest Press) has been shortlisted for the 2022 Griffin Poetry Prize.
Scott Griffin, on behalf of the trustees of The Griffin Trust For Excellence In Poetry, today announced finalists in the international and Canadian categories.
Based in Greater Vancouver, Oloruntoba has lived in Nigeria and the United States and practised medicine, managing projects for health authorities throughout British Columbia, before turning to writing. The Junta of Happenstance won the 2021 Governor General’s Literary Award for Poetry.
Oloruntoba is also the author of chapbook Manubrium, which was shortlisted for the 2020 bpNichol Chapbook Award. His poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Harvard Divinity Bulletin, PRISM International, Columbia Journal, Obsidian, and Canadian Literature and has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize.
“The Junta of Happenstance, Tolu Oloruntoba’s dazzling debut collection, collides the language of revolution with the landscapes of the body,” the Griffin judges stated. “These poems go beyond the desire to ward off death. They emerge out of a life intimate with death’s randomness. Like the vicissitudes of war, Oloruntoba’s poems make peace with accident and fate. They bring breath to survival. ‘If the timeline ahead is/ infinitely longer than the/ knives behind, perhaps/ as we set to mending/ we can heal more/ than we ever undid./ But we, too,/ would like a piece of the plunder.’ These exquisite poems leave an imprint both violent and terrifyingly beautiful.”
Also on the Canadian shortlist are David Bradford for Dream of No One But Myself (Brick Books) and Liz Howard, author of Letters in a Bruised Cosmos (McClelland & Stewart).
The works on the international shortlist are Late to the House of Words (Saturnalia Books) by Sharon Dolin, translated from the Catalan written by Gemma Gorga); Sho (Wave Books) by Douglas Kearney; Eccentric Days of Hope and Sorrow (Lost Horse Press) by Ali Kinsella and Dzvinia Orlowsky, translated from the Ukrainian written by Natalka Bilotserkivets; and Asked What Has Changed (Wesleyan University Press) by Ed Roberson.
Judges Adam Dickinson (Canada), Valzhyna Mort (Belarus/US), and Claudia Rankine (Jamaica/US) each read 639 books of poetry, including 57 translations from 24 languages, submitted by 236 publishers from 16 different countries.
The two winners, to be announced on June 15, will each be awarded $65,000. The other finalists will be awarded $10,000.
More information is at https://griffinpoetryprize.com.
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