History

The Montreal International Poetry Prize was founded and incorporated as a not-for-profit organization in 2010 by the poet and critic Asa Boxer, with the help of Peter Abramowicz and Len Epp. It sponsors a crowd-funded biennial competition, awarding one prize of $20,000 to one poet for a single poem.

The Montreal International Poetry Prize has become a truly global competition, supported by its international jury of award-winning poets from North America, the Caribbean, the UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, India, Nigeria, and Uganda, and with participants from more than 100 countries.

The management of the Prize was transferred to the Department of English at McGill University in 2019.

Transition to McGill

An exceptional history distinguishes Montreal as a centre of poetry. Some of the first anthologies of Canadian poetry were produced in Montreal, including E.H. Dewart’s Selections from Canadian Poets (1864) and W.D. Lighthall’s Songs of the Great Dominion (1889). At the beginning of the twentieth century, Sir Andrew Macphail of McGill University played a key role in the careers of a number of poets, foremost among them Marjorie Pickthall, through his editing of the University Magazine (1907–20) from his home on Peel Street. An important new phase began in the late 1920s with the Montreal Group, a circle of poets including A.J.M. Smith, A.M. Klein, and F.R. Scott. They and their followers helped to inspire the development of modernist poetry in Canada through the McGill Fortnightly Review in the 1920s, the 1936 anthology New Provinces, and the 1940s magazines, Preview, First Statement, and Northern Review.

McGill’s Department of English has enjoyed a long, sustained tradition of work in poetry, through the expertise of many faculty members over time. In the 1950s, Louis Dudek established himself as one of Canada’s leading poets and critics. He mentored Leonard Cohen and exerted an influential presence in the department until the 1970s, both in the classroom and beyond, through publications such as Scrivener Creative Review. The Faculty of Arts now boasts a robust faculty complement in poetry, reflective of the department’s commitment over time to cultivating creative work in and critical work responsive to poetry.

Press

Lizzie Schulz and Savannah Sguigna. “Music That Will Save Them.” Review of Fluid Vessels 5, a Poetry Reading by Lorna Goodison, Tanure Ojaide, and Mark Tredinnick. Montreal International Poetry Prize. 27 May 2022.

Eli MacLaren. “Why Reading Poetry is Worth the Effort.” Montreal Gazette, 14 April 2022.

“Submissions Open for Montreal International Poetry Prize.” McGill Reporter, 5 April 2022.

Arian Kamel and Louis Lussier-Piette. “A Penny for Your Prose.” McGill Tribune, 29 March 2022.

Rachel McCrum. “The Worth of a Poem: The Montreal Poetry Prize Anthology 2020.” Montreal Review of Books, summer 2021, 14.

“Winner of the Montreal International Poetry Prize is Announced.” McGill Reporter, 22 September 2020.

“2020 Winner of the Montreal International Poetry Prize.” on “Let’s Go with Sabrina Marandola,” CBC Listen, 21 September 2020.

“Montreal International Poetry Prize ft. Eli MacLaren.” on “Let’s Go with Sabrina Marandola,” CBC Listen, 21 April 2020.

Levon Sevunts. “The Montreal International Poetry Prize offers $20,000 for one poem.” Radio Canada International, 1 May 2020.

Michael Nicholson. “New frontiers for art in the age of Covid-19: The Montreal International Poetry Prize.” The Sunday Times, 6 May 2020.

Christopher Margolin and Michael Nicholson. “COVID Culture: The Montreal International Poetry Prize.” The Poetry Question, 8 June 2020.