B.C. poet George McWhirter wins international $130,000 Griffin Poetry Prize with Mexican poet Homero Aridjis — Stir

A CEREMONY WAS HELD in Toronto last night to announce the winner of this year’s international Griffin Poetry Prize, which was awarded to Canadian poet George McWhirter for his translation of Self-Portrait in the Zone of Silence (New Directions Publishing), written in Spanish by his longtime friend, Mexican poet Homero Aridjis.

The prestigious $130,000 prize is shared between the translator and original author, with 60 percent of the amount ($78,000) going to McWhirter and 40 percent ($52,000) to Aridjis.

Born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, McWhirter has been based in Vancouver since the 1970s and was named the city’s first Poet Laureate in 2007. An acclaimed writer, translator, editor, and teacher, he served as head of UBC’s creative writing department from 1983 to 1993, and is a member of the League of Canadian Poets, Writers’ Union of Canada, and PEN International. McWhirter’s first poetry book, 1971’s Catalan Poems, jointly won the first-ever Commonwealth Poetry Prize.

Aridjis, who was born in the Contepec municipality of Michoacán, Mexico, has authored an impressive total of 51 poetry books, many of which have won awards. He is the president emeritus of PEN International; former Mexican ambassador to Switzerland, the Netherlands, and UNESCO; and founder-president of artist-environmentalist association Group of 100.

A judges’ citation describes how Self-Portrait in the Zone of Silence encapsulates an “enchanting variety of tones and subjects expresses a rounded human being engaged with our total experience, from the familial to the political, from bodily sensations to dream, vision, philosophic thought, and history, from hope to foreboding.”