Vancouver poet Robin Blaser, Toronto's David McFadden and Montreal's Nicole Brossard and her translators have been nominated for the Griffin Poetry Prize.

The Griffin Prize, which awards $50,000 to each of two winners, is offered annually to a Canadian and an international poet writing in English.

Robin Blaser, based in Vancouver, is nominated for the Canadian Griffin prize.
(Griffin Trust)

The international nominees are New York-based poets John Ashbery and Elaine Equi, Peruvian poet Cesar Vallejo and his translator and David Harsent of the U.K.

The short lists were released Tuesday in Toronto, selected from among 509 entries from 31 countries around the world.

The books nominated for the Canadian prize:

• The Holy Forest: The Collected Poems of Robin Blaser, a collection of five decades of work by Blaser, who is professor emeritus at Simon Fraser University and has been previously awarded a lifetime recognition award from the Griffin Trust.
• Notebook of Roses and Civilization, by Montreal novelist and poet Brossard, translated by Robert Majzels and Erin Mouré.
• Why are You So Sad? Selected Poems of David W. McFadden, author of more than 20 books of poetry and prose.

Cesar Vallejo, a Peruvian poet who lived from 1892 to 1938, is nominated for the international Griffin prize after a Michigan professor translated his work from Spanish.
(Griffin Trust)

The books nominated for the international prize:

• Notes from the Air: Selected Later Poems, by Ashbery, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and a National Book Award for his poetry.
• Ripple Effect: New and Selected Poems, by Equi, author of more than 10 poetry collections and a teacher at New York University and City College.
• The Complete Poetry: A Bilingual Edition, a translation by Clayton Eshleman of the poems of Vallejo, the Peruvian poet who lived 1892 to 1938.
• Selected Poems: 1969-2005 by Harsent, who writes screenplays, composes for musical theatre and writes crime fiction under a pseudonym, as well as writing poetry.

The judges for the 2008 Griffin Poetry Prize are the writers and poets George Bowering of Canada, James Lasdun of the U.S. and Pura Lopez Colome of Mexico.

The winners will be announced June 4.