Words At Large

This year’s Griffin Poetry Prize winners will be announced on June 4, with a Canadian and an international poet each receiving $50,000.

The other day I was asked why I like poetry, as if liking poetry was some strange aberration that required explanation. "Probably for the same reason that some people like music," I replied. The question though, spoke volumes about how far poetry had slipped from the mainstream of our cultural lives, which is somewhat bewildering to me.

Poetry is no longer really taught in the schools or heard in the coffee houses or homes. It’s rarely quoted by politicians, corporate presidents or heads of labour unions. Occasionally a poem (the Hallmark card variety) is pulled off the shelf and trotted out at a wedding or funeral to embroider a well meaning, but syrupy sentiment, but that's it. What a shame, what a travesty!

I grew up with poetry in the family. My father loved poetry and not only read it to us around the fire, but used it as punishment whenever we misbehaved. We were required to memorize a poem and recite it in front of family members and guests before dinner.

Although this had a salutary effect on my siblings, I found myself learning a lot of poetry. My father cleverly suggested that I search out my own poems to memorize, and they had to be longer than a few lines. I was determined to find poetry that would be unfamiliar to him (he being well read) and that got me interested in exploring poetry beyond our own library.

My behaviour did not improve and I was shipped off to boarding school. An inspirational, Victorian headmaster furthered my interest in poetry. I remember him entering the classroom, reading Wordsworth's Tintern Abbey and then slamming the book shut with frightening authority. "Listen to this, listen!" he would exclaim, before reciting the whole poem off by heart. It was a romantic tour de force, designed to leave an impression on a young boy!

At university, I encountered a young professor, Arthur Motyer, who also loved poetry. He was able to convey the technical possibilities open to poetry that I had not fully understood. He showed me there was music within free verse that went beyond the confines of rhyming couplets or the metrical movement determined by various relations of long or short, accented or unaccented syllables. A whole new world opened up for me.

Through all of this, I learned the value of memorizing poetry, perhaps the only way to truly understand a poem, short of writing it. Different poems, favourite poems, remained with me, to be brought forward, when alone at night flying my plane or at sea, on watch, under a panoply of stars. They became friends, always there, on call.

As the years scooted by, I realized the value of poetry and decried its loss in the Western world of consumerism. Yes, it remained strong in South America and former European Eastern bloc countries, countries that had undergone years of repression, but here in Canada poetry had all but disappeared. Something had to be done.

Friends came to dinner, Michael Ondaatje and David Young, and we discussed the loss of poetry. We decided that same evening to establish the Griffin Trust for Excellence in Poetry.

Within nine months we had $2 million in a Trust, judges selected, the rules and regulations established and 230 books of poetry submitted. We were on our way. The readings that first year were held at Harbourfront in Toronto with an audience of 175 paying customers.

This year is the seventh year of the Griffin Prize. We have received 483 books of poetry from 35 different countries. Tickets for the readings to be held at Toronto’s MacMillan Theatre (which holds 850 people) are sold out. This is progress.

Yet, much remains to be done. Poetry is still far from the mainstream of our cultural lives where it properly belongs, but I for one, am optimistic.

This blog was originally posted on May 31, 2007, leading up to last year’s Griffin Poetry Prize announcement.