Stephen Weir articles, editorials and popular social media weir postings

  It is a Two-Fer Day for St Lucian Canadian poet Canisia Lubrin   By Stephen Weir   Oh what a day it has been for one of the country’s most successful poets.   Canisia Lubrin   has just   learned that she has won one of the world’s richest poetry prizes.  She also had been told today that she has won a Canada Council administered literary prize too!   37-year old  Canisia Lubrin is the Canadian winner of the 2021  Griffin Poetry Prize.  She will receive $65,000 in prize money for her latest book  The Dyzgraph x st .   The Prize describes  The Dyzgraph x st  as a    “spectacular feat of architecture called a poem …  it is about  contemporary capitalist fascism, nationalism and the climate disaster, where Jejune, the central figure, grapples with understanding their existence and identity.”   The Griffin Poetry Prize  was founded in 2000 to encourage and celebrate exce...

Kaie Kellough Wins  $65,000 Griffin Poetry Prize By Stephen Weir - Guyanese Canadian poet Kaie Kellough has won the $65,000 Griffin Poetry Prize for his  book, Magnetic Equator. This prize – the largest in the English-speaking world – is awarded each year to two poets ( one Canadian and the other, international). Kellough was born in British Columbia and now lives in Montreal.  His maternal family is originally from Guyana and much of his poetry revolves around his Caribbean heritage and life experiences. “This particular book is partly set in Guyana (in Georgetown and in the rainforest),” Kellough told the Caribbean Camera shortly after winning the Prize. “It is also set in Calgary, where I spent many of my formative years.” ”The book moves back and forth between north and south, Calgary and Georgetown, as it tries to answer some very fundamental questions that many of us ask: who am I and how did I get here? ” I’m very much interested in fam...

A Prize Week For Authors In Canada By Stephen Weir  Published September 17, 2014 Huffington Post Story Yesterday it was the Giller. This morning it was the Griffin and the Weston Prizes and this weekend Word On The Street. This week is the busiest time of the year for authors, readers and the nation's book industry. On Tuesday it was the  Scotiabank Giller Prize  announcing their longlist of a dozen authors for the 2014 Canadian Fiction Prize. The Giller also dropped a bomb - they aare doubling the prize purse given to the winning author - first prize is now $100,000. Runner-ups will receive $10,000 each. The Giller is Canada's most prestigious fiction prize, and, with the new $10,000 award, it is now also one of the world's largest English language prizes. Usually the Giller announces here Toronto, but this year's shocker was made at McGill University's Moyse Hall Theatre  in Montreal. The award will be presented on November 10 and will be broad...