Two Women Professors Win the Griffin Poetry Prize

Two women who teach at American universities were award the Griffin Poetry Prize from the Griffin Trust for Excellence in Poetry. The trust awards two $65,000 prizes, one to a Canadian-born poet and one to a poet who is not Canadian. The winners were selected from more than 539 entries from 40 countries.

Anne Carson, who is a native of Toronto and teaches at the University of Michigan, was recognized for her collection Red Doc (Alfred A. Knopf, 2013). Dr. Carson is a former winner of the Pushcart Prize and in 2001 was the first woman to be awarded the T.S. Eliot Prize for Poetry. She is a former MacArthur Fellow and two-time finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Professor Carson has also taught at Princeton University, Emory University, and McGill University. She holds bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees from the University of Toronto.

Brenda Hillman won the international award from the Griffin Trust. She holds the Olivia Filippi Chair in Poetry and is director of the master of fine arts degree program in creative writing at St. Mary’s College in Moraga, California. Professor Hillman was honored for her collection, Seasonal Works with Letters on Fire (Wesleyan University Press, 2013). Professor Hillman was a finalist for the 1993 Pulitzer Prize and a finalist for the 1997 National Book Critics Circle Award. She has authored more than 10 books of poetry. Professor Hillman is a native of Tucson, Arizona, and is a graduate Pomona College in Claremont, California. She earned a master of fine arts degree from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop.