The $65,000 prize is one of the richest awards in the world
for a book of poetry.
The prize is Oloruntoba’s latest addition to his string of
awards. The Junta of Happenstance previously won the 2021 Governor General’s
Literary Award for poetry and was longlisted for the Gerald Lampert Memorial
Award and Raymond Souster Award.
The Junta of Happenstance is an exploration of disease, both
medical and emotional. It explores family dynamics, social injustice, the
immigrant experience, economic anxiety and the nature of suffering.
Oloruntoba, who practiced medicine for six years, has
harboured a love for writing poetry since he was 16. His poems explore the
struggles of diasporic peoples around the globe as they traverse both land and
cultures.
His first chapbook, Manubrium, was shortlisted for the 2020
bpNichol Chapbook Award. He is also the founder of the literary magazine
Klorofyl.
Oloruntoba was named a writer to watch in 2022 by CBC Books.
His latest book is Each One a Furnace, a poetry book that explores immigration
and transience through the imagery of migratory birds, which typify the unrest
of billions of humans in the modern world.
The other Canadian finalists were Ontario poet Liz Howard,
who made the Canadian shortlist for her second consecutive time and for her
sophomore book, Letters in a Bruised Cosmos, and Montreal poet David Bradford
for the collection Dream of No One but Myself.
The international winner was American poet Douglas Kearney
for Sho, a poetry book that was a 2021 U.S. National Book Award Finalist.
Sho is a collection of poems that reflect Black vernacular
traditions, while examining histories, pop culture, myth and folklore.
The other international finalists included Late to the House
of Words by Catalan writer Gemma Gorga, translated from Catalan by Sharon
Dolin, Eccentric Days of Hope and Sorrow by Ukrainian writer Natalka
Bilotserkivets, translated from Ukrainian by Ali Kinsella & Dzvinia
Orlowsky and Asked What Has Changed by American poet Ed Roberson.
The three judges of the 2022 Griffin Poetry Prize, Adam
Dickinson from Canada, Valzhyna Mort from Belarus and the U.S. and Claudia
Rankine from Jamaica and the U.S., read 639 books of poetry from 16 countries
to make the shortlists.
Other past Canadian winners include Billy-Ray Belcourt, Anne
Carson, Roo Borson, Dionne Brand and Jordan Abel.
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