2011 Montreal Prize Results
On Thursday December 15, 2011, we announced the results of the 2011 Montreal International Poetry Prize:
3pm EST: Our Longlist e-Anthology is now available for free download here.
5pm EST: The 2011 Montreal Prize Broadside artist is American poet and sculptor Eric Fischl. You can read about his amazing nonprofit art project, America: Now and Here in this New York Times article.
6pm EST: The poem selected for the 2011 Montreal Prize Broadside is “The Grasshoppers’ Silence” by Linda Rogers.
7pm EST: The poem selected for the $50,000 2011 Montreal International Poetry Prize is “Walking Underwater” by Australian poet Mark Tredinnick.Thanks to everyone who understood our efforts to crowdfund a major literary award, and who supported us by entering their poems, and finally to our
editors and prize judge for making the tough final choices.
2011 Montreal Prize Shortlist
To read about our shortlisted poets and listen to recordings of their poems (where available), please go here. Thanks as always to everyone who supported us in our efforts to establish the world’s first crowdfunded major literary award!
Our editors reviewed just over 3,000 entries from 59 countries, which we think is a good result for a startup nonprofit arts organization like ours.
The poems in the shortlist will be published in our groundbreaking 2011 Global Poetry Anthology. It will be available in print and e-versions early in the new year, published under the Signal Editions imprint of Montreal’s Véhicule Press. For advance orders of the anthology, please go here. Our portion of the proceeds goes directly to funding our global, nonprofit, grassroots poetry project.
In the meantime, you can download our 2011 Longlist e-Anthology for free here.
Welcome!
The nonprofit Montreal Prize is a first-of-its-kind global poetry competition awarding $50,000 for one poem. Our international jury of ten distinguished poets from Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe and the Americas will select the top 50 entries. This shortlist will be published in our groundbreaking global poetry anthology. And from that shortlist our prize judge, Andrew Motion, the former UK poet laureate, will select the winner of the 2011 prize. The 2011 Montreal Prize entry deadline was in July – thanks to everyone who supported us in our first year! We plan to publish our 2011 Global Poetry Anthology and announce the winning poem in December. Please check out the rest of our site for more details.
Competition
The Details: The final deadline for the 2011 Montreal Prize was July 11. Our editors read just over 3,000 poems from 59 countries. The prize winner was announced on December 15 2011 at 7pm EST. See our timeline for more details.
Global Jury of Editors: The Montreal Prize’s international jury of ten editors represents our ambition to bring poets together from around the world, and to read from a global perspective.
A major poetry prize funded by poets: Read about our funding model and our historic attempt to turn the traditional patronage model on its head.
Largest Prize of its Kind: The Montreal Prize awards the largest prize for a single poem and, significantly, it is the only $50,000 prize that is juried in a blind process (i.e. the jury doesn’t see author names). This completely levels the field and places the focus on the poem, not the poet.
Anthologies
Global Anthology: Our 50 finalists will be published in the Montreal Prize’s 2011 Global Poetry Anthology, to be published in December 2011.
The Longlist: The poems in our longlist have been published in a 2011 Longlist e-Anthology, which is available for free download.
Our Editors: Meet our global team of editors!
Selection Process: To preserve editorial independence, each poem is assessed by one editor only. This means the poets working as our editors have not had to make any committee compromises, and the poems they select represent each editor’s own judgment.
Our Publishers: Our anthologies will be published by Véhicule Press; check them out at www.vehiculepress.com.
Headlines
Updates: Here’s Poets & Writers Magazine on our December 15th announcements, with a video of our 2011 Broadside poet, Linda Rogers, giving a reading.
In The Media: Check us out at Cafe Babel, the Huffington Post and at Poets & Writers.
Here’s a nice mention of one of our longlisted poets, Robyn Black.
In the Poetry News Ted Hughes has been inducted into Poets’ Corner in Westminster Abbey.
Check out this project of one of our shortlisted poets, Emeka Okereke: Invisible Borders Trans African Photography Initiative.
Check out the awesome and humbling work being done by Splendors of Dawn, an African poetry foundation based in Ghana.
Here’s Seamus Heaney on the meaning and value of literary prizes.
Media: For information on the Montreal Prize in the media please go to our newsroom.
