Friday, March 05, 2010

Maggs wins Kobzar... though not in a shutout



Congratulations to Ontario poetry publisher Brick Books and to its author, Randall Maggs who last night won the $25,000 Kobzar Literary Award for his book Night Work: The Sawchuk Poems.

I have to admit a fondness for this particular book, as I reviewed it for the Globe & Mail in a previous life, but being a public servant now I kept out of all betting pools around the award result.

It was a fine shortlist, including:

- God of Missed Connections by Elizabeth Bachinsky (Nightwood Edition);

- Redemption and Ritual: The Eastern-Rite Redemptorists of North America, 1906-2006 (Redeemer’s Voice Press); and

- Zo by Murray Andrew Pura (Windhover Marsh)

Congratulations as well to the Ukrainian Canadian Foundation of Taras Shevchenko who administer the award. They put on an award ceremony and dinner to rival any literary party in the country.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Thanks, John. I'm so glad you had a chance to meet Randall last night.

Kitty Lewis, General Manager, Brick Books

Pearl said...

that book is unstoppable.