Joyce Mansour’s ‘Emerald Wounds’ Makes Griffin Poetry Prize’s 2024 Longlist

March 21, 2024 – The Griffin Poetry Prize — one of the world’s largest and most celebrated poetry prizes — yesterday announced their 2024 longlist. Among the longlistees was Egyptian poet Joyce Mansour’s Emerald Wounds: Selected Poems, translated from French by Emilie Moorhouse. (Read selections from Emerald Wounds here.)

Joyce Mansour (1928-1986) was born in Bowden, England, to Jewish-Egyptian parents, but moved to Cairo as an infant, where she lived  until moving to Paris in 1953. That’s where she published her first collection and found a place for her writing at the center of Parisian Surrealist poetry. André Breton said of her poetry: “You know very well, Joyce, that you are for me–and very objectively too–the greatest poet of our time. Surrealist poetry, that’s you.”

In a prepared statement, Griffin Poetry Prize organizers announced that the prizes three judges — Albert F. Moritz (Canada), Jan Wagner (Germany), and Anne Waldman (USA) — had each read 592 books of poetry, including 49 translations from 22 languages. There were only four translations on the ten-book longlist. In its entirety:

A Crash Course in Molotov Cocktails ● Amelia M. Glaser, USA and Yuliya Ilchuk, Ukraine, translated from the Ukrainian written by Halyna Kruk, Ukraine, Arrowsmith Press

To 2040 ● Jorie Graham, USA, Copper Canyon Press

School of Instructions ● Ishion Hutchinson, Jamaica, Faber & Faber, and Farrar, Straus & Giroux

Door ● Ann Lauterbach, USA, Penguin Books

The Lights ● Ben Lerner, USA, Farrar, Straus & Giroux, and Granta Poetry

Self-Portrait in the Zone of Silence ● George McWhirter, Northern Ireland/Canada, translated from the Spanish written by Homero Aridjis, Mexico, New Directions Publishing

Emerald Wounds: Selected Poems of Joyce Mansour ● Emilie Moorhouse, Canada, translated from the French written by Joyce Mansour, France, City Lights Books

perennial fashion presence falling ● Fred Moten, USA, Wave Books

To the Letter ● Mira Rosenthal, USA, translated from the Polish written by Tomasz Różycki, Poland, Archipelago Books

And And And ● Cole Swensen, USA, Shearsman Books

The five-book shortlist is set to be announced on Wednesday, April 17, 2024, with the winner coming June 5.

The winner takes $130,000, while the other shortlisted finalists each receive $10,000.