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Paula Simons: Edmonton's pride Billy-Ray Belcourt scoops Canada's biggest poetry prize

"I have a sense of new urgency to write, to ensure that my next book is as politically and ethically energized as it can be."

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In the days leading up to the announcement of the Griffin Prize, Edmonton poet Billy-Ray Belcourt imagined what might happen if he won. Or if he didn’t.

As the youngest and least experienced of the three shortlisted finalists, he had no expectation of winning.

“I developed a whole host of scenarios in my mind. A series of windows. I could see it going any way. I could see the genius in the other two works. I was prepared to lose. And to win.”

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He tried to write an acceptance speech that he could read out at the awards banquet in Toronto. But he couldn’t bring himself to put words on paper.

So he was unprepared for the moment he actually learned his first book, This Wound is a World, had won Canada’s most prestigious — and lucrative — poetry prize.

“I couldn’t even make words, because I was sobbing so hard. I couldn’t look at anybody. When I got to the stage, I had to stare straight ahead. I know that if I were to lock eyes with anyone I’d start crying again.”

A tearful Edmonton poet Billy-Ray Belcourt is congratulated by Griffin prize founder Scott Griffin.
A tearful Edmonton poet Billy-Ray Belcourt is congratulated by Griffin prize founder Scott Griffin. Photo by Tom Sandler /Griffin Prize Foundation

Thursday evening, as the Washington Capitals were winning the Stanley Cup and Doug Ford was winning the Ontario provincial election, Belcourt, a 23-year-old PhD student at the University of Alberta and a member of the Driftpile First Nation, pulled off his own upset.

He’s the youngest person to win the Griffin Prize, and goes home with $75,000.

In some ways, though, Belcourt’s victory wasn’t a surprise. His debut poetry collection has been earning him the kind of media attention few writers and academics ever attract.

His poems are lean and sharp and passionate. Some are dark and sardonic. Others are raw and vulnerable. All are grounded in Belcourt’s fierce, unique sense of what it means to be Indigneous. And what it means to be queer.

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The international panel of judges described This Wound is a World as “poetry at its most intimate and politically necessary.”

“Between its bold treatment of sexuality and wary anatomy of despair, This Wound is a World peels back the layers of feeling and experience to offer, finally, the glimmerings of hope — which only sometimes looks like escape,” the judges concluded.

But the excellence of Belcourt’s poetry isn’t the only reason he’s in the spotlight.

His own personal narrative is so compelling — the story of a queer Cree kid from Joussard, on the south shore of Lesser Slave Lake, who made it to the University of Alberta, won the Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford, and returned to the U of A in triumph to complete his PhD.

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And then, there’s his own persona. Funny, outgoing, mischievous, politically provocative, he’s a social media maven who uses his Twitter feed, his Facebook page and his website to reach the sorts of readers who’ve never bought a chapbook.

And he’s a shape-shifter who can code-switch from rez kid to Rhodes Scholar, who’s fluent in both the abstruse jargon of high academic literary theory and the grittier diction of Grindr.

He’s certainly not the first Indigenous poet from Edmonton, nor the first to confront issues of Indigenous identity. This city is home to the likes of Marilyn Dumont, Anna Marie Sewall and Naomi McIlwraith, acclaimed writers who use their poetry to explore their Aboriginal or Métis roots.

But Belcourt, in a cutting, contemporary idiom, has made himself the urgent fresh voice of his generation, confronting and deconstructing the boundaries of identity.

When I tracked him down via cellphone at the Toronto airport Friday morning, he was still processing his win.

“I don’t even know what I’m going to do with the money,” he told me. “I’m thinking about how I might support other emerging Indigenous writers, how I might support my family. And then I’m going to do things like pay off my car loan and put away money for rent.”

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But the prize doesn’t just mean a lot of money. It means a whole new level of expectations. After all, when you win a giant prize at 23, what do you do for an encore?

“I have a sense of new urgency to write, to ensure that my next book is as politically and ethically energized as it can be,” Belcourt told me. “I feel a great sense of responsibility to try to continue writing in the mode that This Wound is a World does, with urgent and political attention. But I also know that if I never win another prize again, I’ll be fine.”

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    Paula Simons: University of Alberta's Billy-Ray Belcourt sets poetry world ablaze

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