Margaret Atwood receives lifetime Griffin Poetry Prize

Margaret Atwood receives lifetime Griffin Poetry Prize

Margaret Atwood, photographed in November, 2023, told a Toronto audience on Wednesday it was not too late for the United States.

In accepting her Lifetime Recognition Award at the Griffin Poetry Prize gala at Toronto’s Koerner Hall on Wednesday night, Margaret Atwood read a pair of her poems while sitting in a chair.

There were slight issues. The 85-year-old poet-novelist said that due to cataracts she would need to hold the pages near her face. She also had to clutch a microphone, which was, she said, “just slightly awkward.”

Griffin trustee and U.S. poet Carolyn Forché, the longtime friend who interviewed Atwood on stage, offered to hold the mic. Atwood declined the offer because, she explained, “It would involve you kneeling a