ANNOUNCING THE JURY FOR THE 2026 AL AND EURITHE PURDY POETRY PRIZE

The Al Purdy A-frame Association and Eurithe Purdy are delighted to announce that acclaimed author Susan Musgrave will join previous Purdy Poetry Prize recipients Sid Marty and A.F. Moritz as jurors for the 2026 Al & Eurithe Purdy Poetry Prize. The $10,000 prize will recognize the most outstanding new poetry book published in Canada in 2025 by an established poet with five or more published poetry collections. The recipient of the 2026 prize will be announced on April 21, 2026.

Susan Musgrave is the author of over 30 books and has been recognized with awards across six different categories: poetry, novels, non-fiction, food writing, editing, and children’s literature. A three-time nominee for the Governor General’s Literary Awards and recipient of the George Woodcock Lifetime Achievement Award, Musgrave was most recently shortlisted for the 2023 Griffin Poetry Prize for her luminous collection Exculpatory Lilies. She lives on Haida Gwaii.

Sid Marty is an Alberta-based author of five books of poetry and five books of nonfiction, some of which are based on his formative experiences as a park warden in the Rocky Mountain National Parks. He was twice shortlisted for the Governor General’s Literary Award and won the Mountain Environment and Culture Award at the Banff Mountain Book Festival. In 2024, he was awarded the inaugural Al & Eurithe Purdy Poetry Prize for Oldman’s River: New and Collected Poems.

Toronto poet and scholar A.F. Moritz is the author of 22 volumes of poetry. He is the recipient of the Griffin Poetry Prize, the ReLit Award, the Beth Hokin Prize, the Raymond Souster Award, and a finalist for the Trillium Award and the Governor General’s Award (twice). He has received a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Ingram Merrill Fellowship, and the Award in Literature of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 2025, he received the Al & Eurithe Purdy Poetry Prize for his collection Great Silent Ballad.

Eurithe Purdy founded the Al & Eurithe Purdy Poetry Prize in 2024 to recognize and reward poets of distinguished achievement who demonstrate exceptional talent and a profound connection to the Canadian spirit, which her husband so memorably captured in his works. Al Purdy is often regarded as the “unofficial poet laureate” of English Canada, leaving a significant mark on Canadian literature. Over his prolific career, he authored more than 30 poetry collections, a memoir, essays, a novel, and various anthologies. His contributions earned him the Governor General’s Literary Award twice, and he was named an Officer of the Order of Canada and a member of the Order of Ontario.

The submission deadline is November 30, 2025. Eligibility guidelines and entry forms are posted on the Al Purdy A-frame Association website.

For more information on the Al and Eurithe Purdy Poetry Prize, email prizecoordinator@shaw.ca