Karen Leeder and Durs Grünbein have won the 2025 Griffin Poetry Prize.
Today, the Griffin Poetry Prize—the world’s largest international prize for a single book of poetry published in English—announced its 2025 winner, chosen from an illustrious shortlist of five. Karen Leeder has taken home the top prize for her translation, from the German, of Durs Grünbein’s Psyche Running.
“Durs Grünbein’s Psyche Running is a brilliant overview and selection of a poet who satisfies our hunger to be serious, as again and again he finds himself ‘between words and things,’ the judges said. “Karen Leeder’s adept translations establish a new version of Grünbein in English: universal, lyrical, philosophical.”
The prize of C$130,000 will be shared between Leeder, who will receive 60%, and Durs Grünbein, the original author. Each other shortlisted poet will be awarded C$10,000.
The prize was judged this year by Nick Laird, Anne Michaels, and Tomasz Różycki, who read and evaluated a total of 578 books to decide on the winner.
Durs Grünbein, tr. Karen Leeder, Psyche Running
Seagull Books
