This is a list of recipients and nominees of the Governor General's Awards award for English-language poetry. The award was created in 1981 when the Governor General's Award for English language poetry or drama was divided.[1]
| Year | Author | Title | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1981 | F. R. Scott | The Collected Poems of F. R. Scott | [2] |
| Alfred Bailey | Miramichi Lightning: Collected Poems | ||
| Barry McKinnon | The The | ||
| 1982 | Phyllis Webb | The Vision Tree: Selected Poems | [3] |
| Robert Bringhurst | The Beauty of the Weapons: Selected Poems 1972-1982 | [4] | |
| Barry Dempster | Fables for Isolated Men | ||
| Diane Keating | No Birds or Flowers | ||
| 1983 | David Donnell | Settlements | [5] |
| Christopher Dewdney | Predators of the Adoration: Selected Poems 1972-82 | [6] | |
| Don McKay | Birding, or Desire | ||
| Doctrine of Signatures | |||
| 1984 | Paulette Jiles | Celestial Navigation | [7] |
| Roo Borson | The Whole Night, Coming Home | [8] | |
| Marilyn Bowering | The Sunday Before Winter | ||
| David McFadden | The Art of Darkness | ||
| Sharon Thesen | Confabulations | ||
| Peter van Toorn | Mountain Tea | ||
| 1985 | Fred Wah | Waiting for Saskatchewan | [9] |
| Lorna Crozier | The Garden Going on Without Us | [10] | |
| Richard Lush | A Manual for Lying Down | ||
| Anne Szumigalski | Instar | ||
| 1986 | Al Purdy | The Collected Poems of Al Purdy | [11] |
| Christopher Dewdney | The Immaculate Perception | [12] | |
| John Newlove | The Night the Dog Smiled | ||
| 1987 | Gwendolyn MacEwen | Afterworlds | [13] |
| Di Brandt | Questions I Asked My Mother | [14] | |
| Roy Kiyooka | Pear Tree Pomes | ||
| Sharon Thesen | The Beginning of the Long Dash | ||
| 1988 | Erín Moure | Furious | [15] |
| Lorna Crozier | Angels of Flesh, Angels of Silence | [16] | |
| Christopher Dewdney | Radiant Inventory | ||
| David McFadden | Gypsy Guitar | ||
| Peter Dale Scott | Coming to Jakarta | ||
| 1989 | Heather Spears | The Word for Sand | [17] |
| Tim Lilburn | Tourist to Ecstasy | [18] | |
| Stephen Scobie | Dunino |
| Year | Author | Title | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1990 | Margaret Avison | No Time | [19] |
| Dionne Brand | No Language Is Neutral | [20] | |
| Patrick Lane | Winter | ||
| 1991 | Don McKay | Night Field | [21] |
| Wolf-Ladder | [22] | ||
| Judith Fitzgerald | Rapturous Chronicles | ||
| Mortal Remains | |||
| Anne Michaels | Miner's Pond | ||
| 1992 | Lorna Crozier | Inventing the Hawk | [23] |
| Evelyn Lau | Oedipal Dreams | [24] | |
| Laura Lush | Hometown | ||
| Steve McCaffery | Theory of Sediment | ||
| Kathleen McCracken | Blue Light, Bay and College | ||
| 1993 | Don Coles | Forests of the Medieval World | [25] |
| Claire Harris | Drawing Down a Daughter | [26] | |
| Monty Reid | Crawlspace: New and Selected Poems | ||
| Douglas Burnet Smith | Voices from a Farther Room | ||
| Patricia Young | More Watery Still | ||
| 1994 | Robert Hilles | Cantos from a Small Room | [27] |
| Robin Blaser | The Holy Forest | [28] | |
| Polly Fleck | The Chinese Execution | ||
| Monty Reid | Dog Sleeps | ||
| 1995 | Anne Szumigalski | Voice | [29] |
| Roo Borson | Night Walk | [30] | |
| Di Brandt | Jerusalem, Beloved | ||
| Don Domanski | Stations of the Left Hand | ||
| Steven Heighton | The Ecstasy of Skeptics | ||
| 1996 | E. D. Blodgett | Apostrophes: Woman at a Piano | [31] |
| Elizabeth Brewster | Footnotes to the Book of Job | [32] | |
| Crispin Elsted | Climate and the Affections | ||
| Charles Lillard | Shadow Weather | ||
| Erín Moure | Search Procedures | ||
| 1997 | Dionne Brand | Land to Light On | [33] |
| Marilyn Bowering | Autobiography | [34] | |
| Patrick Friesen | A Broken Bowl | ||
| Carole Glasser Langille | In Cannon Cave | ||
| Don McKay | Apparatus | ||
| 1998 | Stephanie Bolster | White Stone: The Alice Poems | [35] |
| Louise Bernice Halfe | Blue Marrow | [36] | |
| Michael Ondaatje | Handwriting | ||
| Lisa Robertson | Debbie: An Epic | ||
| Kathy Shaidle | Lobotomy Magnificat | ||
| 1999 | Jan Zwicky | Songs for Relinquishing the Earth | [37] |
| Lynn Davies | The Bridge that Carries the Road | [38] | |
| Susan Goyette | The True Names of Birds | ||
| Richard Harrison | Big Breath of a Wish | ||
| Terence Young | The Island in Winter |
| Year | Author | Title | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2000 | Don McKay | Another Gravity | [39] |
| George Bowering | His Life | [40] | |
| A. F. Moritz | Rest on the Flight into Egypt | ||
| John Pass | Water Stair | ||
| Patricia Young | Ruin and Beauty | ||
| 2001 | George Elliott Clarke | Execution Poems | [41] |
| Anne Carson | Men in the Off Hours | [42] | |
| Phil Hall | Trouble Sleeping | ||
| Robert Kroetsch | The Hornbooks of Rita K. | ||
| Steve McCaffery | Seven Pages Missing | ||
| 2002 | Roy Miki | Surrender | [43] |
| Tammy Armstrong | Bogman's Music | [44] | |
| Colin Browne | Ground Water | ||
| Kathy Mac | Nail Builders Plan for Strength and Growth | ||
| Erín Moure | O Cidadán | ||
| 2003 | Tim Lilburn | Kill-site | [45] |
| Tim Bowling | The Witness Ghost | [46] | |
| Evan Jones | Nothing Fell Today But Rain | ||
| Anne Simpson | Loop | ||
| Tom Wayman | My Father's Cup | ||
| 2004 | Roo Borson | Short Journey Upriver Toward Oishida | [47] |
| Tim Bowling | The Memory Orchard | [48] | |
| David Manicom | The Burning Eaves | ||
| John Terpstra | Disarmament | ||
| Jan Zwicky | Robinson's Crossing | ||
| 2005 | Anne Compton | processional | [49] |
| Barry Dempster | The Burning Alphabet | [50] | |
| Erín Moure | Little Theatres | ||
| W. H. New | Underwood Log | ||
| Olive Senior | Over the Roofs of the World | ||
| 2006 | John Pass | Stumbling in the Bloom | [51] |
| Ken Babstock | Airstream Land Yacht | [52] | |
| Elizabeth Bachinsky | Home of Sudden Service | ||
| Dionne Brand | Inventory | ||
| Sharon Thesen | The Good Bacteria | ||
| 2007 | Don Domanski | All Our Wonder Unavenged | [53] |
| Margaret Atwood | The Door | [54] | |
| Brian Henderson | Nerve Language | ||
| Dennis Lee | Yesno | ||
| Rob Winger | Muybridge's Horse | ||
| 2008 | Jacob Scheier | More to Keep Us Warm | [55] |
| Weyman Chan | Noise from the Laundry | [56] | |
| A. F. Moritz | The Sentinel | ||
| Sachiko Murakami | The Invisibility Exhibit | ||
| Ruth Roach Pierson | Aide-Mémoire | ||
| 2009 | David Zieroth | The Fly in Autumn | [57] |
| David McFadden | Be Calm, Honey | [58] | |
| Philip Kevin Paul | Little Hunger | ||
| Sina Queyras | Expressway | ||
| Carmine Starnino | This Way Out |
| Year | Author | Title | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2010 | Richard Greene | Boxing the Compass | [59] |
| Michael Harris | Circus | [60] | |
| Daryl Hine | &: A Serial Poem | ||
| Sandy Pool | Exploding into Night | ||
| Melanie Siebert | Deepwater Vee | ||
| 2011 | Phil Hall | Killdeer | [61] |
| Michael Boughn | Cosmographia: A Post-Lucretian Faux Micro-Epic | [62] | |
| Kate Eichhorn | Fieldnotes, A Forensic | ||
| Garry Thomas Morse | Discovery Passages | ||
| Susan Musgrave | Origami Dove | ||
| 2012 | Julie Bruck | Monkey Ranch | [63] |
| David McGimpsey | Li'l Bastard | [64] | |
| A. F. Moritz | The New Measures | ||
| Lisa Pasold | Any Bright Horse | ||
| James Pollock | Sailing to Babylon | ||
| 2013 | Katherena Vermette | North End Love Songs | [65] |
| Austin Clarke | Where the Sun Shines Best | [66] | |
| Adam Dickinson | The Polymers | ||
| Don Domanski | Bite Down Little Whisper | ||
| Russell Thornton | Birds, Metal, Stones & Rain | ||
| 2014 | Arleen Paré | Lake of Two Mountains | [67] |
| Julie Joosten | Light Light | [68] | |
| Christopher Levenson | Night Vision | ||
| Garth Martens | Prologue for the Age of Consequence | ||
| Sadiqa de Meijer | Leaving Howe Island | ||
| 2015 | Robyn Sarah | My Shoes Are Killing Me | [69] |
| Kayla Czaga | For Your Safety Please Hold On | [70] | |
| Liz Howard | Infinite Citizen of the Shaking Tent | ||
| M. Travis Lane | Crossover | ||
| Patrick Lane | Washita | ||
| 2016 | Steven Heighton | The Waking Comes Late | [71] |
| Joe Denham | Regeneration Machine | [72] | |
| Susan Holbrook | Throaty Wipes | ||
| Garry Thomas Morse | Prairie Harbour | ||
| Rachel Rose | Marry & Burn | ||
| 2017 | Richard Harrison | On Not Losing My Father's Ashes in the Flood | [73] |
| Lorna Crozier | What the Soul Doesn't Want | [74] | |
| Nora Gould | Selah | ||
| Benjamin Hertwig | Slow War | ||
| Julia McCarthy | All the Names Between | ||
| 2018 | Cecily Nicholson | Wayside Sang | [75] |
| Billy-Ray Belcourt | This Wound Is a World | [76] | |
| Dionne Brand | The Blue Clerk | ||
| Joshua Mensch | Because: A Lyric Memoir | ||
| Jason Stefanik | Night Became Years | ||
| 2019 | Gwen Benaway | Holy Wild | [77] |
| Julie Bruck | How to Avoid Huge Ships | [78] | |
| Karen Houle | The Grand River Watershed: A Folk Ecology | ||
| Catherine Hunter | St. Boniface Elegies | ||
| Armand Garnet Ruffo | Treaty # |
| Year | Author | Title | Ref |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | Anne Carson | Norma Jeane Baker of Troy | [79] |
| Oana Avasilichioaei | Eight Track | [80] | |
| Donna Kane | Orrery | ||
| Canisia Lubrin | The Dyzgraphxst | ||
| Sachiko Murakami | Render | ||
| 2021 | Tolu Oloruntoba | The Junta of Happenstance | [81] |
| Roxanna Bennett | The Untranslatable I | [82] | |
| Stephen Collis | A History of the Theories of Rain | ||
| Hoa Nguyen | A Thousand Times You Lose Your Treasure | ||
| Rebecca Salazar | Sulphurtongue | ||
| 2022 | Annick MacAskill | Shadow Blight | [83] |
| David Bradford | Dream of No One But Myself | [84] | |
| Anne Carson | H of H Playbook | ||
| Aaron Kreuter | Shifting Baseline Syndrome | ||
| Avery Lake | Horrible Dance | ||
| 2023 | Hannah Green | Xanax Cowboy | [85] |
| Robert Bringhurst | The Ridge | [86] | |
| Conor Kerr | Old Gods | ||
| Amy Ching-Yan Lam | Baby Book | ||
| Susan Musgrave | Exculpatory Lilies |