Alex: Unlike other juries, the Runaway Jury doesn't just pick a winner. Since we're stuck with the shortlist provided by the "official" GG jury, we also sit in judgment on their selection. And we usually have some final comments (parting shots) as well. So let's get started.

Paul: Okay, what books should have been on this list? I liked George Murray's The Rush to Here and Chris Banks' The Cold Panes of Surfaces, both from Nightwood. I was very interested in Chris Patton's Ox, from your list, Carmine. And if I may be so bold, this year my imprint published a selected poems by David W. McFadden, selected and edited by Stuart Ross, called Why Are You So Sad? I feel that it's a significant book, and I was sad not to see it included.

Carmine: Prizes are political. Prizes reward in-group tastes. Prizes turn art into a horse-race. Prizes are the expression of incompetence, imbecility, and cowardice. At this date, virtually every insult you can think of leveling at literary prizes has been said before. That prizes overrate and are rarely right seems to me beyond dispute, and there's no reason to think this will ever change. The only sane response is to remind ourselves that art is long and literary prizes short. I wager that few of the poetry titles the GG has selected for scrutiny will be remembered  next year, and this includes the winner.

Still, it's hard not to feel disappointment. Take this year's jury. Who would have thought that such an experimentalist outfit would confirm the sleepiest view of Canadian poetry? Put Atwood, Winger, and Henderson against some the most interesting books published this year (by Barbara Nickel, Mary Dalton, Eric Ormsby, George Murray, Nick Thran, and Ken Sherman) and these three poets show up quite drably. One should be able to respectfully disagree with a jury's choice, not be dumbfounded by it, and these nominated books are more of a mess than I can quite believe. Limp rhythms, weak phrasing, and so-whatish writing that simply can't hold your attention line by line. The shortlist, and this jury, has also done an excellent job of highlighting a growing problem in Canadian poetry publishing: lack of editorial intervention. With the exception of the very tight Yesno, I'd say the editing on these books stretches from non-existent to bad. Poetry collections will always be touch and go, but what you don't want is to watch quality control go south. I can accept Domanski's unevenness because he's better than he sometimes writes. Any attempt to dismiss his book would force me to consciously fend off obvious aspects of his gift. But with Atwood, Henderson and (especially) Winger, the perception created is that they are no better than they write. Even a basic mop-up - deleting weak poems, repetitions, overwriting - would have improved these books immeasurably.

As a result, very little of the hope I feel for Canadian poetry is born out in this shortlist. If you read poetry long enough, you learn to appreciate how easily good books and good poets go unnoticed. I'm glad to see Lee and Domanski. But these guys are in a class by themselves, and if I'm at all divided about their presence it's because I also feel their selection was very far from a risk. Both are  blue chip choices, and this predictability does, I feel, an unreliable job of representing the exciting, much-misunderstood historical moment Canadian poetry finds itself in. This country is bursting at the seams with word-happy, form-shifting poets hungry for change and constantly on the look-out for what Auden called "new rhetoric." But rather than tracking this large-scale shift, this leap into "new rhetoric," this year’s jury produced a shortlist that feels like a standing hop.

Alex: I was a bit dumbfounded by the shortlist this year as well. I don't read as much poetry as either of you, but two books that I felt were unfairly overlooked were Kenneth Sherman's Black River and Eric Ormsby's Time's Covenant. As you say Carmine, prizes are political. And I can't think of any other reason but politics that could have kept Ormsby's book off this list. I felt it was the best book of poetry published this past year.

Having said all that, I confess I don't understand the politics. Who would have thought (I'm echoing Carmine here) that this jury would have championed not one but two verse biographies of nineteenth-century figures?

Overall I thought this was a weak list. Atwood's inclusion was, as I said in my earlier comments, probably inevitable. And The Door isn't a bad book. But it's nothing special. The Domanski has some good stuff in it, but I think we all agreed it was too long. In fact I think we're all pretty much in agreement with your comments about the lack of editing, Carmine. And since both you and Paul are editors, I think that means something. As for the Lee, I thought it was terrific judged on its own terms, but a bit slight. It's really half a book. The Henderson and Winger I perhaps unfairly lump together. I wanted to like both of them, but I couldn't help feeling that neither was really successful at achieving its goals.

Which brings us to the business of picking a winner. The official jury gave the prize to All Our Wonders Unavenged. Unless I'm mistaken, we're giving the prize to Yesno. So say we all?

Paul: Lee might be established in his reputation, but he ain't resting on his laurels. He's as hungry and as interesting in a new rhetoric as any young pup writing today. Maybe it comes from writing for children as well. In fact, Lee has said that he doesn't write for children, he writes as children. That's probably what keeps him young and his poetry fresh. Yes, my vote is for Lee, and for Yesno.

Carmine: Did I call it or what? Domanski was, as should be clear, my first choice, Lee second. But jury math - two firsts to my second - means that Lee gets the gold star.

Alex: Well then, that wraps it up for another year. Dennis Lee's virtual cheque for some preposterous amount is in the mail. Thanks to both of you for helping out!