| Year |
|
Winner |
Winner Work |
| 1980 |
|
Stephen Scobie |
McAlmon's Chinese opera |
| 1979 |
|
Michael Ondaatje |
There's a trick with a knife I'm learning to do |
| 1978 |
|
Patrick Lane |
Poems, new & selected |
| 1977 |
|
Douglas Gordon Jones |
Under the thunder the flowers light up the earth |
| 1976 |
|
Joe Rosenblatt |
Top soil |
| 1975 |
|
Milton Acorn |
The Island means Minago |
| 1974 |
|
Ralph Gustafson |
Fire on stone |
| 1973 |
|
Miriam Mandel |
Lions at her Face |
| 1972 |
|
Dennis Lee |
Civil Elegies and Other Poems |
| 1972 |
|
John Newlove |
Lies |
| 1971 |
|
John Glassco |
Selected poems with three notes on the poetic process |
| 1970 |
|
Barrie Phillip Nichol |
The true eventual story of Billy the Kid |
| 1970 |
|
Michael Ondaatje |
The Collected Works of Billy the Kid: Left-Handed Poems |
| 1969 |
|
George Bowering |
Rocky Mountain foot |
| 1969 |
|
Gwendolyn MacEwen |
The shadow-maker |
| 1968 |
|
Leonard Cohen |
SELECTED POEMS 1956 - 1968 |
| 1967 |
|
Alden Nowlan |
Bread, wine and salt |
| 1967 |
|
Eli Mandel |
An idiot joy |
| 1966 |
|
Margaret Atwood |
The Circle Game |
| 1965 |
|
Al Purdy |
The cariboo horses |
| 1964 |
|
Raymond Souster |
The colour of the times |
| 1962 |
|
James Reaney |
Twelve letters to a small town |
| 1961 |
|
Robert Finch |
Acis in Oxford |
| 1960 |
|
Margaret Avison |
Winter sun |
| 1959 |
|
Irving Layton |
A red carpet for the sun |
| 1958 |
|
James Reaney |
A suit of nettles |
| 1957 |
|
Jay Macpherson |
The Boatman |
| 1956 |
|
Robert Ford |
A window on the north |
| 1955 |
|
Wilfred Watson |
Friday's child |
| 1954 |
|
P. K. Page |
The metal and the flower |
| 1953 |
|
Douglas LePan |
The net and the sword |
| 1952 |
|
E. J. Pratt |
Towards the Last Spike |
| 1951 |
|
Charles Bruce |
Mulgrave Road |
| 1950 |
|
J. Watson |
Of time and the lover |
| 1949 |
|
James Reaney |
The red heart |
| 1948 |
|
A. M. Klein |
The rocking chair |
| 1947 |
|
Dorothy Livesay |
Poems for people |
| 1946 |
|
Robert Finch |
Poems |
| 1945 |
|
Earle Birney |
Now is time |
| 1944 |
|
Dorothy Livesay |
Day and night |
| 1943 |
|
A. J. M. Smith |
News of the phoenix, and other poems |
| 1942 |
|
Earle Birney |
David |
| 1941 |
|
Anne Marriott |
Calling Adventurers |
| 1940 |
|
E. J. Pratt |
Brébeuf and His Brethren |
| 1939 |
|
Arthur Bourinot |
Under the Sun |
| 1938 |
|
Kenneth Leslie |
By Stubborn Stars |
| 1937 |
|
E. J. Pratt |
The Fable of the Goats |
