The Canadian poetry community is mourning the passing of Toronto poet David W. McFadden. His death comes a day before the award of the $65,000 Griffin Prize for Poetry, for which McFadden was nominated in 2008 and which he won in 2013 for his collection What’s The Score?

He died Wednesday at the age of 77.

In a statement posted on its website, the Griffin Trust said it was “deeply saddened” by his death and offered “profound condolences to his beloved partner Merlin Homer and to the countless lovers of poetry who were delighted by his wry, perceptive words and were privileged to experience his wit, intelligence, kind mentoring, friendship and inspiration.”

Poet and editor Stuart Ross, who worked with McFadden on his last seven books, paid tribute, saying, “We’ve lost a brilliant poet completely without pretension: his poetry was deeply human, a very friendly poetry, and full of curiosity and wonder. Exactly like Dave himself.

“When I first discovered his poetry at age 15, I couldn’t believe it: you could write about profound things, and still be conversational and funny and even surreal. It was transformative for me.”

In an interview with the Star around the time of his 2008 Griffin prize nomination for Why Are You So Sad?, McFadden said, “The poet Frank O’Hara once remarked he wanted to die unheralded ... He didn’t want any honours. It might seem a little phoney for him to say that, but I understand what he was talking about. People keep saying to me, ‘Congratulations. It’s about time.’ What do you mean, ‘It’s about time?’ I’m only 68.”

McFadden published more than 30 volumes of verse, three of which were nominated for the Governor General’s Literary Awards: Gypsy Guitar, The Art of Darkness and Be Calm, Honey.

Watch a video of McFadden reading the poem “Secrets of the Universe” from Why Are You So Sad?: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9PZRtVAHQlI