TORONTO - Late Scottish poet Mick Imlah, who died in January of Lou Gehrig's disease at age 52, wasn't much of a self-promoter, says his longtime friend, Mark Ford.

"He didn't do much to try and make himself known or famous," Ford, a professor of English and American literature at University College London, said in a recent phone interview.

"He just got on with it and the kick he got out of writing these things was what kept him doing them."

So when Imlah's last collection of poetry, "The Lost Leader" (Faber and Faber), won Britain's Forward Poetry Prize (worth about C$18,000) last year and then was shortlisted for the $50,000 Griffin Poetry Prize --to be presented Wednesday in Toronto -- his loved ones were "really delighted" that his work was being recognized on a much larger scale than he ever expected, said Ford.

"That it's being acknowledged beyond the shores of Great Britain is really terrific," said Ford, who is also Imlah's literary executor. "It just sort of proves what I suppose most poets know -- that quality survives and is recognized."

"The Lost Leader," a humorous and ironic rundown of Scottish history, is just the second full poetry collection published by Imlah. His first was 1988's "Birthmarks."

It took the writer, editor and critic -- revered for his witty and wry verses -- nearly two decades to release the second book because he was a perfectionist, said Ford.

"A lot of his poems make very daring or innovative use of form and he took great delight in that and it took him a long time to get them right," said Ford, who met Imlah about 25 years ago at the University of Oxford, where the late poet was a doctoral student and also taught. He was also an editor at several publications, including the Poetry Review, the Times Literary Supplement and the New Penguin Book of Scottish Verse.

"I'd often ask him in the '90s: 'When's your new book coming out?' and he said, 'Oh, it's all done, it's all ready, I'm about to send it off,' and that was the last one heard of it and this kept going on that he was always about to send it off but never quite did," said Imlah.

"In fact, it was only when his motor neuron disease kind of forced his hand (in fall 2007) that he did gather together the poems that he'd been writing."

"The Lost Leader," which was also shortlisted for the 2008 T. S. Eliot Prize for poetry in the U.K., is up against three other titles for the Griffin, which honours the best book by an international poet published in English in the previous year.

The others are "Life on Earth" by Ireland's Derek Mahon (Gallery Press); "Rising, Falling, Hovering" by American C. D. Wright (Copper Canyon Press); and "Primitive Mentor" by American Dean Young (University of Pittsburgh Press).

The Griffin also awards a $50,000 prize to the best book by a Canadian poet published in English in the previous year. This year's contenders for that honour are Toronto's Kevin Connolly for "Revolver" (House of Anansi Press); A. F. Moritz, also of Toronto, for "The Sentinel" (House of Anansi Press); and Jeramy Dodds of Orono, Ont., for "Crabwise to the Hounds" (Coach House Books).

The annual Griffin prize, now into its ninth year, was created by Toronto businessman Scott Griffin and a group of writers including Margaret Atwood and Michael Ondaatje.

This year's judges include noted Canadian writer Michael Redhill, Saskia Hamilton from New York City and Ireland's Dennis O'Driscoll.

Each judge read 485 books of poetry, including 33 translations, received from 32 countries around the globe.

Ford says no one will be at the Toronto awards ceremony to represent Imlah. Logistically it was too difficult for Ford, a father of two, and for Imlah's widow, Maren Meinhardt, and their two little girls.

"Unfortunately there won't be anyone from Mick's side there," said Ford. "If he wins, which I certainly hope he does, it will be a shame (we won't see it)."