I attended the An Post Irish Book Awards last Tuesday night and was delighted to be awarded Listowel Writers’ Week Irish Poem of the Year on the night. I was presented with the award by Catherine Moylan, Chair of Writers’s Week. It was a great event. I was shortlisted along with poets John W. Sexton and Erin Halliday and you can read all three shortlisted poems here. My huge thanks to Catherine, Liz Dunn and Máire Logue at Writers’ Week and all the people who voted for my poem “Birthday” in the run up to the awards.
Details of all the winning books are can be found at the Irish Book Awards website.
Thanks also to Jessie Lendennie and Siobhan Hutson at Salmon Poetry who published my collection After The Fall last year, from which “Birthday” is taken. Hopefully this award will send more people towards my collection in particular, but also towards poetry in general. It’s vital that poetry has a place at the table at these literary awards events.
If you’re interested you can order a copy of After The Fall directly from the Salmon Poetry website or from your local bookshop.
It’s been a great end to the year, but it’s not over yet. More poetry news to follow shortly!
