Goldsmith International Poetry Competition

Off to Goldsmith Country, Co Longford this Sunday for the Goldsmith International Literary Festival. I was lucky enough to get second prize this year in the poetry competition for a poem entitled Journey Back.

A pretty good poem, though I say it myself, which was written recently as a result of (I avoid the phrase inspired by) seeing an exhibition in Solstice Arts Centre, Navan by artist Catherine Delaney entitled Pile in which she used unwanted clothes dropped in by Navan people. My poem imagines all the clothes I ever wore stretched between Trim and Carrowloughan, Co Sligo where I was born.

The judge for this year's competition was the wonderful poet and excellent judge of poetry, Mary Melvin Geoghegan. I also got second prize in 2008 in the same competition. The judge that year was the equally wonderful Jean O'Brien.