Prole Laureate Competition - Third Prize!

Another Yipee!! My poem The Truth has won third prize in the Prole Laureate competition, 2012, a competition run by the UK based poetry and prose magazine. The judge was the wonderful young poet Andrew McMillan.

The Truth is a fairly recent poem of mine, not in the forthcoming collection, which goes down very well at readings. However I did doubt its impact on the page and indeed it was not even long-listed in a recent Irish competition. Just shows taste varies enormously in poetry.

The results may not yet be posted on the competition page but are announced in the magazine. The three prizewinning poems are printed in the latest issue of Prole with the judge's comments. Winner was Marilyn Francis and second place was won by Cathy Bryant, both young, UK and female.

I won't print my poem here (buy the magazine!!) but here's what the judge, Andrew, said of it:

A lesser poet would have taken pages, or maybe even a full collection, to say what Farry distils here into a beautifully simple poem. Ideas of genealogy, ageing and truth are handled with great care and given the space they need to breathe in the short, sparse lines. The ending is heartbreaking and well earned through a poem which builds itself on allusion, on half-told stories, on broken trusts; what sort of style could better imitate the life so many of us have known?

I'm delighted and flattered. You can order the magazine, hardcopy or pdf version on this page. A bumper issue, over 100 pages, with high quality prose and poetry.