iYeats Poetry Competition Reading

Just back from a quick two days in Sligo. The black and white Sligo GAA flags look very forlorn after the Connacht Final defeat and the bad defeat on Saturday. Ah well there's always next year!

Attended the two morning lectures at the Yeats Summer School this morning - more later maybe. Then the prize giving for the iYeats poetry competition. This was held in the foyer of the Hawk's Well Theatre just after the second lecture and many of the attendance remained to hear the winning and commended poems being read. The large audience got a real treat. The theme of the competition was A Sense of Place and the poems read interpreted this in all kinds of wonderfully different ways. Neither of the judges, Rita Ann Higgins or Vincent Woods could be present.

Jane Clarke, pictured above reading her poem, was the winner and she had two poems commended also. These were three very different reflections on places, a Galway forest, a coastal lighthouse and Gaza City. Very accomplished and a well deserved victory. The Emerging Talent section was won by Matthew Ryan Shelton who lives in Texas so his poem Nostos was read by Richard Halperin.

Other highly commended who were present were Lizann Gorman: Let Us Take The Chair; Mags Treanor: View From A Ditch; Shirley McClure: Labels; Diane Myers: Beating the Bounds; Richard Halperin: Croke Park and Winifred Mc Nulty: Mahon. All were very well received and I though the delivery in all cases was very good. It was a very appreciative and attentive audience though there was a sense of the shade of W. B. sitting in a corner looking down his nose at the modern competition!

I read my poem Townlands. It's always difficult to know how much of an introduction to give a poem and this time the introductions in general were quite short and effective. I decided to dispense with an introduction and I think that worked well. I enjoyed reading, I think it's a good poem for reading aloud. Does that mean it's a good poem. Don't know, don't care!

Thanks to all who were involved in this competition. It was wonderful to be a part of it.

The full list of poets commended and the winning poems are here.

iYeats Poetry Competition

I'm not sure how this happened but one of my entries has been added to the iYeats Highly Commended list. Originally it wasn't there but I got an email saying that the judges were impressed with one of my entries and inviting me to read it at the prize giving. I said great, to be noticed at all is welcome!

Then this week I got another email saying that the judges had decided to add the poem Townlands to the Highly Commended list. I'm delighted especially as sending that poem was based on the theme of the competition- A Sense of Place - and on reckoning that these two judges, Vincent Woods and Rita Ann Higgins (pictured) might just be the ones to recognise it as a slightly different take on the topic.

The poem is basically a list of townlands in Sligo associated with my mother. It's composed of lines such as She was born in x x x, She's buried in x x x. You could write your own poem on the same pattern!

It finishes with a few lines reflecting the narrow range of travel of most of her generation and contrasts that with what is now available to my generation. A simple concept which relies on the lovely townland names for its effect.

I'm in good company in the list. Richard Halpern who appeared yesterday on the Welsh Poetry List is there as are Lizann Gorman and Mags Treanor who we have published in Boyne Berries, Shirley McClure who was a winner in the Kavanagh last year, Connie Roberts who got a Poetry Ireland Introductions slot this year and of course Jane Clarke who is the outright winner and also has a Highly Commended poem.

Looking forward to the event in The Hawk's Well Theatre, Sligo on Monday.