News

Gerard Smyth has been announced as this year’s recipient of the Lawrence O’Shaughnessy Award for Poetry from the University of St Thomas’s Center for Irish Studies, in St Paul, Minnesota. The award was established in 1997 to honour Irish poets and named for Lawrence O'Shaughnessy.

Poetry Ireland was saddened to hear of the passing of Scottish-born poet Pearse Hutchinson who died last week, aged 84.

Hutchinson, described as a “hugely gifted poet and a remarkable, inspirational presence in Irish literature and in life”, worked as a broadcaster, reviewer, poet and translator. Poetry Ireland would like to extend our condolences to his family and friends.

Join us on Saturday 18 February to commemorate Hutchinson's work.

You can read more about Hutchinson, his work and life, in the Irish Times and Irish Independent.

In a frank article in the Telegraph, this year’s TS Eliot award winner (announced last week), John Burnside, discusses the repercussions of winning the prestigious award.

As much as it has ever done, poetry renews and deepens the gift that most surely makes us human: the imagination. And that is as essential to public as it is to private life, because the more imaginative we are, the more compassionate we become – and that, surely, is the highest virtue of all. 

Read the full piece here.

The Trustees of the estate of Katherine Kavanagh have awarded the 2011 Patrick and Katherine Kavanagh Fellowship, intended to assist poets in mid-career and worth €8,000 to each recipient, to Eileen Casey, Mark Granier and Michael O’Loughlin.

Eileen Casey, originally from Offaly, has lived in Tallaght, Co Dublin since the late 1970s. Her collections include Wall Street (Clothesline Press) and, most recently, From Bone to Blossom (Altents Publishing), a collaborative work with the artist Emma Barone.

Mark Granier’s third collection Fade Street was published by Salt Publishing in 2010; a portfolio of his photography is featured in the current issue of Irish Pages.

Michael O’Loughlin lived in mainland Europe for many years before returning to Ireland. His most recent collection is In This Life (Liffey Press, 2011).