Poetry Ireland announces three new guest editors for Poetry Ireland Review 2025
Poetry Ireland is delighted to announce three new guest editors of Poetry Ireland Review for the 2025 publication year.
Each will take up editorship of an issue of the highly-regarded poetry journal. The three guest editors are Victoria Kennefick, spring issue, Stephen Sexton, summer issue, and Theo Dorgan, winter issue. Our Irish language editor is Aifric MacAodha.
This is the fourth year in which Poetry Ireland has welcomed guest editors for Poetry Ireland Review. All three editors will review submissions for their respective issues of Poetry Ireland Review,145, 146, and 147. The spring submission window for the issue edited by Victoria Kennefick opens on 1st January and closes on 28th February. The summer submission window for the issue edited by Stephen Sexton will open on May 1st and close on June 30th and the winter submission window for the issue edited by Theo Dorgan will open on 1st August and close on 15th October.
Victoria Kennefick: Victoria Kennefick said “the late great poet, Nikki Giovanni, said “If you don't understand yourself, you don't understand anybody else.” But what does it mean to understand the self? How can we hope to connect with and explore our authentic essence in a busy, loud world that actively encourages us to seek validation, success and love outside of ourselves? Childhood experiences, education, relationships, work, loss, trauma and failure all impact how we present to the world, often tying ourselves in knots to try to fit in, to be accepted, to be viewed as ‘normal.’ I would argue that for Giovanni, and for many poets, poetry is the vehicle by which we can begin to explore our own inner worlds, and how these impact our perception of the outer one. As Anaïs Nin stated, “We don’t see things as they are; we see them as we are” and this might be the informal theme of this issue. I invite you to send me poems that show the readers of Poetry Ireland Review 145 you and your world. I want to read about how you navigate your life and the struggles you endure to stay true to yourself –– I also want to read about times when you lost yourself or your way. Failures, mistakes and missteps are all welcome! Being human is a messy and confusing business, but how we navigate this chaos and uncertainty is how we learn to trust in ourselves, learn and grow in art and in life. There is no one else like you, I very much look forward to reading your poems”
Stephen Sexton: Of his approach, editor Stephen Sexton says “Traditionally, on midsummer’s night, you should approach the hazel tree backwards between the hours of twelve and one o'clock and snip off the most suitable switch. This, your dowsing rod, will draw you to water hidden underground. In some cases, it will locate treasure. For Poetry Ireland Review 146, I invite poets new and established to send poems that surprise and delight in their turns and tones. Alongside those full of the mischief of midsummer, the folkloric, the fanciful, I welcome poems of sceptical magic and ordinary (and extraordinary) humanity: poems of the personal and the political, elegies and laments, war poems and love poems.
Theo Dorgan: As to PIR 147, Theo Dorgan said that “the theme issue will focus on Love Poems to Humans. I have it in mind that the bravest and most rewarding of human adventures is to give your hear freely to another, to celebrate wholeheartedly the totality of another human life, and to glory in it. "We must love one another or die" comes from Auden's 'September 1, 1939', as many will know. We would do well to remember the last line of that poem, where the poet speaks of his wish, in the face of the oncoming dark, to "Show an affirming flame".
Previous editors of Poetry Ireland Review have included Mary O’ Donnell, Mícheál McCann, Jessica Traynor, Annemarie Ní Churreáin, Maurice Riordan, Eavan Boland, Colette Bryce, Vona Groarke, John F Deane, Caitríona O Reilly, Paul Muldoon, Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin, Aifric Mac Aodha, and Nessa O’Mahony.
Poetry Ireland Review 145, 146, and 147 will be published in Spring, Summer and Winter respectively.