To win a copy of Maud Cotter’s ‘All Stuff Is Farce’
simply TELL US WHAT YOUR FAVOURITE WINTER POEM IS.

Entries from Fri 13 – Tues 17 Dec 2013
Either through facebook/twitter or email: info@thepoetryproject.ie

A stylish and acrobatic book which presents a selection of works, including 26 full-colour and 28 b/w illustrations.
Designed by Marit Munzberg with written inclusions by Joseph R. Wolin and Matt Packer.

This delicious little book is a virtual walk through some of Maud Cotter’s brilliant art and her inspirations. The stunning design is irreverent and unique. One to treasure and enjoy.

Thank you so much for your lovely ‘fave winter poems’!
All the entries have gone into the wooliest hat available and our winner is….

Margaret O Driscoll
with A Christmas Childhood by Patrick Kavanagh
A copy of Maud Cotter’s ‘All Stuff Is Farce’ is on it way to you!

Due to the extremely high quality of poetry submitted, alongside winner Therese L. Broderick with ‘Due Pedali‘, Poetry Ireland also highly commended two additional poems and commended a further seven.

Highly commended poetry: 
(in no particular order)

Congratulations to: Noelle Lynskey

With: ‘Somewhere Else’

Written in response to: Somewhere Else by Anita Groener

Somewhere Else

Here behind
Two closed eyes
The world of dreams
In whorls of thought
Both whirl and whoosh
In harmony
With breath-
Then beat.
In and out
Around the clock

Not awake
Not asleep
Just falling slowly
Off the edge
Where random daily
Images , a chair,
My pen
Just
drop
Into some-
where else.

Congratulations to: Kevin C. McHugh

With: ‘BENT SPINDLED AND MUTILATED’

Written in response to: Overview by Rhona Byrne

BENT SPINDLED AND MUTILATED
“I apologize for calling. I meant to talk to you in person yesterday to say we won’t be needing you anymore …”

I’d witnessed this scene before—
the lawful espials of someone else
deceived and cleaning out her desk,
rifling the now de-filed cabinets
for trinkets and personal effects,
then to be drummed unvoiced
to the door and dumped, leaving
Nothing in the wake of her passing.
There is no covert contrail
of eau de cologne or telltale musk
from face flushed and burning
or rapid, labored inhalations,
the thread of shallow breaths.

Still it comes as a shock, a betrayal
of naïvely unrequited loyalty so
that suddenly I am one
with other coin-tossed casualties
of Global aggregations in which
no one and nothing personal counts—
such liaisons being, after all, consensual.

None and never the less I am
branded by my innocent shame
more rightly borne by them
and left feeling as if I should be the one
to apologize for making love badly,
for performing poorly without the
requisite, corporate aphrodisiac.

We are not LinkedIn. We never were.
Your back was always turned,
your fingers forever crossed—
paramour not lover that you were—
consuming me in a loose consummation
that turns the tables and leaves me
here forlorn like the cuckold.

Was it ever good for you?

___________________________________

___________________________________

Commended poetry: 
(in no particular order)

Congratulations to: Denise Nagle

With: ‘Anatomy of a Family’

Written in response to: An tAm Marfach ina Mairimid by Seán Cotter

Congratulations to: Susan Muehlberg

With: ‘SURRENDER’

In a hushed requite by Liam O’Callaghan

Congratulations to: Frank Golden

With: ‘THE WORLD IN OPPOSITION’

Beyond The Flock by Aideen Barry

Congratulations to: Breda Joyce

With: ‘The Void’

Written in response to: A Video for War, a poem by Enda Wyley by Susan Tiger

Congratulations to: John O’Malley

With: ‘IF IT WAS UP TO ME’

Written in response to: Another Way by Jasper Wood

Congratulations to: Melissa Burr Thomas

With: ‘Well Met’

Written in response to: Setting by Martin Healy

Congratulations to: Pippa Little

With: ‘White Horses’

Written in response to: The Long Lane by Poppy Hunt

We’d like, once again, to thank all who took part in the competition, the standard was incredibly high, and we very much enjoyed reading and considering all the poems submitted.

Congratulations to: Therese L. Broderick

With: ‘Due Pedali’
Written in response to: In a hushed requite by Liam O’Callaghan

Due Pedali

i.

Without her, the kitchen
is an orchid

losing petals.

ii.

A tile shrinks.        A wall slackens.

iii.

From the sink where he stands
echoes  –
chords
her hands held

–  vanish.

iv.

Window and portal will fade,

v.

old islands outside
yielding pods
fruits
will go mute

if he idles too long
at the faucet.

vi.

i due pedali

vii.

This silver basin.

One teaspoon, resting.

Author’s note: To achieve a ghostly, shimmering sound effect, a pianist presses two pedals – due pedali – at the same time.

Congratulations to: Therese Pace

With: ‘WOMAN’
Written in response to: Hearth by Claire Power

WOMAN

To her, Nature has been kind and cruel.
Fitted her with a heart that walks her
strong, fragile, her soft pulpous endocarp
tender with pain, flexed with resilience.

In her special ordinariness she watches
the world go by; suffers at its hands;
appeases, dispensing with favours like
bucketfuls of rain upon the sidewalk.

A buttress, earthquakes will not shift her.
Grappling, she vigils on midnight fevers;
dims, recedes, draping her corporeity
around her sentiments like a tee shirt.

Her kinkiness has punch. Her dignity
is weighed with mien. She carries creation
on her navel like a pinafore. Man installs
himself in the palace of her heart like

original sin. Because of him she grows
boughs upon trees, reaches for the moon;
dwarfs, thrifting on choices and desires,
learning to soar and nosedive.

Her breasts are milk and honey. On them
she wears her talisman like a scimitar,
her paradox like a broach: lantern,
olive sprig, sponge and kernel stone.

Congratulations to: Lisa J. Sullivan

With: ‘To the Bog of Allen’
Written in response to: Into the Mire by Nigel Rolfe

To the Bog of Allen

You are lonely because
you claim the lonely–
ancient dolmens,
abandoned trackways,
restless folk who fail
to check your depth
before they step.

But I saw that man
who stood on the edge
of your edge
and fell like a domino
into what he thought
was a part of himself.

Your typical lure–
he mistook a water ripple
for a weary mouth
pleading, “Help.”

You have always lain
between two sides
of a thing:
The Liffey–The Shannon.
They feed you
even when you aren’t hungry.

Did you let him rise
because you had no appetite?
Or have you learned to tell
the difference between
those who come to give
and those who come to take?

Dazed with your poison,
I thought he may give in,
but you let him crawl away.

Tell me–has your acidic palate
grown to dislike the taste
of the will of man?

For our final competition we asked you to write us a poem in response to any one of the videos from the project.

To celebrate the truly global nature of The Poetry Project, we ran three parallel competitions with partners in the USA, and the Netherlands as well as with Poetry Ireland in Dublin.

With heartfelt thanks to all who entered. We were overwhelmed with the response, and it has been a very difficult set of descisions for the various judging teams. We have all really enjoyed reading the exciting and inspiring responses to the videos on the Poetry Project.

Click the links to read our winning poems

Announcing our US winner from poets.org

Congratulations to: Lisa J. Sullivan

With: ‘To the Bog of Allen’
Written in response to: Into the Mire by Nigel Rolfe

http://thepoetryproject.ie/poems/into-the-mire-nigel-rolfe-bogspeak-francis-harvey

Announcing our EU winner from poetryinternational.org

Congratulations to: Therese Pace

With: ‘WOMAN’
Written in response to: Hearth by Claire Power

http://thepoetryproject.ie/poems/hearth-claire-power-cothu-gabriel-rosenstock

Announcing our winner from poetryireland.ie

Congratulations to: TBA

With: TBA
Written in response to: TBA

For those of you who live in Ireland, the poem and video will also be shown at the Royal Hibernian Academy, along with the entire Poetry Project, as a finale, to celebrate Culture Night, on Friday September 20, until 11pm. We’d love to see you there.

And for those who aren’t Dublin bound – Poetry Project party anyone?!

We are getting so much quality poetry we have decided to extend , this our final competition, for one more week!

The rules are the same all you have to do is write us a poem in response to any one of the videos from the project. The poem doesn’t have to be a literal interpretation, it’s totally up to you!

Poems and the tile of the video to info@thepoetryproject.ie by Monday, September 23rd please.

The winning poet will receive a limited edition print from artist Poppy Hunt’s video The Long Lane  and a copy of Theo Dorgan’s poem ‘Wild Orchids Wild Flowers’, handwritten by the poet, which was paired with Poppy’s video.

The winning poem will be displayed on the Poetry Project website, and will be announced before the end of September.

Dear poetry readers everywhere,

as a mark of respect to Seamus Heaney, who died on Friday, 30 August, we are suspending our usual poetry and art combination, which was to have been Seamus’ poem ‘Postscript’, with a specially commissioned video by artist Maud Cotter. We will put this up on the Poetry Project site at a later date.

Tributes to Seamus Heaney have come in from around the world. EU Commission President José Manuel Barroso described him as “one of the great European poets of our lifetime [...] the strength, beauty and character of his words will endure for generations”, while Michael D. Higgins, President of Ireland, said “The presence of Seamus was a warm one, full of humour, care and courtesy – a courtesy that enabled him to carry with such wry Northern Irish dignity so many well-deserved honours from all over the world”.

We present ‘Postscript’ to you below, as our thoughts go to Seamus’ family, friends, and to all lovers of poetry at this sad time.

‘Postscript’
Seamus Heaney

And some time make the time to drive out west
Into County Clare, along the Flaggy Shore,
In September or October, when the wind
And the light are working off each other
So that the ocean on one side is wild
With foam and glitter, and inland among stones
The surface of a slate-grey lake is lit
By the earthed lightning of a flock of swans,
Their feathers roughed and ruffling, white on white,
Their fully grown headstrong-looking heads
Tucked or cresting or busy underwater.
Useless to think you’ll park and capture it
More thoroughly.  You are neither here nor there,
A hurry through which known and strange things pass
As big soft buffetings come at the car sideways
And catch the heart off guard and blow it open.

‘Postscript’ from Opened Ground, Selected Poems 1966-1996 by Seamus Heaney.
Copyright © 1998 by Seamus Heaney.
By kind permission of Faber & Faber
And in the USA, used by permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC. All rights reserved.

The Poetry Project has been deeply saddened to hear of the death today of Seamus Heaney, a wonderful poet, a lovely man, and a loss to Ireland and the world.