Strokestown International Prize 2019
Lawrence & Janet Kessenich (Sponsors), Majella Kelly (1st), Keith Payne (2nd, Rebecca Farmer (3rd, Jo Shapcott & Gerard Smyth (Judges) (L-R)
Judge: Jo Shapcott
Photo Credit: Rachel Shapcott
Jo Shapcott was born in London. Poems from her three award-winning collections, Electroplating the Baby (1988), Phrase Book (1992) and My Life Asleep (1998) are gathered in a selected poems, Her Book (2000). She has won a number of literary prizes including the Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best First Collection, the Forward Prize for Best Collection and the National Poetry Competition (twice). Tender Taxes, her versions of Rilke, was published in 2001. Her most recent collection, Of Mutability, was published in 2010 and won the Costa Book Award. In 2011 Jo Shapcott was awarded the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry.
Judge: Gerard Smyth
Gerard Smyth is a poet, critic and journalist. He has published nine collections of poetry, including, The Yellow River, with artwork by Seán McSweeney ( Solstice Arts Centre, Navan ), A Song of Elsewhere (Dedalus Press 2015), and The Fullness of Time: New and Selected Poems ( Dedalus Press, 2010 ). He has also published two limited edition sequences of poems with The Salvage Press: We Like It Here Beside the River, with a drawing by artist Donald Teskey, in 2014 and After Easter, with a drawing by artist Brian Maguire in 2016. He received the 2012 O'Shaughnessy Poetry Award from the University of St Thomas in Minnesota and is co-editor, with Pat Boran, of If Ever You Go: A Map of Dublin in Poetry and Song ( Dedalus Press ) which was Dublin's One City One Book in 2013. He is a member of Aosdána and Poetry Editor of The Irish Times.
Anam Cara
Anam Cara retreat for writers and artists, Co Cork
Anam Cara Writer’s and Artist’s Retreat www.anamcararetreat.com is awarding a week-long residency to the first prize winner of the Strokestown International Poetry Prize for a poem in the English Language category. Located just outside the colourful village of Eyeries on the Beara Peninsula in West Cork, Anam Cara is a tranquil spot, structured to provide support and sanctuary for people working in the creative arts. It offers private and common working rooms as well as five acres of walking paths, thirty-four nooks and crannies, a river cascades and a river island, gardens, and a labyrinth meadow. Editorial consultation is also available. The prize is valued at €700. The dates of the residency will be arranged between the writer themselves and Anam Cara.