2026 Fool for Poetry chapbooks in our bookshop

The winning chapbooks of the most recent Fool for Poetry International Chapbook Competition, Playing Paradise by Katie Hale and We Fall We Carry by Róisín Leggett Bohan are available to order now.

Tickets are available for their public unveiling with readings from the poets as part of the Cork International Poetry Festival on Saturday 16th May 3.00pm (only €5 entry)

Annemarie Ní Churreáin writes that We Fall We Carry is “Brilliant and utterly unforgettable — Róisín Leggett Bohan gifts us a poetry of witness, care, wildness, and discovery. I cherish the exquisite tenderness of this chapbook. We Fall We Carry announces an astonishing new voice in Irish poetry.”

Of Playing Paradise Carola Luther says “Katie Hale’s compelling poems are skilfully crafted ‒ lean, cool, and technically deft ‒ but within this containment, a core bubbles with heat. Its ingredients are fury, amazement, disappointment, longing, and the wild, vulnerable energy of female desire. Playing Paradise traces a psychic journey from childhood to the realisation that the world’s promise is not quite what it seems.”