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Fool for Poetry Chapbook Competition Results
The winning chapbooks of the Fool for Poetry International Chapbook Competition are Superposition by Lauren O’Donovan and Drought / Diagnosis by Liza Katz Duncan. We have also highlighted the finalists and highly commended entries below. Their chapbooks will be launched on 17th May at the 2025 Cork International Poetry Festival.
1st Prize
Superposition by Lauren O’Donovan
Cork, Ireland
Lauren O’Donovan has won the Patrick Kavanagh Poetry Award, the Cúirt New Writing Prize, and the Southword Subscriber’s Poetry Prize. She is fortunate to have her work sometimes published in journals and anthologies, most recently in Poetry Ireland Review, Banshee, and Southword. Lauren is co-founder of HOWL New Irish Writing and Lime Square Poets, and a grateful recipient of Cork County Council Arts and Arts Council funding. She is an Irish writer, graduate of UCC, and lives in Cork with her family.
2nd Prize
Drought / Diagnosis by Liza Katz Duncan
NJ, USA
Lisa Katz Duncan is the author of Given (Autumn House Press, 2023), which received the Autumn House Press Rising Writer Award and the Laurel Prize for Best International First Collection. Her poems have appeared in AGNI, The Common, The Kenyon Review, Poem-a-Day, Poetry, Poetry Daily, and elsewhere. A 2024-25 Climate Resiliency Fellow, she lives in New Jersey (Lenni-Lenape), USA, where she teaches multilingual learners.
Finalists
The Service by Alejandro Aguirre
MA, USA
Alejandro Aguirre earned his MFA from Boston University, where he was awarded a Robert Pinsky Global Fellowship and the Academy of American Poets Prize. His poems are published/forthcoming in Rattle, Hampden-Sydney Poetry Review, Louisiana Literature, Pirene’s Fountain, and elsewhere.
Seamless by Pratibha Castle
Sussex, England
Pratibha Castle – BOTN, Pushcart and Michael Marks nominated – is an Irish born poet living in West Sussex. Widely published, including forthcoming in Washing Windows V (Arlen House), The Stony Thursday Book and Under the Radar (Nine Arches Press), her work has been acknowledged in numerous competitions including third prize in Sonnet or Not and the Plaza Poetry Competitions; shortlisted in the Live Canon International Poetry Competition and Bridport Prize twice; highly commended in The Welsh Poetry Competition; long listed in Bray Literary Festival, Indigo Dreams Press and Bad Betty collection competitions. Her second pamphlet Miniskirts in The Waste Land (Hedgehog Poetry Press) was a Poetry Book Society winter selection 2023.
The Distaff Side by Ger Duffy
Waterford, Cork
Ger Duffy lives in Co Waterford. Ireland. Her poems are published by PN Review (UK), Poetry Ireland Review, Banshee, Southword, Under the Radar (UK) and Propel (UK). Her work has been anthologised by Dedalus Press, Moonstone Press (US), The Sidhe Press (Ger), Arlen House Press and Verve Press (UK). In 2024, she won the Desmond O’Grady International Poetry Award and the Redline Poetry Competition. Her pamphlet was shortlisted for the Patrick Kavanagh Award and commended in the Poetry Business Pamphlet Competition (UK) 2024. She was awarded an Agility Award by the Arts Council of Ireland.
Lip Balm, Loose Change, Handkerchief by Don Hogle
NY, USA
Don Hogle has published over a hundred poems in journals in the U.S., U.K., and Ireland. A chapbook, Madagascar, was published in 2020 (Seven Kitchens Press.) His debut full-length collection, Huddled in the Night Sky is forthcoming from Fernwood Press. He lives happily in Manhattan. www.donhoglepoet.com
Souvenirs by Lucy Holme
Cork, Ireland
Lucy Holme is a PhD student at UCC. Her work features, or is forthcoming, in PN Review, Poetry London, Poetry Ireland Review, The London Magazine, Southword, Banshee and The Stinging Fly amongst others. She has been shortlisted for The London Magazine Poetry Award, The Brotherton Prize, The Mairtín Crawford Award, The Red Line Poetry Competition, The Fool for Poetry Chapbook Competition, the Southword Literary Essay Competition, The Wales Poetry Prize and won the Southword Editor’s Poetry Award and the Cúirt New Writing Prize for Poetry 2024. Her debut chapbook, Temporary Stasis, (Broken Sleep Books 2022) was shortlisted for The Patrick Kavanagh Award. A nonfiction essay collection, Blue Diagonals, was published in September 2024. She teaches poetry and memoir at UCC and ACE UCC and is currently working on her first novel and poetry collection.
The Woman Who Used to Bleed by Lorraine Mc Ardle
Dublin, Ireland
Lorraine Mc Ardle was awarded the 2022 Poetry Prize at Listowel Writer’s Week, was a finalist in the 2023 Fool For Poetry Chapbook Competition, Shortlisted in the Bridport Prize 2024 and Highly Commended in the 2019 Hippocrates Prize for Poetry and Medicine. She is widely published including Poetry Ireland Review, The Irish Independent, The North, Southword, Strix, The Interpreter’s House, HOWL New Irish Writing, Abridged, The Waxed Lemon, Obsessed with Piperwork, Skylight 47 and Drawn to the Light. She was selected for the Poetry Ireland Introductions Series in 2019.
Banshee by Alison McCrossan
Cork, Ireland
Alison McCrossan is from Cork. Publications include Southword, The Honest Ulsterman, Abridged, Stand, Orbis, Trasna, and Anthropocene.
The Tell The Trick by Matthew Thorburn
NJ, USA
Matthew Thorburn is the author of six books, including String, a novel in poems; The Grace of Distance, a finalist for the Paterson Poetry Prize; and the book-length poem Dear Almost, which won the Lascaux Prize. He lives in New Jersey.