Announcing the winners of the 2021 Fool For Poetry Chapbook competition

1st Prize: Earth’s Black Chute by Cian Ferriter
(Dublin, Ireland)

Cian Ferriter lives with his family in Dublin. He has been published in national and international poetry journals including Southword, Crannóg, Cyphers, The Honest Ulsterman, Poetry Wales and the Lonely Crowd. He won the Westival International Poetry Competition 2019, was a runner-up in the Gregory O’Donoghue International Poetry Competition 2020 and was shortlisted for the Troubadour International Poetry Competition 2021. He has a poem anthologised in Local Wonders (Dedalus, 2021), a collection of poems responding to the pandemic. He is a former member of the Board of Poetry Ireland. He was appointed a High Court Judge in October 2021.

Earth’s Black Chute by Cian Ferriter will be launched at the 2022 Cork International Poetry Festival (May 18th – 21st). He will receive a cash prize of €1,000 and 25 copies of the chapbook.

2nd Prize: Corona Connemara & Half a Crown by Jamie O’Halloran
(Galway, Ireland)

Jamie O’Halloran is an American-Irish poet who has published widely in Irish, UK and US publications, most recently in Crannóg, One Hand Clapping, Skylight 47, The Night Heron Barks, Spillway and The Honest Ulsterman. Her poems are included in several anthologies, including Local Wonders: Poems of Our Immediate Surrounds, Mischief, Caprice and other Poetic Strategies, and Grand Passion: Poets from Los Angeles and Beyond. Her chapbooks include Sweet to the Grit (The Inevitable Press, 1998) and The Landscape from Behind, with Jim Natal, (VC Press, 1997.) Jamie’s entries to 2021 Cuìrt New Writing Prize and Listowel Writers Week Poetry Collection Competition were shortlisted. She is the recipient of a 2021 Agility Award from the Arts Council of Ireland, the 2021 Artist in Residence at Brigit’s Garden in County Galway, and a participant in the 2021 Words Ireland Mentoring Programme. Jamie’s poetry reviews can be found in The Laurel Review, LitPub, and The Tupelo Review. She lives in Connemara.

Corona Connemara & Half a Crown by Jamie O’Halloran will be launched at the 2022 Cork International Poetry Festival (May 18th – 21st). She will receive a cash prize of €500 and 25 copies of the chapbook.

Finalists

Listed alphabetically by author surname

Ritual Landfill by Trelawney (England)
Definitions of Love by Simon Costello (Ireland)
Patrizate by Kathryn Bratt-Pfotenhauer (USA)
Not Yet a Jedi by Partridge Boswell (USA)
Entering the Whirlpool by Michael Dooley (Ireland)
anseo / here by Emer Lyons (New Zealand)
V by Sarah Kathryn Moore (USA)
Seaweed and Rust by James Ousley (England)
I matched with Jesus on Hinge by Victoria Richards (England)
You’ll need an umbrella for this by Victoria Richards (England)

Highly Commended

Listed alphabetically by author surname

How Green Can You Get? by John Andrew (England)
Orpheus After by Partridge Boswell (USA)
Aphasia by Partridge Boswell (USA)
And What of Love? by Daragh Byrne (Australia)
Planting Parsley with my Father by Kerry Darbishire (England)
clean-faced & holy by Meg Eden (USA)
Grendel at the Mayan Biker Club by Ken Evans (England)
Slowly Open by Tova Green (USA)
In a Park South of Lusaka by Eoin Hegarty (Ireland)
Mouth by Steve Lautermilch (USA)
A Lexicon of Snow by Angela Long (Canada)
Against the Sea Road by Ross Moore (Northern Ireland)
Petals by Elisabeth Murawski (USA)
Seascapes of Love by Mona Rochelle Ó Loideáin (USA)
Inheritance by Lauren O’Donovan (Ireland)
Refugium [Drawing Lessons] by Mara Adamitz Scrupe (USA)
Untitled by John F B Tucker (England)
Magical Thinking by Jean Tuomey (Ireland)
Breaking the Cycle by PR Walker (England)
The Night That Flies So Fast by Milena Williamson (Northern Ireland)

Commended

Listed alphabetically by author surname

Begin at the Beginning by John Andrew (England)
the operation of the muse by RHJ Baker (England)
A History of Multiplying by Eoghan Carrick (Ireland)
After Dinner Speaking by Louise G Cole (Ireland)
What Happens at the Watershed by Julian Dobson (England)
Navvy by Rory Duffy (Ireland)
Mosaics: Ruined Portraits and Broken Landscapes by Dena Fakhro (England)
Strange Nourishment by Atma Frans (Canada)
Boys and Girls Together by Zardak James (USA)
How to Find a Black Hole in Your Kitchen by Dana Kroos (USA)
Queer Love Poems by Sugar Le Fae (USA)
13 ways of looking at a ghost by Róisín Leggett Bohan (Ireland)
Post-Mortem by Özge Lena (Turkey)
The Species Forecast by Simon Maddrell (England)
Catalan Butterflies by Laurence O’Dwyer (Ireland)
Contrapuntal by Kevin O’Farrell (Ireland)
Seanchai by Loraine O’Reilly (England)
Seasons of Change by Diana Radovan (Germany)
Pagan Lovesong by Marco Rosato (Northern Ireland)
How to Begin by Julie-Ann Rowell (England)
Postcards to Scathach by Stephen Shields (Ireland)
Travellers of the North by Fiona Smith (Ireland)
Local Heroes by David Tucker (USA)
Moss by Niamh Twomey (Ireland)

Note: There were 320 entries, all read by Patrick Cotter who selected the finalists, the commended and the highly commended. 12 finalists were scored without mutual consultation by the poet James Harpur and Sarah Byrne, editor and publisher of the Well Review.