Gregory O’Donoghue Competition Results

The winner of the Gregory O’Donoghue International Poetry Competition, Lani O’Hanlon, will read her winning poem Dancing with Thierry Thieu Niang along with a selection of her other work on 17th May at the 2025 Cork International Poetry Festival. 

Below, we have highlighted the first, second and third prize winners as well as (in alphabetical order) finalists whose poems will appear in the next issue of Southword and highly commended entries. The judge Mary O’Malley selected these poems from 1854 entries.

First Prize

Dancing with Thierry Thieu Niang by Lani O’Hanlon

Waterford, Ireland

Lani O’Hanlon is a dance artist, somatic movement therapist and writer living in a renovated cottage beside the sea in County Waterford. Her poetry collection Landscape of the Body was published in 2023 by the Dedalus Press. Her poetry is widely published and broadcast on RTÉ’s Sunday Miscellany. She was the winner of the Poetry Ireland Trocaire Award in 2022 and other prizes include The Bridport Prize, Poetry on the Lake and the Hennessey New Irish Writing.

Second Prize

étude 149 by Ray Malone

Berlin, Germany

Ray Malone is an Irish writer and artist living in Berlin, in recent years working on a series of projects exploring the lyric potential of minimal forms based on various musical and/or literary models. Études is an ongoing project begun in 2022. An earlier work, mea·sures, was published in a limited edition with original artwork in 2018. His poetry has appeared in numerous print/online journals in the US, UK and Ireland (Crannóg, Poetry Ireland Review, Southword & The Stinging Fly).

Third Prize

Running Away by Clive McWilliam

Chester, England

Clive McWilliam’s poems have appeared in The Forward Book of Poetry, The LAMDA Anthology, PN Review, Poetry Review, The Rialto and Poetry London. He has been awarded third prize and longlisted in the National Poetry Competition and first place in The Plough Prize and Cheshire Prize for Literature. He has been short listed for the Manchester Prize and The Montreal International and was runner-up in the Poetry London Prize and in the Troubadour International three times.

Finalists

Tallyman by Anne Connolly

Edinburgh, Scotland

Anne Connolly, a widely published Irish poet and Great-granny of two, lives in Edinburgh. Once upon a Quark (2019) and Feather (2023) are her most recent collections from Red Squirrel Press.

Song from the Lower Level by Kurt Luchs

MI, USA

Kurt Luchs (kurtluchs.com and https://www.facebook.com/kurt.luchs/) won a 2022 Pushcart Prize, a 2021 James Tate Poetry Prize, the 2021 Eyelands Book Award for Short Stories, and the 2019 Atlanta Review International Poetry Contest. He is a Contributing Editor of Exacting Clam. His humor collection, It’s Funny Until Someone Loses an Eye (Then It’s Really Funny) (2017), and his poetry collection, Falling in the Direction of Up (2021), are published by Sagging Meniscus Press, along with his newest full-length poetry collection, Death Row Row Row Your Boat (2024). He lives in Kalamazoo, Michigan.

To map a leaf by Joanne McCarthy

Waterford, Ireland

Joanne McCarthy writes in Irish and English. She is published in Poetry Ireland Review, The Stinging Fly, Rattle, Aneas, Comhar, The Honest Ulsterman, HOWL New Irish Writing, The Four Faced Liar, and others. She was selected for Cork Poetry Introductions, 2021. She won the 2023 Fingal Poetry Competition ‘An Fiach Dubh’. In 2024, she was chosen for Poetry Ireland’s Céadlínte Introductions series and she received an Arts Council Literature Bursary. Joanne is co-editor of The Waxed Lemon. She is currently reading poetry at the Seamus Heaney Centre, Queen’s University Belfast.

Playing with Bullet Holes in the Upholstery AND The Yellow Bell by Paul McMahon

Cork, Ireland

From Belfast, Paul McMahon lives in Clonakilty. Paul was awarded The Keats-Shelley Poetry Prize by Carol Ann Duffy. Other poetry awards include 1st prizes in The Moth International, The Westival, The Plaza, The Fingal, The Listowel Writers’ Week Poetry Collection Prize, The Nottingham Open, and bursary awards for poetry from The Arts Councils of Ireland and N. Ireland. Twice nominated for the forward prize, his poetry has appeared in journals such as Poetry Review, London Magazine, Rialto, Agenda, The Threepenny Review, North, Poetry Ireland Review, The Atlanta Review, Southword, The Irish Times, The Stinging Fly, and The Best New British and Irish Poets.

Donatello’s Magdalene by Elisabeth Murawski

VA, USA 

Elisabeth Murawski is the author of Heiress, Zorba’s Daughter (May Swenson Poetry Award), Moon and Mercury, and three chapbooks. Still Life with Timex won the Robert Phillips Poetry Chapbook Prize.  Alias Irene will be published in August, 2025. A native of Chicago, she currently lives in Alexandria, VA.

Another sonnet in praise of darkness by Jenny Pollak

NSW, Australia

Jenny Pollak is an Australian artist and poet. Her work has appeared in various journals and anthologies. She has been shortlisted for the Bridport Poetry Prize; the Dermot Healy International Poetry Award; the Fish Poetry Prize, and the Newcastle Poetry Prize, among others. She has won the Bruce Dawe Poetry Prize, the Woorilla Poetry Prize, and the WB Yeats Poetry Prize. Her first poetry collection, Clarion, was published in 2024 by Liquid Amber Press.

HYMNS by Rere Ukponu

Dublin, Ireland

Rere Ukponu is a 25-year-old, Nigerian/Irish writer from Dublin. She has been published in The Irish Times, Metro Eireann and The Stinging Fly. She is currently studying Medicine at University College Cork, where she is a Quercus Creative and Performing Arts Scholar. She got her love of words from her grandfather, who is the best storyteller she knows. 

Titian puts down his paintbrush and picks up his guitar by Roger West

Glasgow, Scotland

Roger West is a poet, songwriter and performer. Former singer for various pre- and post-punk bands with several recordings to their name, he now concentrates on developing longer pieces with electronic soundscapes and live music which he performs at poetry festivals in the UK, the US and Europe. He writes and performs in French and in English and translates poetry from the former to the latter. His first full-length volume has just been published by Éditions Sémaphore in France.

Highly Commended

Heaney & Me by Ger Duffy

Waterford, Ireland

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.

Sea-horses by Christopher M James

Nouvelle-Aquitaine, France

Christopher M James, a former HR professional, lives in the Dordogne, France. He has been published in Acumen, Aesthetica, Magma, Orbis, Dream Catcher, London Grip, Poetry Salzburg, The London Magazine, amongst others. He has also been widely anthologised, and has won various competition prizes: Sentinel, Yeovil, Poets meet politics, Wirral, Hastings. He runs the French Online Stanza group.

Goose by Emma Simon

London, England

Emma Simon published her debut poetry collection Shapeshifting for Beginners last year with Salt Publishing. She has previously published two poetry pamphlets, The Odds (Smith|Doorstop, 2020) and Dragonish (The Emma Press, 2017). She lives and works in London, where she combines writing with part-time work as a journalist and copywriter.

His Desire: A Bacon-Wrapped-Love by Ernest Troth

WA, USA

Ernest Troth is a former US diplomat, tech company founder and now a distiller of whiskies and gins who loves innovative and sumptuous flavor combinations. His food and poetry enthusiasms draw from a lifelong interest in John Donne’s writing and a life with adventurous options. Great food and spirit can be common-and-ordinary or exuberant and sensual. Poetry is just one more way to condense and share flavors, fragrances and experiences.