Cork Poet Laureate

The Cork Poet Laureateship was a 2021/22 initiative of the Munster Literature Centre, funded by Cork City Council. During a period of historic upheaval the laureateship was conceived as a project where a Cork poet could respond personally to themes and issues of public import affecting Cork City and County. These could be sporting events, current affairs, social issues, historic anniversaries or anything else the laureate believed was of concern to the people of Cork as a community. The laureateship ran for ten months from May 2021.

William Wall was appointed as laureate and in 2022 the poems were collected into a chapbook and launched during the Cork World Book Festival.

The Irish Examiner published each poem in the first week of every month and Cork City Library printed and exhibited posters of the poem each month.

William Wall has published four collections of poetry, six novels and three collections of short fiction. His fifth collection of poetry, Smugglers In the Underground Hug Trade – Journal of The Plague Year was published by Doire Press in October 2021. He was the first European to win the Drue Heinz Literature Prize in the USA (2017) and was awarded the Premio Lerici Pea Angloliguria in Italy in 2021. He has won numerous other awards including the Virginia Faulkner Prize (USA), The Seán O’Faoláin International Short Story Competition (Ireland), The Listowel Writers’ Week Poetry Pamphlet Prize (Ireland), and The Patrick Kavanagh award (Ireland). His 2005 novel This is The Country was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize. He has been short- or long-listed for many more, including the Irish Book Awards and the Manchester Fiction Prize.