Saturday, May 17th

Tickets for all theatre events 14th – 17th | €70

No booking needed for library events. No physical tickets will be issued for theatre events, your name will be checked off a list at the door. Bookstall sales will be by card only (we cannot accept cash).

Fool for Poetry & Gregory O’Donoghue Prize Readings

3.00pm, Cork Arts Theatre | €5

The winning chapbooks of the Fool for Poetry International Chapbook Competition, Superposition by Lauren O'Donovan and Drought / Diagnosis by Liza Katz Duncan, will be unveiled with readings. The winning poem of the Gregory O’Donoghue International Poetry Competition, ‘Dancing with Thierry Thieu Niang’ by Lani O'Hanlon will be read along with a selection of other poems.

Fool for Poetry Competition 1st Prize:
Lauren O’Donovan has won the Patrick Kavanagh Poetry Award, the Cúirt New Writing Prize, and the Southword Subscriber’s Poetry Prize. She is co-founder of HOWL New Irish Writing and Lime Square Poets, and is a grateful recipient of funding from Cork County Council and the Arts Council. Lauren is an Irish writer and graduate of UCC. She lives in County Cork with her family.

Fool for Poetry Competition 2nd Prize:
Liza 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.

This competition offers writers the opportunity to have their poems published in a high-quality production from the Munster Literature Centre's publishing branch, Southword Editions. The winners receive cash prizes as well as a reading and three nights' accommodation at the festival. You can see previous winners and buy their chapbooks at the bottom the page here.

Gregory O'Donoghue Competition 1st Prize
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.

The winner of the Gregory O’Donoghue International Poetry Competition will receive €2,000 and read from a selection of her poems. Her winning poem, ‘Dancing with Thierry Thieu Niang’, will be published in issue 48 of Southword.

(Moderator) Patrick Cotter is an Irish poet, born in Cork City where he still lives. His poems have been published in journals such as the Financial Times, The London Review of Books, Poetry and Poetry Review. He is a recipient of the Keats-Shelley Prize for Poetry. Quality Control at the Miracle Factory, his fourth full-length collection, is published by Dedalus Press in 2025.

Spléachadh ar Aneas

4.30pm, Cork Arts Theatre | €5

Iris bhliantúil atá tiomnaithe go hiomlán don gcuid is fearr de litríocht chomhaimseartha na Gaeilge í Aneas, iris a léiríonn go bhfuil neart, ealaín, pléasúr agus tathag fós ag baint le litríocht na teanga sinseartha sa tír seo. Laistigh dá clúdach geobhair filíocht, gearrscéalta agus léirmheasanna doimhne ó na scríbhneoirí is fearr atá ag saothrú na Gaeilge inniu, idir óg is aosta. Is é an mana eagarthóireachta a leagadh amach don iris, thar aon rud eile, ná caighdeán ard scríbhneoireachta.

Is file dátheangach í Julie Goo, ag foilsiú agus ag aithris dánta ar stáitsí ar fud na tíre agus thar sáile. D'fhoilsigh Cosicéim a céad cnuasach dar teideal DÁNA i 2021. Is ball í don chomharghrúpa ealaíne Aerach Aiteach Gaelach, agus leath an ghrúpa hip hop dátheangach shelovescalpol le DJ Milis.
I mBéal Átha Fhínín in Iarthar Chorcaí a saolaíodh Pádraig Mac Fhearghusa, ach ón nGarastún i bhFear Manach agus Gleann Beithe i gCiarraí dá mhuintir. Tréimhsí caite aige mar mhúinteoir, aistritheoir, iriseoir, agus mar eagarthóir ar an míosachán liteartha Feasta. I measc na leabhar uaidh tá Tóraíocht an Mhíshonais, méar ar eolas ar Freud agus Jung. D'fhoilsigh LeabhairComhar Iarmhairt, rogha dánta leis, in 2023.
Scríobhann Joanne Nic Cárthaigh i bPort Láirge. Tá a saothar le léamh i bhfoilsiúcháin agus cnuasaigh éagsúla. Bhuaigh sí comórtas An Fhéich Dhuibh sa bhliain 2023. Ghlac sí páirt sa chlár Céadlínte Éigse Éireann sa bhliain 2024 agus bhronn An Chomhairle Ealaíon Sparánacht Litríochta uirthi sa bhliain chéanna. Is comheagarthóir í ar an iris The Waxed Lemon.
Is file, scríbhneoir, aisteoir, feadógaí, pianódóir, amhránaí ar an sean-nós agus rinceoir seite í Gormfhlaith Ní Shíocháin Ní Bheoláin. Tá mórán duaiseanna bainte ag a cuid scríbhneoireachta agus ceoil, agus tá a saothar le léamh i bhfoilsiúcháin éagsúla, ina measc sna hirisí Feasta, in Comhar, in Aneas, in Poetry Ireland Review, sa The Stinging Fly agus sa Ghairdín.
Is athair, múinteoir, agus file ó Chathair Luimnigh é Tomás Ó Coileáin. Foilsíodh a chéad chnuasach dátheangach, "Ar An Leoithne", i mí Aibreáin 2024. Foilsíodh dánta i mBéarla agus i nGaeilge aige in Stony Thursday, Ogham Stone, Comhar, Irisleabhar Mhá Nuad, HOWL New Irish Writing, The Waxed Lemon, agus Aneas. Eisean eagarthóir filíochta Revival Press. Bhuaigh sé an Comórtas Filíochta ag Féile Raifteirí, Baile Locha Riach, in 2024.
Is dramadóir agus file í Róisín Sheehy. D’fhoilsigh Coiscéim a cnuasach filíochta Líomóidí's Rúbarb agus d’fhoilsigh Leabhair Comhar a cead dráma Snámh na Saoirse. Ghnóthaigh Snámh na Saoirse Gradam Gaeilge Stewart Parker BBC Thuaisceart Éireann agus ghnóthaigh a dán Fileann Fianna agus a dráma Bean ar Charraig duaiseanna Oireachtais. Is as Gaeltacht Chorca Dhuibhne di ach tá sé curtha fuithi i gCill Chainnigh.

Á chur i láthair ag Simon Ó Faoláin. File, aistritheoir, eagarthóir agus seandálaí is ea Simon Ó Faoláin. Tá ceithre chnuasach filíochta foilsithe aige go dtí seo, an ceann is déanaí Iasachtaigh (2022), agus trí leabhar d'aistriúcháin liteartha, an ceann is déanaí Meidéa le Eoiripidéas (2024).

Fiona Benson (UK) & Traci Brimhall (USA)

7.00pm, Cork Arts Theatre | €5

Fiona Benson lives in Devon with her husband and their two daughters. Her latest collection is Midden Witch. She has published three previous collections of poetry, all of which were shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize: Bright Travellers, which won the 2015 Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize and the Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry’s Prize for First Full Collection, Vertigo & Ghost, which was shortlisted for the 2019 Rathbones Folio Prize and won both the Roehampton Poetry Prize and the Forward Prize for Best Collection, and Ephemeron, which was shortlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize and the London Hellenic Prize.

Buy Midden Witch from Penguin.

“Benson upends classical—and modern—mythology and in so doing demands that we face the myths and lies we allow in our own times … [she] leans into the dreads of our world, a poet of Cassandran ferocity.” — Mandana Chaffa

Traci Brimhall is a professor of creative writing and narrative medicine at Kansas State University. She is the author of five collections of poetry, including Love Prodigal (published November 2024 by Copper Canyon). Her poems have appeared in publications such as The New Yorker, The Nation, The New Republic, Poetry, The New York Times Magazine, and Best American Poetry. She’s received fellowships from National Endowment for the Arts, the National Parks Service, the Academy of American Poets, and Purdue Archives and Special Collections to study the lost poem drafts of Amelia Earhart. She’s the current poet laureate for the State of Kansas.

Buy Love Prodigal from Copper Canyon Press and visit the poet's website.

“…tight, dynamic, and inventive. Brimhall proves that in disillusionment there is also great imagination, a half-lost world that awakens our perceptions to our current one.” — Maya C. Popa

(Moderator) 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 is this year's winner of the Gregory O'Donoghue International Poetry Competition.

Romalyn Ante (Philippines/UK) & Mary O’Malley (Ireland)

8.30pm, Cork Arts Theatre | €5

Romalyn Ante FRSL is a Filipino-British poet, essayist, and editor. Her debut collection, Antiemetic for Homesickness (Chatto, 2020), was shortlisted for the Jhalak Prize and longlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize. Her Second collection, AGIMAT, is a Poetry Book Society Recommendation. She is the co-founding editor of harana poetry, a magazine for poets who write in English as a second or parallel language. She sits on the editorial board for Poetry London magazine, and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. She lives in the West Midlands where she works as a registered NHS nurse and psychotherapist.

Buy AGIMAT and visit the poet's website.

“Ante is an alchemical wonder of a poet: unparalleled in her image-making, raw to both historical and contemporary damage and rich in cultures. Utterly original, AGIMAT is itself a talisman – a fiery binding of pain and a message of love to the wounded and lost.” — Fiona Benson

Mary O’Malley was born in Connemara in Ireland and educated at University College Galway. She served on the council of Poetry Ireland and was on the Committee of the Cúirt International Poetry Festival for eight years. She was the author of its educational programme. She is a member of Aosdána and has won a number of awards for her poetry, including the 2016 Arts Council University of Limerick Writer’s Fellowship and the 2018 Michael Hartnett Poetry Award for Playing the Octopus (2016). Her most recent collection is The Shark Nursery (Carcanet). She was the Trinity Writer Fellow at the Oscar Wilde Centre for 2019.

Buy The Shark Nursery from Carcanet Press.

“We go to Mary O’Malley for: truthfulness, seriousness, playfulness too, and then a particular sort of hesitating and hard-won wisdom, a pushback against nonsense or sentiment or fakery, the beauty of plain words placed in careful order, carefully – and always, the bliss of musicality.” — Joseph O'Connor

(Moderator) Róisín Leggett Bohan was runner-up in the Patrick Kavanagh Poetry Award 2024. Her work appears in PIR, Banshee, Magma, Aesthetica, and The Pomegranate London. She has several poems in Beginnings Over and Over: Four New Poets from Ireland, a Dedalus Press anthology and poems forthcoming in The Stinging Fly. Róisín is grateful for a literature bursary from the Arts Council.

Marie Howe (USA) & Krisztina Tóth (Hungary)

10.00pm, Cork Arts Theatre | €5

Marie Howe is the author of five books of poetry. Her retrospective, What the Earth Seemed to Say: New & Selected Poems (Bloodaxe Books, 2024), draws on four collections published in the US: Magdalene (W.W. Norton, 2017), which was longlisted for the National Book Award; The Kingdom of Ordinary Time (W.W. Norton, 2009), which was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize; What the Living Do (W.W. Norton, 1998); and The Good Thief (Persea Books, 1988), which was selected by Margaret Atwood for the 1987 National Poetry Series.

Buy What the Earth Seemed to Say: New & Selected Poems from Bloodaxe and visit the poet's website.

“Marie Howe’s poetry is luminous, intense, and eloquent, rooted in an abundant inner life. Her long, deep-breathing lines address the mysteries of flesh and spirit, in terms accessible only to a woman who is very much of our time and yet still in touch with the sacred.” — Stanley Kunitz

Born in 1967, Krisztina Tóth is one of the most popular and best known Central European authors, and the recipient of numerous awards. She studied sculpting and literature in Budapest, spending two years in Paris during her university years. She has published nine books of poetry and ten books of prose to date as well as 24 books for children. Her work was featured in the anthology New Order: Hungarian Poets of the Post 1989 Generation (Arc Publications, 2010). The first book of her poetry in English translation, My Secret Life: Selected Poems, translated by George Szirtes, is published by Bloodaxe in 2025. My Secret Life received financial assistance from English PEN’s PEN Translates programme, supported by Arts Council England.

Buy My Secret Life: Selected Poems from Bloodaxe and visit the poet's website.

“Her work has the nervous energy of the times but is shaped by a deep and disciplined intelligence. Her subjects are invariably human. They are concerned with love, family, friendship, loss, and a kind of existential disaffection … Her vigour and scope are enormous.” — George Szirtes

(Moderator) John FitzGerald’s latest poetry collection Long Distance was published by The Gallery Press in 2024. It follows two other Gallery books, The Time Being (2021) and a translation to English of the Irish lament Caoineadh Airt Uí Laoghaire, The Lament for Art O’Leary (2023). The Salvage Press has published two letterpress editions of his poetry: Darklight (2019) and Haiku na Feirme (2022).

Image credits: Julie Goo photographed by Clare Keogh, Gormfhlaith Ní Shíocháin Ní Bheoláin photographed by Danni Ronan, Fiona Benson photographed by Jessica Farmer, Marie Howe photographed by Claire Holt