Gregory O'Donoghue International Poetry Competition

The result was announced at the Spring Literary Festival on Wednesday, 17 February at 7.30PM in the Metropole Hotel. A video of John F. Deane's reading will be posted in the next issue of Southword Journal Online.

The winners will be notified in mid-January. Due to the large volume of entries, the judge will not be able to notify the authors of non-winning poems or give individual feedback. Amonst other prizes, the winners will be published in the next issue of Southword Journal Online.

The Munster Literature Centre is a not-for-profit institution, an officially registered charity in the Republic of Ireland Charity. No. 12374. All entry fees received in this competition will be disbursed in prize money, judge's fee and to fund services the Centre provides to writers and readers.

The Munster Literature Centre is pleased to announce a new international poetry prize for single poem, named in honour of a late Irish poet long associated with the Centre. The Gregory O’Donoghue International Poetry Prize will have a first prize of €1,000 (on 1 October 2009 approx. US$1400 or UK£900) and publication in Southword Literary Journal. The winner will have the opportunity to travel to Cork, Ireland in February 2010 to receive their winnings and read their poem at the opening of the Cork Spring Literature Festival. The MLC will subvent travel costs for the winner up to €600 and provide hotel accommodation and meals for three days during the festival. There will be a second prize of €500, third prize of €250, and ten runners-up will each have their poems published in Southword and receive Southword’s standard fee of €30.

The Judge

It is planned to have a rotating judge each year. In 2009, its inaugural year, sole judge will be James Harpur who will read each and every entry himself; in many other competitions entries are screened and longlisted by preliminary readers, not so for the Gregory O’Donoghue International Poetry Prize.

James Harpur has himself won the British National Poetry Competition (organised by the Poetry Society) among many other prizes such as the Eric Gregory Award, the Hawthornden Prize and the Michael Hartnett Award. He has published six collections of poetry and been included in many anthologies. He is current poetry editor for Southword Literary Journal.

Fees and Deadlines

There will be an entry fee of €5 per poem or €20 per batch of five. (Postal entries can be paid for in US Dollars or Pounds Sterling. No cash, please.) Closing date for entries is December 15^th 2009. A result will be reached by Friday January 15^th, with the result published on our website the following Tuesday January 19^th. Please refer to the submission guidelines below for details on how to enter.

1. The competition is open to original, unpublished poems in the English language of 40 lines or less. The poem can be on any subject, in any style, by a writer of any nationality, living anywhere in the world.

2. Entries should be typed. The entrant's name and contact details must be on a separate piece of paper. Manuscripts cannot be returned. Your name should not appear on the same page as the poem to ensure anonymity.

3. There will be an entry fee of €5 per poem or €20 per batch of five. For postal entries you may pay UK£5 or US$8 per poem, or UK£20 or US$32 per batch of five. You may submit as many entries as you wish. Cheques and money orders must be made payable to THE MUNSTER LITERATURE CENTRE. VERY IMPORTANT: We DO NOT accept US Postal Orders as they cannot be redeemed outside of the United States. No entry form is necessary. N.b. American entrants: please date cheques by writing out the month as a word. For example: November 4 2009. If any information is crossed out or altered, our bank returns the cheque to us as unusable. In such cases we would have to request a new cheque from the entrant, delaying the processing of their work.

4. Closing date is 15th December 2009. Please note that the post office is very busy this close to Christmas and it might be better to enter online after December 1st. Entries must be sent to The Gregory O'Donoghue International Poetry Competition, The Munster Literature Centre, Frank O'Connor House, 84 Douglas Street, Cork, Ireland (no postal/zip code).

5. A result will be reached by Friday January 15^th, with the result published on our website the following Tuesday January 19^th.

6. If you require acknowledgement of your entry, you must submit a self-addressed stamped postcard. SASEs for international entries should include money for IRISH stamps. Please do not include SASEs with foreign stamps.

7. The Judge's decision is final. Due to the large volume of entries anticipated, the judge will not be able to give feedback on an individual basis.

8. It would greatly assist us if you let us know how you heard of the competition (whether through mailshot, word of mouth, advertisements, newspaper, website, etc.) with your entry.

1. Send your entry as a word document (files ending with ".doc"). Please note that we cannot open the most recent version of Word documents, which usually end in '.docx'. Please ensure you save the poem in a compatible format, usually labeled 'Word 97 - 2003 Document'.
2. Include the poem/poems and cover letter as separate documents in the same email.
3. Pay your entry fee through Paypal (see link below). Paypal accepts Mastercard and Visa and guarantees secure transactions.
4. In the body of the email, list your name, address, poem titles and Paypal receipt number.
5. Use the subject header "O'Donoghue 2009 Entry".
6. Email submissions to competitions(AT)munsterlit(DOT)ie or by clicking here.

N.b. The cost of an online entry is fixed in Euro and the conversion into your local currency will be done automatically by your credit card company according to the current exchange rate.