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FOOL FOR POETRY
INTERNATIONAL CHAPBOOK
COMPETITION 2018

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ONLINE BOOKSTORE FEATURED TITLES

New Irish Voices
Poetry chapbooks by
Roisin Kelly & Paul McMahon

Liberty Walks Naked
by Maram al-Masri, trans. Theo Dorgan

Chapbooks by Fool for Poetry
Competition Winners 2018
Not in Heaven by Molly Minturn
Bog Arabic by Bernadette McCarthy

Richesses: Francophone Songwriter Poets
Edited and translated by Aidan Hayes
Munster Literature Centre

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RÓISÍN KELLY

Roisin Kelly was born in Northern Ireland but has mostly lived south of the border. After completing her MA in Writing at NUI Galway, she moved to Cork City where she currently lives and writes. Previous and upcoming publications that feature her work include the Bohemyth, Wordlegs, Mslexia, HARK Magazine, the Stinging Fly and the Interpreter's House. In 2014 she was placed second in the Dromineer Literary Festival poetry competition, and third in the Red Line Book Festival poetry festival.
Bath
Like two children at bathtime
we’re knee-to-knee, in a candlelit shimmer
both wary of this gesture's
studied romance.
You lean back against the taps.
With your damp hair slicked
behind your ears
you seem younger, and look uneasy
with my toes’ gentle testing
of a softness between your legs
at once expected
and unfamiliar.
So this is your body
this is mine.
We waited for this moment
though it's grown old quickly.
Now there is just
the leanness of you, and parts of me
that survived
a hair-removal apocalypse.
Afterwards, you towel my hair
like a parent would
too roughly.
But you are a naked man
and you are looking at me
as if I am also a stranger.
©2015 Róisín Kelly
Author Links
Prizewinning poem by Róisín Kelly in the Dromineer Poetry Competition
'Otter': poem by Roisin Kelly in the Bohemyth
More work by Róisín Kelly in Southword
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