Patrick Kavanagh Poetry Award 2024

The Patrick Kavanagh Society in association with the Patrick Kavanagh Centre are delighted to announce this year’s recipient of the Patrick Kavanagh Poetry Award is Simon Costello.

Simon Costello is from Tullamore, Co. Offaly. He is currently a Government of Ireland Postgraduate Scholar at University College Dublin. His pamphlet Saturn Devouring was published by The Lifeboat Press in 2024.

The Patrick Kavanagh Poetry award, which includes €2000 for the recipient, is given to a poet who has yet to publish a full collection. It has marked the beginning of the careers of many of Ireland’s leading contemporary poets, including Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin, Paul Durcan and Sinéad Morrisey. The winner in 2023 was Lauren O’Donovan.

This year’s adjudicator was acclaimed poet Victoria Kennefick who described  Simons Costello’s winning collection ‘Antichrist’ as “unflinching, original, hallucinatory, and dramatic…”. A very worthy winner.  Victoria also commended the overall quality of this year’s submissions praising the two Runners Up ‘in our mouths we carried’ by Róisín Leggett Bohan and ‘Away, Away From Here’ by Eugene O’Hare.  Aside from these a further 10 submissions were Highly Commended.

A selection of the poems from each of the winner, runners up and highly commended are included in a new pamphlet ‘The Monsters Back’ available from in the Patrick Kavanagh Centre and online.

Patrick Kavanagh Poetry Award 2024

Winner
Simon Costello for his collection ‘Antichrist‘

Runners Up
Róisín Leggett Bohan, ‘in our mouths we carried‘
Eugene O’Hare, ‘Away, Away From Here‘

Highly Commended
Sinead McClure, ‘Greenfinch‘
Daragh Byrne, ‘The Rock‘
Sean Kelly, ‘Now I dream of Birds‘
Paul McCarrick, ‘From Galway, My Love‘
Derville Quigley, ‘Through a Hedge Backwards‘
Ger Duffy, ‘Opting To Stay Awake‘
Dane Holt, ‘Father’s Father’s Father‘
Cliodhna Bhreatnach, ‘Write Me A Sick Note‘
Eoin Cahill, ‘Stepping over bodies on my way to work‘
Eva Griffin, ‘Babydoll‘