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Michael Hartnett Poetry Award 2011

This annual award was established by Limerick County Council and is jointly funded by Limerick County Council and The Arts Council to mark Michael Hartnett's contribution to literature in English and Irish. The award of €6,500 is made to the winning poet on the basis of a third, or subsequent book of poetry, published in the previous two years. Awarded in alternate years to books of poetry in the Irish and English language, the Michael Hartnett Annual Poetry Award also uniquely targets poets at mid career in their writing life with the specific aims of encouraging and supporting their writing endeavour. The award in 2011 is for a collection of poems in English.

An adjudicating panel comprised of three poets, Thomas McCarthy, Mary O'Malley and James Harpur assessed the 2011 entries which were the highest ever. This level of interest is according to Limerick county arts officer Joan Mac Kernan," a testimony to the fact that the award has become an embedded feature of the Irish poetry landscape since it was inaugurated in 2000 and is now one of the most prestigious and best-funded poetry awards in the country".

Poet Peter Sirr and his collection 'The Thing Is' has been selected by poets James Harpur, Thomas McCarthy and Mary O'Malley as the 2011 winner of the Michael Hartnett Poetry Award. In their citation the judges describe 'The Thing Is' as a "book of great poetic power, a complex and illuminating work of art. Peter Sirr has created a marvellous narrative in poetry, a work of great technical skill in verse-craft that is lifted beyond mere craft by the power of reflective waiting. Page after page, as the hours spent within poetry go by, a sense of heightened autobiography is achieved and a new level of making poems is arrived at."
 
Following the announcement in mid February of his win, Dublin-based Peter Sirr said he was "very pleased and happy" his book had been singled out. "Unlike other kinds of writing, poetry can have a very delayed reaction" says Peter. "A book comes out and it might take months before a review appears. You begin to wonder whether anyone has read it, whether poetry counts for much. But books of poems live their own lives, they make their own slow, hesitant way into the world. When something like this comes along it's an enormously confirming, encouraging thing. It means the book has got through to people, that it hasn't sunk without trace."

Peter also said the Hartnett Award was especially important for him because Michael Hartnett was a poet "whose work I value highly and to receive an award in his memory is a pretty singular honour. Awards are very useful in keeping poetry in the public eye, and in bringing work to the attention of readers. I think an award based on a book, as opposed to the single poem,' he reflected, 'is particularly useful and encouraging as it rewards a body of work that might have been years in the making. Poets are slow workers generally; it can take years of painstaking work to assemble a collection."

"The Thing Is" is Peter Sirr's eighth book, all of which have been published by Gallery Press. Born in Waterford in 1960, Peter won the Patrick Kavanagh Award in 1983 and the poetry prize at Listowel Writers' Week in 1983. His first collection, Marginal Zones, appeared in 1984 and was followed by Talk, Talk (1987), Ways of Falling (1991), The Ledger of Fruitful Exchange (1995), Bring Everything (2000), Nonetheless (2004) and Selected Poems 1982-2004 (2004).

Peter Sirr was the first director of the Irish Writers' Centre in Dublin and held the post from 1991-2002. He was editor of Poetry Ireland Review from 2003-2007. He is also a translator and freelance writer and is married to poet Enda Wyley. Their daughter Freya is the subject of a central sequence of poems "The Overgrown Path" in "The Thing Is" .

Peter Sirr will formally accept the Michael Hartnett Poetry Award on the opening night of Eigse Michael Hartnett Literary & Arts Festival on Thursday April 14th in Hartnett's home town of Newcastle West, Co Limerick.

The Gallery Press - www.gallerypress.com

Poetry Ireland - www.poertyireland.ie

See Also

> The Judges' Statement on The Michael Hartnett Poetry Award 2011

> A conversation with Peter Sirr on winning the Hartnett award

Festival News

Peter Sirr speaks after being awarded the Michael Hartnett poetry award 2011

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