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The Judges' Statement 2011

The Thing Is, is 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.

The book is centred around 'The Overgrown Path', a sequence of poems that celebrates the waiting for, and arrival of, a baby and how new life affects old life, how change can expand a personal world. The poet is plunged into the great unknown, an unearthly stimulus pushing him to articulate the infinitely subtle processes of consciousness behind the frank astonishment or stunned witnessing of the wonder of birth.

Throughout the book, the poems probe the mysteries of language, the affairs of the heart and the enigma of existence with deft, subtle diction and carefully modulated lines. The title poem 'The Thing Is' explores a new-born daughter's 'co-flowing' with time, but it also captures one of the poet's major themes the celebration of the act of creation in all its literally thought-less, mind-less absorption and joy.

Balancing the affective tenderness of the 'Overgrown Path' is 'Carmina', a series of poems that casts a cold sardonic eye on the foibles of contemporary Irish society but viewed through the bawdy and anarchic spirit of Catullus.

Throughout the collection, Peter Sirr uses language with precision and the finely tuned ear for the precise weight of each phrase and word that has become the hallmark of his fine poems.

Mary O'Malley
James Harpur
Thomas McCarthy

See Also

> The Michael Hartneet Poetry Award 2011 Announcement

> A conversation with Peter Sirr on winning the Hartnett Award

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