1st Prize €1000, publication in Southword

and a trip to Cork, Ireland.

2nd Prize €500 publication in Southword

3rd Prize €250 publication in Southword

Ten runners-up to be published in Southword and receive €30 publication fee.

Deadline Sunday, 18 December 2011

More About the Prize

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 ($1430.32/ £875.86 on xe.com as of 5th September 2011) and publication in Southword Literary Journal. The MLC will subvent travel costs for the winner up to €600 and provide hotel accommodation and meals for three days during the Cork Spring Literary 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 winners will be notified in late 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. A shortlist will be posted on our website in late January and the winners will be announced during the Cork Spring Literary Festival.

We would kindly request that entrants refrain from emailing to check the status of their poems. Withdrawn poems will not be eligible for refunds.

The Judge

It is planned to have a rotating judge each year. The current judge is Patrick Cotter, 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.

Patrick Cotter: Born Cork, 1963. Writer and publisher. Educated at UCC, he has published several chapbooks of his poems including The Misogynist’s Blue Nightmare (Raven Arts Press), A Socialist’s Dozen (Three Spires Press), and The True Story of Aoife and Lir’s Children & other poems (Three Spires Press). His first collection, Perplexed Skin, was published by Arlen Press in 2008. His second collection, Making Music, was published in early 2009 by Three Spires Press.

His work has appeared in the anthologies Separate Islands: Contemporary British and Irish poetry (Quarry, Ontario) Irish Poetry Now (Wolfhound) Jumping off Shadows - Some Contemporary Irish Poets (Cork University Press) The Irish Eros (Gill & Macmillan) The Backyards of Heaven (Newfoundland) Something Beginning with P (O'Brien Press) and in The Great Book of Ireland. He has published short fiction in Cyphers, New Irish Writing and elsewhere. His translations of the Estonian poet Andres Ehin are collected in the book Moosebeetle Swallow (Southword Editions). His play Beauty and the Stalker was produced at the Granary Theatre, Cork in 2000. In 1984 he was shortlisted for a Hennessy Award. Cotter was runner-up in the Patrick Kavanagh award in 1988. He is currently the Director of the Munster Literature Centre.

http://www.patrickcotter.ie

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 17th 2010. A result will be reached by late January 2011, with a shortlist published on our website at that time. The winners will be contacted individually and announced publicly during the Cork Spring Literary Festival in February 2011. Please refer to the submission guidelines below for details on how to enter.

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES



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. Unfortunately, translated work is not in the scope of this competition.

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. No entry form is necessary.

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. Withdrawn poems (for any reason) will not be eligible for refunds. Cheques and money orders must be made payable to THE MUNSTER LITERATURE CENTRE.

Entrants from USA: We DO NOT accept US Postal Orders as they cannot be redeemed outside of the United States. N.b. American entrants: please date cheques by writing out the month as a word. For example: November 4 2010. 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 18th December 2011. Please note that the post office is very busy this close to Christmas and it is advisable to enter online after December 1st to ensure your poem arrives on time. 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 late January 2012, with a shortlist published on our website at that time. The winners will be announced at the Cork Spring Literary Festival in February 2011.

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 American, British or other stamps foreign to Ireland. Instead you may add one dollar or pound to the total of your entry fee to cover the cost of postage.

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. We would kindly request that entrants refrain from emailing to check the status of their poems. Winners will be contacted individually by the end of January 2012; a shortlist will be posted on this website at that time.

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.


ADDITIONAL SUBMISSION GUIDELINES FOR EMAIL ENTRIES

Email entries should be submitted as follows:

1. Send your entry as a word document (files ending with ".doc"). Preferably 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 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.

http://www.munsterlit.ie/
http://www.munsterlit.ie/Gregory%20OD ... Poetry%20Competition.html

Click on the link above and go to the contest official site