Perhaps this post is a case of yesterday's news today but Cork poet Leanne O'Sullivan's success in being awarded the O'Shaughnessy Award for Poetry last month, is worth mentioning. Even belatedly.
Given by the University of St. Thomas Center for Irish Studies, the $5,000 prize was awarded to O'Sullivan in St. Paul, Minnesota, making the 27 year old the youngest recipient to date.
As with many great discoveries, my discovery of O'Sullivan was by accident. Some three or four years ago, I attended a reading of the Hungarian-born British poet and translator, George Szirtes, whom up to that point, I was not familiar with. That night, after the reading, I set out to learn more, and with a keystroke here and a click, click there, I stumbled upon a poem entitled, 'About Midnight.' As it turns out, my mis-navigation was one of Columbian proportions.
Taken from O'Sullivan's début, Waiting For My Clothes, it was revelatory. To me. Hyperbole aside, it was one of those times when you resonate with language beyond the mere meaning of words, where in a poet's recollection, their voice speaks to you, speaks for you, as if your memory up to that point, had been badly dubbed. 'The Touch Of Him' was the punch Ali never threw, only she did and it was a K.O.
O'Sullivan has since released a second collection entitled Cailleach: The Hag of Beara readings from which are embedded below.
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