Longford poet thrilled with festival success

Longford poet Mary Melvin Geoghegan has been chosen as the winner of the Write by the Sea Kilmore Quay Festival poetry award.

Her triumphant poem was entitled ‘No Idyll, Then’ and Mary was delighted to travel to the County Wexford fishing village last weekend to be presented with her €500 prize and trophy.

Mary has edited several anthologies of children’s Poetry and has five collections of poetry published, her most recent, As Moon and Mother Collide with Salmon Poetry (2018).

The Write by the Sea festival featured a great lineup of writers, including John Banville, Claire Keegan, playwright Marina Carr, poets Séan Hewitt and Dr Richard Hayes amongst others.

Mary was thrilled with her success and said it was an honour to be representing Longford.

No Idyll, Then

Winter -
but, on certain days
when snow covered the field
in a thick white veil.

I could hop out the back door
and find evidence of other lives.

Shadowing, a line of freshly printed
bird or animal tracks.

Until the trail ended beyond -
mysteriously, at nothing
more than a suspicion
of some unseen creature
watching me from a nearby lair.

And yet, all the while
those tracks in the snow
and the fleeting apprehension
of some impending presence
promised another order.

Intersecting with mine and
and having nothing to do with it.