In honour of the 100th anniversary of W.B. Yeats being awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, the Yeats Thoor Ballylee Society is launching the Yeats Thoor Ballylee International Poetry Prize. The award will take place at Thoor Ballylee, the former home of W.B. Yeats, located in Gort, Co Galway, Ireland.

Competition Rules

1. The poetry competition opens on Yeats’s birthday, 13 June 2023. The closing date for submissions is midnight (GMT) 18 August 2023.

2. As an international competition, it is open to everyone, but poems must be in English.

3. All poems must be the unpublished work of the person entering them into the competition. The poems must not have been published, self-published or accepted for publication in print or online, broadcast, or have won another competition at any time.

4. Poems must not exceed 40 lines. While there are no restrictions on content, poets should keep in mind that this award is to honour the work of WB Yeats.

5. All poems must be submitted online here at the zealous portal. https://www.zealous.co/thoorballylee/opportunity/Yeats-Centenary-Poetry-Competition/

Fees are:

€10 One (1) poem

€15: Two (2) poems

6. Poems will not be returned, so it is advisable to keep a copy.

7. All poems will be read by the judges and considered anonymously. No poems should have any indication within them to allow for the identification of the poet.

8. All poems received after the closing date of 18 August 2023 will be discarded. We cannot accept alterations to a poem once it has been submitted. A poem cannot be withdrawn from the judging process once it has been entered.

9. Should the named judge be unable to proceed, we aim to substitute an alternative judge of equivalent standing as a poet.

Award Location and Prizes

First, second, and third places will be awarded as follows:

First Prize: €1,000

Second Prize: €500

Third Prize: €200

The prizes will be announced at Thoor Ballylee, the home of WB Yeats in the Autumn.

Winners will be notified by email in September.

In addition, the top three poems will be displayed in Thoor Ballylee for the public to enjoy throughout the year, and published on our website.

Our Chief Judge

Mary Madec is this year’s judge for the Yeats Thoor Ballylee International Poetry Prize. Born and raised in Co. Mayo, Mary holds a Master’s Degree in Old English from the University of Galway and a PhD in Linguistics from the University of Pennsylvania. She works for Villanova University in Ireland and has a wide experience as a teacher of literature, linguistics and writing.

Mary won the Hennessy XO Prize for Emerging Poetry in 2008 and subsequently published three collections with Salmon Poetry: In Other Words (2010); Demeter Does Not Remember (2014), and The Egret Lands With News From Other Parts (2019). She also edited Jessica Casey & Other Stories from Salmon Poetry (2011), showcasing the work of people with intellectual disabilities, following a multi-award winning project funded by an Arts Participation Bursary from the Arts Council of Ireland. She worked again with the Orchard Centre Gort in the last two years and their work was highlighted in the recent Ploughed Field Collective Festival and in Cúirt 2022 where Among the trees, a suite of poems on the Eurydice, was showcased. She co-authored a fundraiser volume Bosom Pals by women poets who had breast cancer, published by Doire Press (2017). She also organises readings around the West with other authors. Her work has appeared widely in literary magazines in Ireland and abroad, and has been anthologized in Reading the Future: New Writing from Ireland, (Arlen House, 2018); Washing Windows? Irish Women Write Poetry (Arlen House, 2016); Poets’ Quest for God (Eyewear, 2016), as well as Even The Daybreak (Salmon, 2016). In March 2017, she read a poem about her autistic twin on the Ryan Tubridy Morning Show (RTÉ Radio One).

She was recently awarded an Arts Council literature bursary to work on her fourth book inspired by the Orpheus-Eurydice myth which will explore themes of grief and climate change.