(celebrating 709 nights of Poetry)
presents Five Words competition winners:
Lucie Pereira (1st), Dean Gessie (2nd) & Em Egan Reeve (3rd)
featuring Five Words Volume XVIII and an open-mic for Only Other Poets’ Poetry
Lucie Pereira (1st) (she/her) is a writer and educator from California. Her work has appeared in publications including Honey Literary, Yes Poetry, and Stanchion Zine, and her debut chapbook From Here to the Ocean is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press. She has received fellowships from Kearny Street Workshop and Rooted & Written, and is a co-founder of the San Francisco-based reading series Kitchen Table. Lucie currently lives in Cobh, where you can find her taking walks by the sea, reading at Cork open mics including Litreacha and the Underground Loft, and pursuing her master’s in creative writing at University College Cork.
Dean Gessie (2nd) has achieved global success as a poet. Among dozens of honours, Dean won the Aesthetica Creative Writing Award in England, the UN-aligned Poetry Competition in Finland, the COP26 Poetry Competition in Scotland, the Allingham Arts Festival Poetry Contest in Ireland and a Creators of Justice Literary Award from the International Human Rights Art Festival in New York. Additionally, he was twice selected for The Best 64 Poets by Black Mountain Press in North Carolina and he was one of twenty poets included in the Poetry Archive NOW! World View video anthology in England. Dean lives north of Toronto.
Em Egan Reeve (3rd) is originally from West Cork but has been living in Cork City for the past four years. They are a graduate of UCC, with both a BA in English and an MA in Creative writing (thanks to the Miriam Cotter Scholarship). Em is the co-creator of Litreacha, a local queer creative initiative. Their fiction has been published in Swerve, and their poetry has featured in the Smashing Times Newsletter. Right now, Em is guest editing Good Day Cork for the first 6 months of 2025. Follow @eganreeve on Instagram for more.
This event will be both in-person, hosted in the Hayloft bar, upstairs in Long Valley, Winthrop St Cork, as well as on Zoom (which is limited to 100 people). Participation in the open-mic session and five word challenge is open to both in-person and virtual attendees. The session will be live-streamed at obheal.ie/live and via Ó Bhéal’s Vimeo, Facebook and YouTube channels. Note to Participants: Our hybrid events are recorded and remain viewable on video via these same channels.
We are no longer posting the zoom link via our social media channels. Upon written request to info@obheal.ie with a sentence outlining your reason for participation, a link to join the session will be emailed to you on the evening of the event, which is expected to run for between 2-3 hours.
7-7.45pm: Poetry-Films (random play from Ó Bhéal’s Poetry-Film comp archives – NOT STREAMED);
8.30pm: Five Word Challenge (max 30 – after the allotted 15 minutes writing time);
9.30pm: Competition Winners & Contributors to Five Words Vol XVIII;
10:45pm: Open-Mic Session for other poet’s poetry (max 30).
(Entering a Zoom meeting is all explained here >>>. This link provides you with a step-by-step guide and YouTube tutorial if necessary. You should check this out if you’re unfamiliar with the Zoom platform – it also shows you where to download the zoom client/app for your computer/phone. Please Make sure to know where the chat box is and how to mute yourself to reduce background sound.)
The 13th Ó Bhéal International Poetry-Film Competition will be open for submissions from 1st of May 2025 until the 31st of August 2025.
The judges for 2025 are Colm Scully and Paul Casey. For submission guidelines and previous winners, visit the competition page here.
