presents the Five Words competition winners:
Sinéad McClure (1st), Jill Munro (2nd) & Laura Theis (3rd)
(650+ nights of Poetry)
celebrating Five Words Volume XIV and an open-mic for Only Other Poets’ Poetry
You can listen to the other shortlisted poets reading here.
You can listen to the specially selected Pandemic Poems here.
You can listen to the Five Word Challenge Anthology Contributors here.
Ó Bhéal’s 14th Anniversary event celebrates the launch of Five Words Volume XIV and the winners of our 8th Five Words International Poetry competition. We will also have a reading of lockdown/pandemic poems from the competition specially selected by judge Grace Wells. Other shortlisted poets will also read on the night – as will contributors to Ó Bhéal’s Monday night Five Word Challenges held over the previous 12 months. The anniversary open-mic is reserved for poems written by other poets, so bring a favourite or two!
Sinéad McClure is a writer, radio producer, and illustrator. Her poetry has been published in Poethead, Live Encounters ~ Poetry & Writing, Crossways Literary Journal, The Cabinet of Heed, Dodging the Rain, StepAway Magazine and The Ekphrastic Review.
Sinéad has also written 15 dramas for the National Radio Children’s Service, RTEjr Radio on the themes of conservation and Ireland’s natural heritage. She often revisits these theme in her work and has a particular interest in wildlife conservation. In December, 2020 Sinéad received a Professional Development Award from the Arts Council of Ireland to fund mentoring and research towards building her first poetry collection. Sinéad live in rural County Sligo, with her husband and their two border collies.
Jill Munro has been published in major poetry magazines including The Frogmore Press, Popshot Quarterly, The Fenland Reed and The Rialto and her work has also been anthologised by The Emma Press, Candlestick Press, Paper Swans Press & Calder Valley Press.
Jill won the Ó Bhéal Five Words International Poetry competition 2017/18. Jill’s first collection Man from La Paz was published in 2015 by Green Bottle Press. She won the Fair Acre Press Pamphlet Competition 2015 with ‘The Quilted Multiverse’, published April 2016. Jill was awarded a Hawthornden Fellowship for 2018. She lives and writes in the depths of Ashdown Forest.
Laura Theis grew up in Germany, moved to the UK a decade ago, and writes poems, stories and songs in her second language. She has an MSt (Distinction) in Creative Writing from Oxford University. Her debut poetry collection how to extricate yourself (Dempsey&Windle, 2020) was selected as the winner of the 2020 Brian Dempsey Memorial Prize by the Poetry Society’s Paul McGrane.
Her work has been widely anthologised, appears in a variety of literary journals from Strange Horizons to Mslexia, and has been published in the UK, Ireland, Belgium, Germany, Canada and the U.S. An AM Heath Prize recipient, she has also won the Hammond House International Literary Award for Poetry and the 2020 Mogford Short Story Prize. She was highly commended for the 2020 Acumen Poetry Prize and the 2020 Geoff Stevens Memorial Poetry Prize, as well as a finalist in over twenty other international literary competitions.
The 9th Five Words International Poetry Competition will begin on Tuesday the 13th of April 2021 (at midday GMT) and runs for 41 weeks, until the 25th of January 2022.
The judge for 2021/2022 is Maurice Riordan. For submission guidelines and previous winners, visit the competition page here.
This event will be hosted on Zoom and limited to 100 people. We will live-stream the session at obheal.ie/live and via Ó Bhéal’s Vimeo, Facebook and YouTube channels. Note to Participants: Our online 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. The session is expected to run for between 2-3 hours.
8.30pm: Five Word Challenge (max 30 – after the allotted 15 minutes writing time);
9.30pm: Competition Winners & Contributors to Five Words Vol XIV;
10:40pm: 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 9th Ó Bhéal International Poetry-Film Competition will be open for submissions from 1st of May 2021 until the 31st of August 2022.
The judges for 2021/2022 are Paula Kehoe and Paul Casey. For submission guidelines and previous winners, visit the competition page here.
Ó Bhéal in association with Foras na Gaeilge presents
a virtual bi-lingual event with
Dubhán Ó Longáin and Julie Field
Dubhán Ó Longáin is a poet, writer, PhD researcher and Irish teacher from Donegal. He currently lives in Derry, where he is completing a PhD on the Ossianic Lays and their role in society. Previous to this, he spent a period in Belfast during which he completed a postgraduate certificate in primary education. The bulk of his writing consists of Irish-language poetry and he has obtained recognition for this endeavour on a number of occasions. He won the Irish-language section of the Frances Browne Bicentennial Poetry Competition 2016, the Manchester Irish Language Writing Competition 2018, and has won and come second in the Slam Filíochta Liú Lúnasa in 2018 and 2019 respectively.
As well as poetry, he has written an amount of critique/reviews and a number of short stories. His academic research has seen him awarded the Richard K. Degenhardt Belleek Collectors’ Scholarship. He has had poems published in An tUltach, North West Words, Feasta and Comhar and his debut collection, IDEO Locator, was published by Coiscéim late last year.
File, scríbhneoir, taighdeoir PhD agus múinteoir Gaeilge as Dún na nGall é Dubhán Ó Longáin. Tá sé ina chónaí i nDoire faoi láthair agus é ag obair ar a PhD ar na laoithe Fiannaíochta agus a ról sa tsochaí. Roimhe sin, chaith sé tamall i mBéal Feirste, áit inar bhain sé céim sa bhunoideachas amach. Filíocht Gaeilge a scríobhann sé den chuid is mó agus tá roinnt duaiseanna bainte amach aige as an tsaothar seo. Bhain sé an craobh Gaeilge den Frances Browne Bicentennial Poetry Competition sa bhliain 2016, bronnadh an chéad áit air sa Manchester Irish Language Writing Competition 2018 agus tháinig sé sa chéad áit sa Slam Filíochta Liú Lúnasa in 2018 agus sa dara háit an bhliain ina dhiaidh.
Anuas ar an fhilíocht, tá roinnt léirmheasanna agus gearrscéalta scríofa aige. Bronnadh an Richard K. Degenhardt Belleek Collectors’ Scholarship air mar gheall ar a thaighde acadúil. Tá dánta leis foilsithe in An tUltach, North West Words, Feasta agus Comhar agus d’fhoilsigh Coiscéim a chéad chnuasach filíochta, IDEO Locator, go mall anuraidh.
Julie Field is a bilingual poet and singer, born and bred in Cork City. She studied both a Degree and MPhil in Irish at UCC. She now works as a Primary School Teacher in an Educate Together School in Cork, and is passionate about inclusive education, as well as teaching children on the Austistic Spectrum. Julie has published many poems over the years in Comhar, Feasta, Southword and Cyphers, and her first collection DÁNA was recently published with Coiscéim.
Julie is also a well established Spoken Word Poet, known as Julie Goo. She was crowned Munster Slam Champion in 2012, and won the Heart of Gort Slam in 2019. Goo has performed her work at numerous festivals: TedX Cork, Winter Warmer, Body and Soul, Electric Picnic, Cork Midsummer Festival, Indiependence, Live at St. Lukes, for example, as well as traveling to Coventry and Italy funded by the Cork City Council and Erasmus+. Videos of Julie Goo can be found on her YouTube Channel, and info can be found on her Facebook page.
Is scríbhneoir dátheangach agus amhránaí í Julie Field a rugadh agus a tógadh i gCathair Chorcaí. Bhain sí Céim agus MPhil amach sa Ghaelainn i UCC agus múineann sí i mbunscoil Foghlaim le Chéile i gCorcaigh anois, í an-phaiseanta mar gheall ar oideachas cuimsitheach agus múineadh pháistí le huathachas. Tá roinnt dánta foilsithe aici thar na blianta i Comhar, Feasta, Southword and Cyphers mar shampla, agus a céad cnuasach dar teideal DÁNA foilsithe le Coiscéim le déanaí.
Is file ainmniúil í Julie sa domhain Spoken Word in Éirinn fén ainm Julie Goo. Corónaíodh í mar Churaí na Mumhan i 2012, agus bhuaigh sí an Heart of Gort Slam i 2019. Tá sí tar éis a dánta a léiriú ag roinnt féilte; TedX Cork, Winter Warmer, Body and Soul, Electric Picnic, Cork Midsummer Festival, Indiependence, Live at St. Lukes mar shampla, chomh maith le turasanna go Coventry agus an Iodáil le tacaíocht sparántachtaí ón gComhairle Chorcaí agus Erasmus+. Tá físeanna de Julie Goo ar fáil ar YouTube, agus a thuilleadh eolais ar a leathanach Facebook.
This event will be hosted on Zoom and limited to 100 people. We will live-stream the session at obheal.ie/live and via Ó Bhéal’s Vimeo, Facebook and YouTube channels. Note to Participants: Our online 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. The session is expected to run for between 2-3 hours.
8.30pm: Five Word Challenge (max 30 – after the allotted 15 minutes writing time);
9.30pm: Featured Guest Poets (40 mins combined);
10:20pm: Open-Mic Session for original 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.)
