Karen’s poetry wows judges

BALLYVAUGHAN-based writer Karen McDonnell has won the 2014 WOW award for poetry.  The prize is awarded annually by Wordsonthewaves, which publishes an anthology of fiction and poetry by shortlisted and winning writers.

Two of McDonnell’s poems were long listed with one, Upstream, the Bliss of Heaven making the final shortlist. Part of a historical song-cycle, the poem’s subjects are Margaret Roper and her father Thomas More, who was condemned to death in the reign of Henry VIII.

Commenting on his choice for the WOW! Poetry Prize, judge Knute Skinner wrote: “Is there a word out of place? I don’t think so.”

McDonnell’s travel writing, fiction, non-fiction and poetry have been published in The Irish Times, Crannóg, The Clare Champion, by the Clare Poets, and in Los Angeles by the litzine poeticdiversity which will publish a second extract from Unsettled, a West Bank Journal in its Spring, 2014 issue.

McDonnell is currently working on her first poetry collection, People this Little World. She blogs at www.readwritehere.wordpress.com