The Donn Goodwin Prize - 2025
Awarded to Alison McBain
Drought
(Séadna poem)
Bleak words are never suited
for a soul’s first loss: the brusque tone
of bereavement or mooning
melody of mourning. I’ve known
naively that a surfeit
exists only in synonyms for
rainfall: shower, squall, monsoon,
tempest, torrent, storm—sorrow pours
but not in floods that nurture,
only absence. It steals zest, seeks
spirits to crush, dries hearts to
chaff, bitter and hollow and bleak.
The Donn Goodwin Prize - 2024
Awarded to Katherine O'Toole
Knotwork
There was a song that my mother sang only once
As we drove home from my grandmother’s funeral
And never again.
It can be hard to sing
When grief stings your mouth
With the salty taste of tears,
When Killarney is an ocean
And many years away.
In the closet of my childhood home
Hangs a purple dress and a white sash
That both my mother and I danced in.
The lace on the collar has begun to yellow,
But within the winding knotwork
Embroidered by my grandmother’s best friend,
Are lines that have no beginning nor end;
Knitting together the past and future
With thread and memories.
Though the dust has gathered on the old accordion box,
The echoes of music played decades ago
Find me again;
Songs from the past,
Sung by people who looked forward,
Picking up, again and again, that thread
Of lilting notes and melodies,
Reaching out across time and distance,
To say - we do not know you yet,
But for you -
we will take the beauty we have known in this world
And keep it alive.
This is our gift to you,
For you to be so loved within this world,
That countless voices sang for you
Before you were even here.
We have held this thread,
so that you may hold it too.
In the closet of my childhood home
Hangs a white sash. On it,
Above a scene of cliffs and waves,
The words,
‘By Killarney’s lakes and fells’,
Were embroidered in purple thread
By someone who never knew me
And I think that perhaps,
The ocean is not so wide after all
When there is a thread to hold,
And a song to sing.
The Donn Goodwin Prize - 2023
Awarded to Seamus C.
Himself
There you are -
gentle, illuminated
under the corner of the beer tent.
Flanked by country men
of Kerry, Cork, and Wexford -
Holding court
as Paddy Reilly,
The Dubliners
or The Wolfe Tones
perform,
as my Mother and her sisters
carry the tunes
and the crowd,
along the front row.
For thirty years
I was the son of a celebrity
each Irish Fest weekend.
But, you were a butcher from Belfast
who may as well
have never left.
You were young,
personifying Irish America.
years after Ellis Island,
years after the Belfast Blitz,
years after making Milwaukee
your final home.
All those fests,
as I gallivanted the grounds
your friends pulling me aside
curious of your whereabouts,
I began to keep close to your side
to us heading down for an afternoon
to the moments receding
and to finally now -
where I compose a poem
of your presence
and accept condolences
under the halo
of the beer tent.