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.
The Donn Goodwin Prize - 2022
Awarded to Andrea P.
When Asked Why Do I Keep Wanting to Return to Ireland
I could begin with the silky pour
of the Guinness beside a peat fire in
a centuries-old pub with dark timbers;
I could say how the word Connemara
conjures my heart into a nest,
how wind and sky and breaking surf off the coast
of Mullaghmore make me lean toward wild joy
alongside bogs and stones, and the remembrance
of the last phone call with my mother before she died--
across the wild Atlantic, our crackling connection
from Kylemore Abbey where I stood by the shore
of the tiny lough. . . some days it is all
I know to remember, Ireland allowing me
to deepen and stand so near the gate
to the Otherworld, its misty latch shining.