French work shortlisted for Listowel poetry prize

Company is poet's seventh collection

Meath poet Tom French’s poetry collection, 'Company' published by The Gallery Press, Loughcrew, is one of three titles shortlisted for the Pigott Poetry Prize at Listowel Writers Week.

The work is Tom French's seventh collection of poems and display an uncommon range of subject manner - from responses to the work of an American Midwestern primitive painter to a chilling account of the treatment of young, unmarried mothers in IReland.

Unusually adept at both long and short poems, as well as sequences, in 'Company', French is again haunted by the legacy of world wars and the smaller wars in between.

'To Distance' is an extended chronicle of the lockdown while the book's mood is tempered by the absudr comedy of the Ayreshire Cattle Breeders' annual meeting. In poems marked by rare poise, the writer ventures into various hostelries, including one where 'This threshold holds against the very tide. Call here a port. Call all outdoors the storm.'

Steadily and without fanfare, Tom French's work warms to facing down the predicament of living.

The judges citation descrobes Company as 'a powerfully assured and authentic book of poems. The company of the title evokes the powers and pitfalls of friendship and family, and the capacity of historic narratives and works of art to address and contain the reality of individual and collective human experience. It also refers to animals and landscapes, those agents of wordless companionship that appear through the collection like dual guarantees of environmental pressure and imaginative intensity. Company excels and delights with its spirited lyricism and through a brilliant illusion of empathic conversation on the page."

Kilkenny native Tom French graduated from National University of Ireland, Galway and the University of Limerick. He received bursaries in literature from An Chomhairle Ealaíon/The Arts Council, Ireland in 1999 and 2009, and his work was awarded the inaugural Ted McNulty Prize. His first collection Touching the Bones (Gallery Press, 2001) was awarded the Forward Prize for Best First Collection, 2002. The Gallery Press has also published The Fire Step (2009), Midnightstown (2014), The Way to Work (2016), The Last Straw (2018, Irish Times/Poetry Now Award shortlist), The Sea Field (2020) and Company (2022), shortlisted for the Pigott Poetry Prize. Recipient of the O’Shaughnessy Award for Poetry in 2016 Tom French lives with his family in Laytown and works in the Meath County Library service.

Also shortlisted are Tara Bergin’s 'Savage Tales', Nithy Kasa’s 'Palm Wine Tapper and the Boy at Jericho'. Previous winners of this award include Paul Muldoon, Vona Groarke and Eamon Grennan.

The prizewinning author will receive €12,000 and each of the runners up, €1,000. The announcement will be made in Listowel on 31st May next.