The Trustees of the Ireland Chair of Poetry are delighted to announce the winning submissions for the Ireland Chair of Poetry Pamphlet Series 2025. Ben Keatinge and Rafael Mendes will each have their first volumes published by The Ireland Chair of Poetry in partnership with HOWL New Irish Writing in the Spring.
The Trustees congratulate Ben and Rafael on this remarkable achievement and look forward to seeing their collections in print.
Ben Keatinge won the Patrick Kavanagh Poetry Award in 2022 and his poems have featured in The Irish Times, Irish Independent, Poetry Ireland Review and in several anthologies. He was awarded a Dedalus Press mentorship in 2021 and was selected for the Poetry Ireland Introduction Series, 2024. A former lecturer in English literature in North Macedonia, he has travelled extensively in the Balkans and his poems take inspiration from the history of south-eastern Europe. He now lives in Dublin.
Rafael Mendes is a Brazilian-Irish migrant whose work has recently appeared or is upcoming in Poetry Ireland Review, Propel Magazine, and Poetry Salzburg Review. He featured in the Poetry Ireland Introduction Series in 2023 and was awarded the 2023 Irish Writers Centre/Tyrone Guthrie Centre Lacuna Bursary. He is a PhD candidate in Latin American Studies at Trinity College Dublin.
The pamphlets will be launched in May 2025.
The Ireland Chair of Poetry Trust is administered by Poetry Ireland.