Cuisle Time Again

Believe it or not, it's Cuisle time again! Seems like it was only - a year ago that I was entering last year's competition. Oh wait, it was a year ago!
Anyway, if you're under eighteen, I would strongly suggest entering. I mean, how many other poetry competitions give out trophies? Trophies.
The details are below.


Limerick City International Poetry Festival 12-15 Oct 2011
YOUNG POET OF THE YEAR COMPETITION 


Cuisle Young Poet of the Year Competition would like you to write a poem or three poems. This or these Poems can be about anything, anything that matters to you, things that happen in your life: special occasions or everyday events. 

This competition is promoted by Cuisle, Limerick City International Poetry Festival. Winners will be invited to read during our festival in October and prizes will be awarded at a special award ceremony.

Start writing now! Send us your poems. We look forward to reading them.




RULES OF COMPETITION

• Entries for Cuisle Young Poet of the Year Competition 2011 may be on any subject and not more than 30 lines.
• Entries are invited in 3 CATEGORIES: 
Category 1: Poets aged 8-12: under 12 on 1st September 2011 
Category 2: Poets aged 12-15: under 15 on 1st September 2011 
Category 3: Poets aged 15-18: under 18 on 1st September 2011 
• Entries are welcomed in both Irish and English. 
• Entries should be submitted typewritten on A4 pages. 
• The name and address of the poet must NOT appear on the manuscript. 
• Entrants may submit up to 3 poems, EACH with a completed Entry Form. 
• Poems must be submitted by 14th September, 2011 at the latest. 
• Each entry must be the original work of the poet, must not have been published or broadcast previously nor already submitted elsewhere for publication. Entries will not be returned. 
• Entries must be submitted by post to:
Cuisle Young Poet of the Year Competition 
Arts Office
Limerick City Council 
City Hall 
Merchant’s Quay 
Limerick 
• Entries will not be accepted by email. 
• Please mark envelope(s) Cuisle Young Poet of the Year Competition. 

 • Prizes will be awarded in each category. 
• Winners will be notified in October, 2011. 
• Winners will be announced at the Cuisle International Poetry Festival 12-15 October 2011, and will be invited to take part in a special Cuisle Awards Ceremony in Limerick. 


For further information on any of the events contact: 
Competition Co-ordinator: Bertha McCullagh. Tel: 085 7593265 
The Arts Office: Tel. 061 407363 


Entry forms may be downloaded from www.limerickcity.ie or www.meta.ie  (here is a link to a printable pdf entry form - the details are also on the pdf)

Entry forms also available from Schools, Colleges, Libraries and Belltable Arts Centre at Limerick Tourist Information Office: tel. 061319866.
Information and Application forms also on Poetry Ireland website www.poetryireland.ie/resources/competitions.php

For more information on the Cuisle Festival, the link is here.
For older poets, The Stony Thursday Book, a Limerick based poetry magazine, will also be published as part of the festival, but unfortunately submissions closed on the 12th of August. There is always next year however.

Wonderful News

Cuisle is a word I mention a lot on this blog. The Limerick Poetry Competition in which I won first prize in October 2010. One of my favourite competitions to enter, because I love the award ceremony venue, the illusion of intimacy while still being aware it is high-profile.
Well, just guess what I found out last night. I am going to be reading my poem again next weekend (Saturday I think). In Slovenia!

Now I don't know all the details just yet, but we (MM and I) will likely be flying into Italy and then crossing the border to Slovenia. I will post pictures when I return. I've only been to three countries in my life, two I've lived in and the third, Canada, I walked across the border to (through the relevant security). So this is a wonderful experience that I'm really excited about.

Me and my poetry in Slovenia...

I'm In The Newspaper!

Transcript: 

...student crowned Young Poet of the Year
...student Aoife Troxel from...was named the 2010 Young Poet of the Year at the Cuisle Limerick City International Poetry Festival on Saturday.
Aoife's poem in the...category received the prestigious award at the presentations in Daghdha Space in John's Square. She read her poem "Creation and Evolution" aloud at the awards.
Fellow student {Ponygirl} also received a highly commended recognition for her poem "Empty Chairs*" in the...category.
The competition is promoted by Cuisle, Limerick City International Poetry Festival. The contest was judged by Terri Murray, Mark Whelan, and Bertha McCullagh.
Born in Maine, USA, Aoife moved to her mother's native Ireland in 2008.
When not writing poetry or walking the boreens of Connemara, Aoife is happily posting to her blog - twowritersdaily - taking photographs of the Irish countryside...
Aoife also received a first place Certificate of Achievement  in the Writer's Forum August 2010 edition and the April 2010 edition, highly commended in the Cavan Crystal 18th National Student & Adult Poetry Competition 2010.
Her poem "At Granny's Funeral" placed first in the Beara Writers' Group Poets Meet Painters publication in West Cork this summer. Her story "My Canal" was short-listed in the Take a Break's Ficiton Young Writer of the Year 2009. 
{end}

*Based on the Winston Churchill quote (1918): "The crippled and mutilated soldiers darkened the streets...every cottage had its empty chair. Hatred of the beaten foe, thirst for his just punishment, rushed up from the hearts of deeply injured millions."

There are some horrible editing and grammar mistakes (MM), not to mention it is embarrassing, but I was in the newspaper! The blurs are obviously mine, and they represent residential and school information. If you are very curious, you may move to Galway and pick up a copy of the Connacht Tribune (page 11).

Champion

Winning isn't as simple as it seems,
sometimes reality is worse than the dream.
When you win at everything what have you achieved?
If you think you're something special, you have been deceived.

One Single Impression 

Sorry to bring up winning again, I'm still on a high. I never brag tell people I know about my success because from a young age I have been good at most things I put my mind too and people have never wanted to hear me happy about doing well when they haven't done well. So, you know, it's nice to share.

Cuisle Again Again

DD being the responsible adult was sure to tell me when I got home that Cuisle called. Not! They did, the night before the award ceremony, with this message: "Aoife won an award."
Oh yes, but what award in particular, she wouldn't say. Was it a highly commended in my category, or third?
No.

 

Can you read that? It says: Cuisle Young Poet of the Year 2010. Young. Poet. Of. The. Year. That is correct, I won the top award in the competition, not my age category. Out of all the poets aged under eighteen, I won overall.
I suppose you are wondering what poem I used and unfortunately me publishing it here could ruin its success in any other competitions I might enter in the future, so I can't let you see it. However, it is called 'Creation and Evolution' and is about a painter and his painting of a pale blue dot.
Anyway, before you ask, I did know I had won something when I posted yesterday but I thought it would  be entertaining to let you think, as I did, that I didn't get a thing only to find out I actually had. Of course I was not expecting to be able to tell you such absolutely outstanding  news!
I just want to say three more things. Firstly, what is wrong with the Irish sense of time? In the poetry festival booklet it said that the ceremony was on at twelve and at eleven, in two different places. WTF? DD and I were late because of that. Which made the award all the more surprising.
Secondly, I wanted to thank the organisers and judges for giving all of us young Irish poets a chance to win awards and share our writing. Brilliantly played.
Finally, I wanted to congratulate PonyGirl for also getting an award. She got the same award I received last year so if she follows in my footsteps you heard it here first! Also she was the youngest age in her category and she was in a bit of a witting funk when she wrote the particular poem. Excellent job!

Cuisle Again

I posted about Cuisle about twelve days ago, if you recall. I pretty much gave up hope. Last year they called the Thursday before the Saturday it took place. When first Wednesday and then Thursday passed with no call, I was extremely disappointed. Considering this poem was at least three times better than the last one in my eyes, it would be only right for them to award it at least the same prize right?
Well, c'est la vie. When I got home there was no message, no prize, no anything... Oh well.



This was post-dated from yesterday night. I will be posting again soon. Enjoy the weekend.

Cuisle

Last year I expressed remorse for placing in a poetry competition with a low-quality poem. This year I have pulled out all the stops and written a poem I love, and I really hope to win. I am the top age in my category and I like this poem where I hated the last "commendable" one, so I am fairly confident.
I am not the only one of my contempories to do so: PonyGirl has also entered. I am hoping we both get something so we can see each other there...
This competition is Cuisle, if you remember I posted a lot about it and Killarney. We are not going to Killarney the same day as we did last year, so it should be less rushed.
I will post about it if I get anything. Here's hoping :)

Cuisle

We went to Kilarney this weekend. It was really great. We only had the end of Saturday and start of Sunday, as Saturday we had to stop in Limerick to pick up the Cuisle Award.
It was very stressful in Limerick. Apparently the one thing (one of the things) the family has trouble with is directions.

Try having ONE person look up the directions on Google maps, then give those to ANOTHER person, who has to shout them out as fast as possible to avoid missing turns, and then doesn't clarify that the last turn was the WRONG turn, so now the directions don't work. Then try the fact that we hadn't eaten anything for hours, and only two of us had EVER been in the city before (twice). And the fact that the woman on the phone, telling DD and MM where it was located said to DD St. Dominic's Church, and to MM St. John's Church, when it was actually at St Mary's church.

Well, it was to start at eleven, and we arrived in Limerick at ten...and got to the place at five to eleven. The worst was the one way streets and SOME of us not knowing their directions well enough (wasn't me!*cough*).

Anyway, it was really cool. It was a refurbished chapel, and looked really amazing inside. It was the perfect size for an open-plan house.

I did get a slight surprise, because I had to read out my poem. Astonishingly, I had been afraid of that, then asked DD, "Do you think they will ask me to read it?" He said "Oh, no, I talked to her on the phone, it didn't sound anything like that." Well it was, and I had never read it out before. AT ALL.
MM and DD said I read it nicely. More importantly, so did one of the judges. (Parental loyalty and all that)

And turns out that highly commended is actually really good, as there were submissions from across the country (Cork to Antrim!).
It made me wish that I had tried harder though. Maybe I could've made first in my age category.
And I felt bad that me, who had written a poem for English, didn't like it, then saw the award THE NIGHT BEFORE and sent it off, made fourth (first, second, third, then highly commended, so fourth is pretty much correct). What about all the people who spent days on their poem, only to not even place?

Well, next year I WILL get first. I will try. Trying is always the key, I think. (Not 'doing your best', making an effort, and believing.)

And don't anyone get discouraged by MY success. After all, even if you can't compete with my glory, aspiring to second place is just as good. (Kidding obviously)(hopefully you found it obvious)

Can One be Too imaginative?

Yes, I do think there is such thing as being too imaginative.

In fact, sometimes it is a curse, in my opinion. Say, when you get a cut, and you imagine the blood flowing from your heart faster and faster to gush out of the cut. Or you are taking your pulse and you can imagine it too well... It made me wonder what people used to think in the medieval ages when they believed the blood sat still in the body, and did not circulate. What did they think their pulse was, then?

Anyway, why I said all that is because sometimes a good imagination can cloud your judgement. Say you really really love a story. Everyone else hates it. Why do you love it? Because with your imagination, you can see what it could be, what it would look like with grammatical correction. Or is it because no matter how bad the writing, you can still picture the scenes and characters because of your imagination, while others simply cannot?

Is it a blessing or a curse to have a good imagination? In most cases, I think a blessing.

On another note, that poem I didn't have time to enter? Well I lied. I entered last minute.

And... got a phone call today saying I had gotten a 'commendable job' award. Awesome considering I wrote the poem for an English class, and sent it off lickety-split.
Maybe if I had tried I could have won...bittersweet.

That poem: this one.