The Trustees of the Ireland Chair of Poetry have announced 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 HOWL New Irish Writing in partnership with The Ireland Chair of Poetry. HOWL New Irish Writing are excited to work with Ben and Rafael on their forthcoming pamphlets due to be launched in May 2025.
Ben Keatinge won the Patrick Kavanagh Poetry Award in 2022 and his poems have been featured in The Irish Times, Irish Independent, Poetry Ireland Review, and several anthologies. He was awarded a Dedalus Press mentorship in 2021 and was selected for the Poetry Ireland Introductions Series in 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 Poetry Ireland Introduction Series in 2023 and was awarded the 2023 Irish Writer's Centre/Tyrone Guthrie Centre Lacuna Bursary. He is a PhD candidate in Latin American Studies at Trinity College Dublin.
The Ireland Chair of Poetry is administered by Poetry Ireland.
