PACT / FUSEBOX/ SNOWBIRD/A SKYFUL OF KITES / HELLSTEETHBOOK: "PACT" almost gone. 10eu including postage to anywhere in the world. All chapbooks gone, except "FUSEBOX" available from the Black Light Engine Room press, UK |
Welcome to the website of Jessamine O Connor, a Dublin born writer living on the Sligo Roscommon border in the west of Ireland.
Winner of the Poetry Ireland/Butlers Cafe competition 2017, and previously the iYeats and Francis Ledwidge awards, my poems have been shortlisted in numerous competitions such as the Hennessy, Cuirt, and Over the Edge. I facilitate The Hermit Collective (the Irish winners of the 2016 Epic Award) and The Wrong Side of the Tracks Writer's group (currently in hibernation ) ------ THE STRANGER - poem film, written and directed by me, in collaboration with incredible puppeteer CARMEL BALFE of Little Gem Puppets. This is a shadow puppet film about being an immigrant, here and abroad, with original acoustic music by renowned Helen B Grehan, and the poem read beautifully by Aoife ni Mhurchadha. We launched it at the Strokestown Poetry Festival, Next screening is at The Elephant in the Room, Ballygar, Co Galway on Sunday 15th September at 3pm... then at Strokestown Library on Culture Night, 20th September, and then at the O'Bhéal International Poetry-Film Competition on 13th October - where it has been short-listed! ****WATCH 'THE STRANGER' ON YOUTUBE here BIG NEWS!! I signed to the fantastic SALMON POETRY and my next book "Silver Spoon" is a full collection, due out in early 2020... To read some of my work climb into this site, and/or buy my chapbooks. REVIEWS: Reviews of PACT : in The Poet's Republic here , by Neil Young; The Galway Advertiser here , by Des Kenny; and from Lagan Online here , Colin Dardis ...and other good reviews in The North, and Blue Nib! "Pact is Jessamine O Connor’s fifth collection, having self-published three previous chapbooks. It perhaps says something about the state of publishing in Ireland, how difficult it can be, with few platforms to notice you. With O Connor being shortlisted for the Cuirt New Writing Prize, Over The Edge and the Hennessy Literary award, listed in many others, and having won the iYeats competition and the Francis Ledwidge Award, it’s a wonder she hasn’t been snapped up by a larger press by now..." --------------------------------------- Review of Hellsteeth on "The Ranting Beast" Review of Hellsteeth in Sabotage by Afric McGlinchey: From a review of A Skyful of Kites in Sabotage by Emma Lee: "Jessamine O’Connor uses the poems in A Skyful of Kites to express anger, particularly at the failure and impotence of politics at home and abroad, both historically and in the present. However, these poems are not rants or directionless venting... "a way of saying ‘this is wrong’ without telling readers which way to vote. Jessamine O’Connor respects and gives space for her readers to think. "Her strength lies in her ability to be passionate about a situation, while structuring that passion into a poem that doesn’t dictate the reader’s reaction or hammer the poet’s viewpoint home." 
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