POETRY WINNER
THEY say memories last a lifetime. And for Sligo writer Una Mannion, one childhood memory has stuck with her so strongly that it inspired her to write a poem about it - a Hennessy Award winning poem that is.
Una Mannion, a lecturer in Performing Arts at IT Sligo, was so moved by the memory of an archaeological dig in her family’s field that she wrote ‘ Crouched Burial’.
“My poem was inspired by an archaeological dig in Cullenamore in 1981. They were carrying out studies back then and so they asked if they could dig in our field,” she told The Sligo Champion.
She added: “They were expecting to find maybe animal bones and old kitchenware and things like that.
“But then they found a child’s remains in a ritual position with artefacts. One of the things I’m very aware of it someone laid that child down with love and care. The imprint of her small frame in the earth and details of her burial shaped this poem.”
The award, says Ms. Mannion, is a huge honour and has given her even more confidence in her own writing.
“I’m over the moon. It’s the Hennessy Award, it’s such an honour. The amount of people who enter it, it’s available to everyone. It’s something do democratic. It really is an award that promotes Irish writing. I now feel I have to live up to it.
“So they accept both poetry and fiction and you can send it into the Irish Times. I was lucky to have my poem accepted. So they published one on the last Saturday of every month, mine was published in March of last year. They pick 12 poets and from there they select the Hennessy Award winners.”
‘ Crouched Burial’ has now not only won the Emerging Poetry Award in the Hennessy Awards, but it was also chosen as the winner of the eats’ Society’s Seamus Heaney Memorial Poetry Prize in 2015.
“I write both fiction and poetry. I think even though the poem is based on real life it’s been fictionalised to some extent too,” she added.
Ms. Mannion has enjoyed a successful year of writing, also winning awards at the Doolin Writers Weekend Short Story competition for her story ‘ A Shiver of Hearts’ and the Cúirt International Festival of Literature for ‘ The Bright Lake.
“I’m writing a novel at the moment, and I’ve won a few awards over the last number of years so while I’m writing stories and poetry all the time I’m really focusing on my novel at the minute.”
IT Sligo just last week received validation for a new BA in Writing and Literature which will start from September.
It’s fitting then, that this would be announced on the same week that Una picked up her Hennessy award.
She will be the Programme Chair for the new three year course, which she says will be brilliant for Sligo.
“Sligo has a tremendous literacy legacy and a landscape shaped by that and we have so many wonderful writers here in Sligo,” she said.
“Winning the award actually gave me great confidence meeting the panel about that news.”
She has been involved in writing and literature for some time. “I’ve been teaching literature a long time. I’ve worked around Sligo writers for years but I suppose I never really had the confidence to do it myself.
“So four years ago I saw there was a writing class in Galway so I bit the bullet. Then that became a group and I wanted to find something in Sligo. We actually had a full group and that has been hugely successful.
“We’re called the Sandy Field Writers Group and we have women who have won loads of awards in that.
“It’s been life- changing, it really has.”