The Center for Irish Studies and College of Arts and Sciences announced Jessica Traynor as the recipient of the 27th Lawrence O’Shaughnessy Award for Poetry. The only prize of its type in the world, the O’Shaughnessy Award is granted to a poet resident in Ireland who makes significant contributions to the country’s cultural landscape and, with thanks to the generosity of the O’Shaughnessy family, to the U.S. as well.

There will be a reception at 7 pm with Jessica Traynor. The official event, starting with an interview with the author, will begin at 7:30 pm. Free.

‘Here an acerbic wit is fused with ruminations on the female body along with the concerns of early parenthood… Traynor’s sound is effortlessly hypnotic, her language formed, deliberate and lyrical.’ – Anthony Anaxagorou, Poetry Book Society Selector, on Pit Lullabies

Jessica Traynor is a poet, essayist, dramaturg, and creative writing teacher.

Jessica Traynor was born in Dublin in 1984 and is a poet, essayist and librettist. Her debut collection, Liffey Swim (Dedalus Press, 2014), was shortlisted for the Strong/Shine Award and in 2016 was named one of the best poetry debuts of the past five years on Bustle.com. Her second collection, The Quick, was a 2019 Irish Times poetry choice. A Place of Pointed Stones, a pamphlet commissioned by Offaly County Council, was published by The Salvage Press in 2021. Her third collection, Pit Lullabies, is due from Bloodaxe in March 2022. It is a Poetry Book Society Recommendation.

Essays and interviews have been published in The Dublin Review, Tolka, Banshee, Winter Papers, Sunday Miscellany 50, and We Are Dublin and listed for the Deborah Rogers Foundation Award and Fitzcarraldo Editions Prize.

She has written libretti for a number of operas, including Paper Boat (Music for Galways/ INO, 2022), Ghost Apples for 20 Shots of Opera (INO, 2020), and The Wanderer (Irish Modern Dance Theatre, 2022).

She has received commissions for poems from BBC Radio 4, The Arts Council of Ireland, The Model Gallery Sligo, The Salvage Press, VISUAL Carlow, Dún Laoghaire–Rathdown County Council and The Poetry Programme (RTÉ), and awards including the Hennessy New Writer of the Year, the Ireland Chair of Poetry Bursary, and the Listowel Poetry Prize. In 2016, she was named one of the ‘Rising Generation’ of poets by Poetry Ireland.

She reviews poetry for RTÉ’s Arena, and for Poetry Ireland Review, and has held residencies including the Yeats Society, Sligo, and Carlow College. She is an inaugural Creative Fellow of UCD, where she completed her MA in Creative Writing in 2008, and is Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown Writer in Residence for 2021-22.