Congratulations to Conor Walsh on winning the Ken Saro-Wiwa Poetry Competition, ran by Maynooth University Library. Conor was invited to read his poem aloud, at the launch of the book 'Silence Would be Treason', which chronicles Ken Saro-Wiwa and The Ogoni 9's struggles against the Abacha Regime and Shell in their native Nigeria.
Conor's poem '1859' was described by poet Jessica Traynor as "a really imaginative take on the idea of global pollution, a unique historical take focusing on Edwin Drake's striking oil in 1859. I think that the poet has been very clever in going back, in a sense, to the source of our current problems and creating a very dramatic and ominous atmosphere, foreshadowing the trouble that the reader knows will come. The poet does a really good job of evoking the voice of the oil-worker who slowly discovers the ruin their discovery will wreak on humanity." Congratulations to Zofia Terzyk, Eva Paturyan, Áine Dooley and Maeve Byrnes also, who took 2nd, 3rd and runners up prizes.