Poetry Prize – Trocaire’s Annual Poetry Competition

Congratulations to Michael Lucey (2nd Year) who came Second in the Post-Primary Junior Sector of Trocaire’s Annual Poetry Competition in association with Poetry Ireland.

He will recite his poem, ‘The Promised Land’ at Dublin Castle on Friday 16th September, as part of the Culture Night 2016.

Congratulations Michael!

Here is the award winning poem…

THE PROMISED LAND

Climbing over mountaintops
In search of better lands,
Every footfall with a promise
Passed down from man to man.
A legacy that’s written
In footprints in the sand
And seas that, at the second touch,
Are parted like a fan.

A nation that was set aside
By the Father long ago,
The hunter’s stag, the sailor’s isle,
An iridescent goal.
But what is there for those of us
Who have been forced to flee,
Whose cries are only froth and spray
Upon an open sea?

A people merely cast away
Accursed and forlorn,
Doomed to walk the night and day,
Unwelcome in the morn,
Rebuffed and blocked by wire fence,
Between two nations torn,
No land of milk and honey
That they can call their own,

Just a desperate, yearning exodus,
The human struggle reborn.

Michael Lucey