tarabergincontact@gmail.com
Tell me, he said as our paths crossed on the green. Do they call you a poetess?
Oh, I said. They don’t use that word anymore.
I am always thinking how can it hurt me
what are the possibilities for it not to hurt me
we need each other
the master looks but I make the emergency
the master nails the nail but I wrap my hand around
you give me nine months of unswerving devotion
after this a new image is born
Publications
2023 savage tales
2017 the tragic death of eleanor marx
2013 this is yarr0w
Tara Bergin is from Dublin and has published three collections of poetry with Carcanet Press: This Is Yarrow, winner of the Seamus Heaney Prize for Poetry, The Tragic Death of Eleanor Marx, which was shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot and Forward Prizes, and most recently Savage Tales, one of the Irish Times ‘best new poetry books of 2022’, winner of the Michael Hartnett Award 2024, shortlisted for the Pigott Poetry Prize 2023 and the Derek Walcott Prize 2023. Tara now lives in the North of England and teaches part-time in the creative writing programme at Newcastle University.
Latest Projects
STRANGELETS online poetry pamphlet for Abridged Magazine 2024
THE THUNDER RESIDENCY collaborative project in response to the Brontë holdings at Howarth : Ongoing
THE DISPOSABLE MUSEUM COLLECTIVE collaborative project combining image with text
“Tara Bergin’s Savage Tales is a thrilling experimental collection that is grounded in the playfulness and intelligence of a singular voice...a book defined by energetic forces and linguistic verve.”
Judges’ Statement, Pigott Prize 2023
“Tara Bergin’s Savage Tales underlines her position as one of our most exciting poets. [...] generous and humane and utterly compelling.”
Stephen Sexton, The Irish Times
“An original voice of great power that flicks between speech and song, and between the borrowed and the wholly owned, with consummate ease.”
W.N. Herbert, T.S. Eliot Award Ceremony
“An intriguing, questing technique, both destructive and gifted.”
Thomas McCarthy, Poetry Ireland Review
“This is a poetry that questions identity. It doesn’t seek personal solace or release from psychological tensions, but instead wants to chafe and hassle us into greater awareness of how terribly contingent our lives are.”
Tom Sleigh, Threepenny Review
“A rare originality of voice and vision.”
Sean O’Brien, The Guardian
Recent Public Readings
Dec 2023. NEW YORK Irish Arts Centre, with Elisa Gonzalez & Timothy Donnelly
Nov 2023. CAMBRIDGE St. John’s College, with Nick Laird
July 2023. NEW ENGLAND REVIEW Launch, with Pádraig Ó Tuama & Molly Twomey
June 2023. BELFAST BOOK FESTIVAL, with Leontia Flynn
April 2023. CÚIRT LITERATURE FESTIVAL GALWAY, with Pádraig Regan & Eva Bourke
Recent Writing Workshops
for The Poetry Business
& The Verandah
“IDEA. FACT. EMOTION.”
“STATES OF KNOWING: Poetry as Research” with Yomi Sode
for Arvon at Home
“TOWARDS A POETRY COLLECTION” with Paul Farley
for Arvon at Totleigh Barton
for Poetry Ireland
“THE VOICE OF THE POEM”
for The Model
“POETRY & PAINTING”