Tara Bergin is the author of three collections of poetry with Carcanet Press: This is Yarrow, winner of the Seamus Heaney Prize for Poetry; The Tragic Death of Eleanor Marx, shortlisted for the T. S. Eliot and Forward Prizes; and most recently Savage Tales, one of the Irish Times ‘best new poetry books’ of the year and winner of the Michael Hartnett Poetry Award 2024.
Essays and poems have featured on BBC Radio 3, BBC Radio 4 & RTÉ. Tara sometimes reviews book for the Irish Times and PN Review.
Live events and festivals include Shakespeare and Company in Paris, The Irish Arts Centre in New York, Cúirt Festival in Galway, The Harvard Club in Boston, The Bluecoat Gallery in Liverpool, Montclair University in New Jersey, the International Literature Festival in Bremen, Ledbury Poetry Festival, StAnza Poetry Festival, The Southbank Centre in London and Books Upstairs in Dublin
Individual poems in magazines and journals include Abridged, Ambit, Evergreen Review, Granta, The Honest Ulsterman, The Guardian, Modern Poetry in Translation, New England Review, the North, Poetry (Chicago), Poetry Ireland Review,Poetry London, The Poetry Review, PN Review, Prototype, The Stinging Fly, tender, TLS, Trumpet, Winter Papers
Poems in anthologies include Staying Human (ed. Neil Astley), Currently & Emotion (ed. Sophie Collins), Grand Tour (ed. Jan Wagner), The Forward Book of Poetry (ed. Bernadine Evaristo & Joelle Taylor), One for the Road (ed. Stuart Maconie & Helen Mort), The Deep Heart’s Core (ed. Pat Boran & Eugene O’Connell); Vital Signs (ed. Martin Dyar), Windharp (ed. Niall MacMonagle)
Quotes from reviews
“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.” Vona Groarke, Judges’ Statement for the 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