Carcanet Press - Tara Bergin

About
Reviews
Awards

Tara Bergin 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 (shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot and Forward Prizes) and Savage Tales (shortlisted for the Pigott Poetry Prize).

'It is a book of puzzles, paradoxes, oddities and fragmented observations... these tiny stories feel sinister and unsettling'
Andy Croft, Morning Star
'Eleanor Marx forms the locus for Bergin's exploration of the range of ways in which women's lives are disrupted and destabilized... this sense of the interior bleeds across the poems.'
Ian Pople, The North, the Irish Issue
'Loss, separation and desertion are all laid out for inspection as on a laboratory table to be coolly appraised... There is nothing cosy about Tara Bargin's poetry'
Sean Sheehan, The Prism
'Bergin's rhythms draw on nursery rhymes, but beneath them is something like an unconscious longing for depth, tugging the simplicity of the sounds out of shape.'
Joanne O'Leary, The TLS

'Hers is 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 (Chair of the 2017 T.S. Eliot Prize Judging Panel)

'Contains much hidden art, paring its gothic verse with an impressive precision of feeling and deftness of technique. All killer and no filler, it is the best book in contention.'
Jeremy Noel-Tod on the 2018 T.S. Eliot Prize shortlist, The Sunday Times

'Eleanor Marx, daughter of Karl, wrote the first English translation of Madame Bovary, and it is Bovary's spirit that haunts these slender, allusive lyrics in many voices, all hint and subtext. The brilliant title poem concludes, with a wink, ''Nearly all of this is true''. One piece takes the form of footnotes to a missing page; it's the perfect symbol for Dublin-born Bergin's riddling second collection as a whole.'
Tristram Fane Saunders, The Daily Telegraph

'Bergin's collection is ambitious in ideas and form. She juggles theoretical and formal concerns, slipping between jarring syntax and musical, lyrical phrases with an impressive ease that, at its best, mixes ironic detachment with authentic emotional response. This collection wrangles skilfully with allusion, fragmentary forms and the poetâs own processes of composition.'
The Scores

'Bergin's best poems have an atmosphere of unassuming sadness.'
The Times Best Books of the Year 2017

'The Tragic Death of Eleanor Marx seems to step into the breach and breathe new, memorable ways into writing the underexplored past.'
The Poetry School

'Bergin's collection is a hall of mirrors and its reflections are comic, grotesque and extraordinary.'
John Field on the 2017 T.S. Eliot Prize shortlist newsletter

'Bergin's Gothic imagination - precise, claustrophobic, yet full of vertiginous perspectives - makes her a perfect guide to these frightened, frightening times.'
New Statesman

'An exhilarating read, daring, original and very funny.'
John McAuliffe, The Irish Times
'Bergin succeeds in creating a clear voice and a dramatic situation. This is Yarrow is primarily a book of monologues, establishing voices whose skewed attitudes invite an engaged critical response from the reader. The monologues are sometimes reminiscent of Paul Durcan and at other times Sylvia Plath and they can be very cutting and funny at the expense of their speakers.'
John McAuliffe, Irish Times

Awards won by Tara Bergin Winner, 2024 The Michael Hartnett Poetry Award (Savage Tales) Short-listed, 2023 The Derek Walcott Prize for Poetry
(Savage Tales) Short-listed, 2023 The Pigott Poetry Prize (Savage Tales) Short-listed, 2018 Irish Times Poetry Now Award (The Tragic Death of Eleanor Marx) Short-listed, 2017 Listowel Writers' Week Irish Poem of the Year ('Bride and Moth', published in The Tragic Death of Eleanor Marx) Short-listed, 2017 The T.S. Eliot Prize (The Tragic Death of Eleanor Marx) Short-listed, 2017 The Forward Prize for Best Collection (The Tragic Death of Eleanor Marx) Commended, 2017 Poetry Book Society Recommendation (The Tragic Death of Eleanor Marx) Winner, 2014 Shine/Strong Poetry Award Winner, 2014 Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry Prize for First Full Collection Short-listed, 2014 Irish Times Poetry Now Award

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Tara Bergin Books by this author: Savage Tales The Tragic Death of Eleanor Marx This is Yarrow About Reviews Awards Tara Bergin 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 (shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot and Forward Prizes) and Savage Tales (shortlisted for the Pigott Poetry Prize). 'It is a book of puzzles, paradoxes, oddities and fragmented observations... these tiny stories feel sinister and unsettling' Andy Croft, Morning Star 'Eleanor Marx forms the locus for Bergin's exploration of the range of ways in which women's lives are disrupted and destabilized... this sense of the interior bleeds across the poems.' *Ian Pople, The North, the Irish Issue* 'Loss, separation and desertion are all laid out for inspection as on a laboratory table to be coolly appraised... There is nothing cosy about Tara Bargin's poetry' Sean Sheehan, The Prism 'Bergin's rhythms draw on nursery rhymes, but beneath them is something like an unconscious longing for depth, tugging the simplicity of the sounds out of shape.' Joanne O'Leary, The TLS 'Hers is 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 (Chair of the 2017 T.S. Eliot Prize Judging Panel) 'Contains much hidden art, paring its gothic verse with an impressive precision of feeling and deftness of technique. All killer and no filler, it is the best book in contention.' Jeremy Noel-Tod on the 2018 T.S. Eliot Prize shortlist, The Sunday Times 'Eleanor Marx, daughter of Karl, wrote the first English translation of Madame Bovary, and it is Bovary's spirit that haunts these slender, allusive lyrics in many voices, all hint and subtext. The brilliant title poem concludes, with a wink, ''Nearly all of this is true''. One piece takes the form of footnotes to a missing page; it's the perfect symbol for Dublin-born Bergin's riddling second collection as a whole.' Tristram Fane Saunders, The Daily Telegraph 'Bergin's collection is ambitious in ideas and form. She juggles theoretical and formal concerns, slipping between jarring syntax and musical, lyrical phrases with an impressive ease that, at its best, mixes ironic detachment with authentic emotional response. This collection wrangles skilfully with allusion, fragmentary forms and the poetâs own processes of composition.' The Scores 'Bergin's best poems have an atmosphere of unassuming sadness.' The Times Best Books of the Year 2017 'The Tragic Death of Eleanor Marx seems to step into the breach and breathe new, memorable ways into writing the underexplored past.' The Poetry School 'Bergin's collection is a hall of mirrors and its reflections are comic, grotesque and extraordinary.' John Field on the 2017 T.S. Eliot Prize shortlist newsletter 'Bergin's Gothic imagination - precise, claustrophobic, yet full of vertiginous perspectives - makes her a perfect guide to these frightened, frightening times.' New Statesman 'An exhilarating read, daring, original and very funny.' John McAuliffe, The Irish Times 'Bergin succeeds in creating a clear voice and a dramatic situation. This is Yarrow is primarily a book of monologues, establishing voices whose skewed attitudes invite an engaged critical response from the reader. The monologues are sometimes reminiscent of Paul Durcan and at other times Sylvia Plath and they can be very cutting and funny at the expense of their speakers.' John McAuliffe, Irish Times Awards won by Tara Bergin Winner, 2024 The Michael Hartnett Poetry Award (Savage Tales) Short-listed, 2023 The Derek Walcott Prize for Poetry (Savage Tales) Short-listed, 2023 The Pigott Poetry Prize (Savage Tales) Short-listed, 2018 Irish Times Poetry Now Award (The Tragic Death of Eleanor Marx) Short-listed, 2017 Listowel Writers' Week Irish Poem of the Year ('Bride and Moth', published in The Tragic Death of Eleanor Marx) Short-listed, 2017 The T.S. Eliot Prize (The Tragic Death of Eleanor Marx) Short-listed, 2017 The Forward Prize for Best Collection (The Tragic Death of Eleanor Marx) Commended, 2017 Poetry Book Society Recommendation (The Tragic Death of Eleanor Marx) Winner, 2014 Shine/Strong Poetry Award Winner, 2014 Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry Prize for First Full Collection Short-listed, 2014 Irish Times Poetry Now Award	Share this... Quick Links Carcanet Poetry Carcanet Classics Carcanet Fiction Carcanet Film Lives and Letters PN Review Video Carcanet Celebrates 50 Years! The Carcanet Blog One Little Room: Peter McDonald read more Collected Poems: Mimi Khalvati read more Invisible Dog: Fabio Morbito, translated by Richard Gwyn read more Dante's Purgatorio: Philip Terry read more Billy 'Nibs' Buckshot: John Gallas read more Emotional Support Horse: Claudine Toutoungi read more
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