Congratulations to Annemarie Ní Churreáin, on being selected as a Julie Suk Award Finalist for her collection, Hymn to All the Restless Girls (2025).
In Hymn to All the Restless Girls, “Ní Churreáin is articulating what it is like for the women of our generation, those of us born while the laundries were still open, those of us who grew up knowing about them, but not understanding them, and yet those whose decisions were all laden with the vehement, insidious understanding that there were no second chances. Fall, and you fall alone. How angry we are. And how tired:
Oh, it’s never-ending! This fire.
The outer daughters burn for the inner daughter.
See how we flicker in our linden coats
as our girl within a girl, the unseen one, spits
in the face of Abasy monsters.
[…]
Wolves, help us nest the bones of our deepest daughter.
(‘For a Restless Girl Who Loved Matryoshka Dolls’)”
— Aoife Lyall, Books Ireland
