Here is what final judge Deshawn McKinney had to say about "Snag Breac at Glendalough, Co. Wicklow":

“"The way this poem so cements itself in Ireland is breathtaking.

When listening to the Irish language being spoken, or even English that is Irish-accented, the natural poetic qualities of the language emerge quite readily; the rhythm of the language utilized throughout these stanzas so effectively capture this sing-song quality that I found myself smiling as I read. The alliteration right from the jump with “Walk wind-wracked shores” sets the stage and doesn’t let up. The text swirls with literary devices that evoke a rich world of auditory delight: assonance, consonance, internal rhyme, end rhyme, all the rhythms! Perhaps my favorite section is this, “Your song can’t be missed (bleating like a lamb, / Shrieking like a shrike), but then you lift, flashing / Wings of iridescent green and blue on black.” How missed bounces off of lift, wings dancing with green, the bleating and shrieking adding sounds into the world as the words do on the page, and even the anticipatory gust of flight. So lovely how this poem flows, each line pushing you seamlessly into the next. The poem is honorific of the language in this way.

It is also honorific of the setting. How vividly St. Kevin’s is erected in the opening stanza; nothing simply is, every facet of the world is active and detailed. Lichen wraps stone, the wind beats the shores and the water, clouds scarf the slopes. It is at once very violent language and yet, quite a serene picture painted, for the harsh wind, the roughness of the land, is also a protective barrier (“we fear not berserkers / Coursing the Irish Sea). The Snag Breac sighting at this location is an absolute beauty of a way to stake a claim to rebirth and perseverance. How an old name conferred upon a new species can alive a perished one is the same manner in which the appearance of this new life at the scene of a violent end can grant breath to the land. This is a poem about Vikings wiping out a people, yet it is much more about what happens after, how, with time the spots “forever sorrow-swept” can reclaim themselves.

It is a powerful thing to place readers in place without sacrificing the elements of identity to make them feel welcome. Authors like Liz Berry do this to great effect in their work, taking pride in and paying homage to the people of the Black Country, and I get a similar feel here. I felt welcomed to this land, and walked through its rebirth in a way that doesn’t shrink from its history. I can’t wait to see others walk these lines."

Thomas McGuire is a poet, essayist, translator, and literary scholar. His work has appeared in The Ekphrastic Review, North American Review, Zocalo Public Square, Southeast Review, River Heron, New Hibernia Review, Poetry for the More-Than-Human-World, and Open-Eyed, Full-Throated: An Anthology of American/Irish Poets. His poem "Four Ways of Looking at Magpie--A Most Becoming Bird" appeared in Best New Poets, 2020. He is a Professor of English at the U.S. Air Force Academy where he teaches Irish poetry and war literature. He also serves as the editor of War, Literature & the Arts. In 2008, he was a Fulbright Scholar to Ireland.