Poetry prize for O’Driscoll last collection

Dennis O'Driscoll's final collection Dear Life has won this year's Irish Times Poetry Now Award.

The poet died last December and the award will be presented to his widow, Julie O'Callaghan, at 1pm in County Hall, Dún Laoghaire, Co Dublin.

This year's shortlist, chosen by judges Peter Sirr, Ruth Webster, and Mary O'Donnell, included Harry Clifton's The Winter Sleep of Captain Lemass (Bloodaxe Books), Catherine Phil MacCarthy's The Invisible Threshold and Mark Roper's A Gather of Shadow (both Dedalus Press ) and James Harpur's Angels and Harvesters (Anvil Press ).

Previous winners of the award include Seamus Heaney, Derek Mahon, Dorothy Molloy, Harry Clifton and Sinéad Morrissey.

Dennis O'Driscoll published nine collections of poetry, a collection of essays and reviews and Stepping Stones: Interviews with Seamus Heaney.

The €2,500 prize was first awarded in 2005 and is presented during the Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown Mountains to Sea festival, which continues over the weekend (mountainstosea.ie).