Cork poet: My family on both sides were poetry lovers

VICTORIA Kennefick is a woman of words, and she is a woman of note.

The award-winning poet, who is a native of Shanagarry, East Cork, is delighted to have been appointed as Cork County Council’s writer in residence for the coming year.

Victoria, poet, writer and teacher, and mum to Vivienne, aged six, who lives in Tralee, says she is delighted to be returning to her native Cork.

“Returning to Cork to collaborate with writers, students, and readers in developing and enriching their relationship and engagement with literature is a source of great delight to me,” says Victoria.

Cork County Council has provided me with many opportunities as an emerging writer in the past and it’s a true honour to pay it back in this way.

Victoria, a talented poet and writer, published her second collection in February, Egg/Shell, recommended by The Poetry Book Society (PBS) as its 2024 Spring Choice. Her poem, Guest Room, appeared on the English Paper Two Leaving Cert 2003.

What does the book explore?

“Egg/Shell explores early motherhood and miscarriage, and the impact of a spouse’s gender transition and the dissolution of a marriage. And supporting young people as to who they are,” explains Victoria.

“Egg/Shell was sent to all members of the Poetry Book Society, and being the Spring Choice of the Society is a huge endorsement for me.”

Victoria writes on the move.

I like train-hopping and I am commuting from Tralee to Cork - I often write poems in the car. Maybe I’ll write on the train!

“There is huge literary talent in Cork and I’m looking forward to tapping into it and working with literary enthusiasts. Reading new writing works, listening and curating, offering workshop requests, is an exciting prospect.

“I’m looking forward to engagement with writers’ groups and community organisations as well as young people. I will be visiting libraries and also providing guidance online.”

As part of her role as writer in residence, Victoria will be visiting five libraries: Bandon, Cobh, Kanturk, Carrigaline and Mitchelstown.

“There will be stand-alone events also, Poetry Day Ireland, for instance, and I’ll be reading at the West Cork Literary Festival,” says Victoria, whose collection, Eat or We Both Starve, won the Seamus Heaney First Collection Poetry Prize.

Her passion for poetry and books was nurtured from a young age.

“My family on both sides were poetry lovers,” says Victoria, who is working on her first novel.

Shakespeare and epic poems were a big part of my childhood. 

"My mother favoured the romantic poets like Yeats, Byron and Keats that provided soothing elements. My dad liked American poets, poetry that rhymed and poetry that was funny.

“I could read very early on starting school and I realised early that poems were magical, and communication even given dark and deep subject matter like love, death, immortality, and God. They related to deep inward feelings,” says Victoria.

“Poems always fascinated me and how they were put together.”

Victoria, who grew up by the sea, says she was a somewhat anxious child.

“I wanted to know what worked, I was curious and very hungry in a precocious way. I remember learning nursery rhymes and looking back they seemed so dark, like the limericks. 

I thought; this is what life is about. Every image had a meaning. Poetry is like constructing a body around a soul is a poem is to exist.

Victoria liked existing beside the sea in Shanagarry.

“It was always a great source of comfort to me. I like being on the edge of things; then as now.”

She was blessed to be read to regularly by her mother and two older sisters.

“ The Witches and Matilda by Roald Dahl were favourites, partly because they horrified me. I loved to listen to the poetry of Walter de la Mare. Anne of the Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery really grabbed me.”

Victoria has literary roots going way back.

“My maternal grandfather was a teacher and a voracious reader, he used to cycle all over Ireland for first editions,” says Victoria.

“My maternal grandmother could recite huge chunks of Shakespeare and many poems off by heart. My mother can do likewise as can many of her siblings.”

Poetry came easy to the Kennificks on both sides of the family.

With my grandparents and my mother and father so interested in poetry and the love of it, that interest had a huge influence on me, the readiness with which they could access these beautiful and strange words.

What did they like to read and recite?

“My father loved the poems of Robert Service - their rhyme and rhythm. My paternal grandfather was a farmer, publican and blacksmith.”

Those occupations prompted lots of story-telling.

“That’s true,” says Victoria.

Does she adhere to a routine and familiar writing space when she is writing (apart from the car and the train)!?

“Recently, with the support of a bursary from Kerry County Council, I had the opportunity to spend a week writing in Greywood Arts in Killeagh which I was very grateful for,” says Victoria. “Greywood is a beautiful period house right at the edge of the village, next to the river. I stayed in a lovely room and had a magnificent study all to myself. The house is situated right next to Glenbower Woods where I walked every day.”

Victoria likes getting away from the daily grind.

“I’m not good with routines,” she says. “It’s a curse but it’s just how my brain works so I’ve learned how to grab moments where possible.

“When I am working on something a little difficult, where I want to avoid or hide, I must pounce, take myself by surprise.

“So I might crack open the laptop at a kitchen table, in the back of a car, a café, or sometimes in bed. I often have to trick myself into working!”

Does the award-winning writer have any advice for would-be writers that dream of being published?

“Writing is an action word,” says Victoria. “That means doing, being actively engaged. Lean into what fascinates you and what you enjoy.”

The residency is managed by Cork County Council Library and Arts Service. This position is supported by the Arts Council/An Chomhairle Ealaíon and Creative Ireland.