This week’s poetry news round up looks at the Brockman-Campbell Book Award and the posthumous publication of Terminal I.
Claudine R. Moreau Honoured in Brockman-Campbell Book Award 2025
One of the more prestigious honours for poetry in North Caolina, the Brockman-Campbell Book Award, is given in recognition of outstanding book length poetry collections. It is only open to residents of North California.
Claudine R. Moreau, a lecturer in physics and astronomy lecturer has been given an Honourable Mention in the 2025 Brockman-Campbell Book Award in respect her debut poetry collection. Titled “Demise of Pangaea” and published by Main Street Rag, the collection has been recognised by the North Carolina Poetry Society.
This year’s judge of the award, Martin Mitchell, who currently works at the Library of Congress and is a former editor of Poetry Daily, was full of praise for Moreau’s work:
“The scale of Claudine R. Moreau’s “Demise of Pangaea” is huge,” he said. “We range from the granular ‘keyed-in code’ of our cells, to lovemaking and childbirth, all the way to the eventual extinction of our galaxy, with its ‘spiral-armed bones’ descending towards Earth. Moreau beautifully renders humanity’s physical and emotional ‘fossil record.’ A surprising and inventive work.”
The collection offers a combination of scientific insight with some emotional resonance. It explores a number of themes including personal transformation, deep time, and the human experience.
Voice from the Grave
In 1987 when Niall Montgomery died, a mention of his first poetry collection, ominously titled “Terminal” was made in the local newspaper. His friend Michael Smith said at the time how awful it was that Montgomery was not alive to see the collection published formally.
In fact, now almost 40 years later, the collection is finally going to get its place in the limelight, although the title will be changed slightly.
Whilst the book, now to be titled Terminal I, which will now have the subtitle Arrivals, is in part explained by the author’s day job as an architect who worked on the original terminal for Dublin Airport.
During the mid-1960s Montgomery worked as a columnist for the Irish Times, writing a column titled The Liberties under the pseudonym Rosemary Lane. The column received many indignant letters to the editor over the opinions that “Miss Lane” offered. The column was, however, rather short lived. In part this was due to its similarities to another column which Montgomery also wrote.
This didn’t stop his writing and he was something of a “reluctant” poet in his spare time. His early work drew a somewhat backhanded compliment from Samuel Beckett, whose work he would later go on to become one of the leading Irish authorities on.
It was noted that Montgomery’s poetry often paid homage to both Dublin and James Joyce, as well as showing a style that was not dissimilar to that of Allen Ginsberg.
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