Laurie Bolger has won this year’s €6,000 Moth Poetry Prize with her poem ‘Parkland Walk’. The prize was judged by Nobel laureate Louise Glück, who said: “My own preference inclines to the irregular over the regular, to suggestion over assertion, to dissonance over harmony … I respond to poems that surprise me. ‘Parkland Walk’ reflects this definition of originality. It sounds like speech, at once utterly natural and deeply odd.

“On the surface, it concerns a pair of rebellious and sassy girls, who like to do things they’ve been warned against. Slowly, almost invisibly, the anecdotal becomes the archetypal: the relatively innocent walk becomes some larger, more fated journey into the unknown and perilous.”

You can watch Laurie Bolger reading her poem here

She responded to the news by saying on Twitter: “Over the moon absolutely over the moon … you’ve made my year.”

Laurie Bolger has been a host at the live poetry night Bang Said The Gun, and also featured in Nationwide Building Society adverts. She has said of her work: “I write a lot about pubs, the old grubby London boozers … The old guy at the bar that’s got really good stories to tell.”

PHOTOGRAPH: GREG FREEMAN/WRITE OUT LOUD