A much-needed new national poetry award has been introduced by the winners of the Best Small Sponsorship Award at the Allianz Business to Arts Awards, Farmgate Café and Munster Literature Centre.

“We feel the Farmgate National Poetry Award is a logical continuation of our ongoing and mutually beneficial relationship with the arts community in Cork. Ultimately, we are enriched by our association with the writers and poets of our local community and further afield. All the elements of the café – the food, the building, the poems, the art works and the people – make the business unique.” – Rebecca Harte, CEO, Farmgate Café.

“As an arts sponsor, Farmgate is singular in being motivated primarily in what general good can result from its involvement rather than the attention it receives. The Farmgate National Poetry Award helps to augment the Cork International Poetry Festival’s reputation as one of national significance. Our out-of-town ticket sales increased this year and I have no doubt that the award and the media attention it attracted contributed to that.” – Patrick Cotter, artistic director, Munster Literature Centre.

Located in the English Market in Cork City, the Farmgate Café recently received a handwritten poem from President Michael D. Higgins entitled ‘Stardust’. It is the newest addition to its ‘Poetry Wall’, which is a permanent collection of poems by Irish and international poets commissioned originally in 2005 to celebrate the City of Culture.

The wall has aroused interest not only in the poems and poets themselves, but combined with the other creative elements in the café, including the paintings, sculptures and food, has helped to shape and develop the business.

Since 2015, Farmgate Café sponsored the fees for poets published by the Munster Literature Centre in The Examiner’s weekly poetry page. When The Examiner ceased publication of poems last October, the sponsorship evolved into the new €2,500 Farmgate National Poetry Award for the best new collection of poetry published in the previous calendar year. It was presented to Beara poet Leanne O’Sullivan this year at the Cork International Poetry Festival, Ireland’s largest annual dedicated poetry festival produced by Munster Literature Centre.

With coverage in two national newspapers, the Farmgate National Poetry Award engaged with every poetry publisher in the country and received 40 valid entries. Munster Literature Centre’s artistic director Patrick Cotter came up with the idea as he wanted to go to Farmgate with an attractive project tailored to its interests in supporting poetry and writers over the years.

Farmgate Café founder Kate Harte believes that cultured ambience is just as important to the success of an eatery as quality produce or efficient staff. For 12 years now, Munster Literature Centre has hosted visiting writers at the café for lunch, primarily during the Cork International Poetry Festival and the Cork International Short Story Festival.

Cotter describes the relationship as “highly symbiotic”. It has allowed him to show Cork off as a place of great cuisine and a proper destination to visit. This has led to a number of write-ups abroad such as in The New Yorker magazine. Farmgate has also been very flexible with the Munster Literature Centre, agreeing to a voucher system allowing writers to feed themselves on an individual basis rather than at obliged set times.