Emerging Creatives: Victoria Kennefick

Emma Cody
Nov 23, 2025
3 min read

Victoria Kennefick: Hunger, Memory, and the Fierce Intimacy of an Irish Voice

By Emma Cody · Co-Founder · 23/11/25

Some poets write with elegance, and some write with precision. Every now and then, a poet arrives who writes with urgency, as though each line is carved from something deeply lived. Victoria Kennefick is one of those rare writers. Her poems don’t simply communicate emotion, they inhabit it. They move with a pulse, a breath, a vivid sense of presence that stays with you long after the page is turned.

In the landscape of contemporary Irish poetry, Kennefick’s voice is unmistakable: fierce yet vulnerable, visceral yet tender, grounded in ritual, memory, and the complexities of the body.

She is a poet whose work feels both intimate and expansive, a voice shaped by personal history but resonant far beyond it.

Who is Victoria Kennefick?

Originally from Shanagarry, County Cork, and now based in County Kerry, Victoria Kennefick has quickly become one of the most acclaimed and compelling poets of her generation.

Her path to poetry blends scholarships, curiosity, and deep engagement with the Irish literary tradition. She completed a PhD in English Literature at University College Cork, and later travelled to the United States as a Fulbright Scholar, studying at Emory University and Georgia College & State University.

Her academic grounding is evident in her work — not in a way that distances the reader, but in the way she structures her poems: thoughtful, layered, and attentive to the resonances between past and present.

Body of Work: From First Pamphlet to Award-Winning Collections:

White Whaler (2015)

Published by Southword Editions, White Whale introduced Kennefick’s early style: lyrical, mythic, and unafraid to grapple with longing, transformation, and the depths of personal history. It laid the foundation for everything that followed.

Eat or We Both Starve (2021)

Her debut full-length collection, published by Carcanet Press, was a defining moment. A book about hunger, for connection, for memory, for survival — it navigates the terrain of family, desire, grief, and the rituals that bind us to each other.

Egg/Shell (2024)

Her second collection continues her exploration of the body, identity, and vulnerability. Egg/Shell is a book concerned with thresholds, the moment something fractures, or something forms. The poems feel delicate yet unflinching, and the collection won the Farmgate Cafe National Poetry Award, further cementing her growing reputation.

A Significant Presence in Irish Literary Life:

Kennefick’s impact extends beyond her books. She has held several prestigious roles, including:

Poet-in-Residence at the Yeats Society, Sligo
Writer-in-Residence at University College Dublin
2025 Writer Fellow with the Arts Council of Ireland and Trinity College Dublin.

Her work has appeared in leading literary journals such as Poetry, The Poetry Review, PN Review, The Stinging Fly, and Poetry Ireland Review. She also co-hosts the Unlaunched Books Podcast, showcasing her interest in uplifting emerging writers and fostering literary community.

Some of My Favourite Pieces:

Hunger (from Eat or We Both Starve)

“Hunger” is one of Kennefick’s most striking explorations of loss, inheritance, and emotional need. The title signals not just physical appetite, but a deeper, more haunting emptiness, one that grief leaves behind. The poem treats hunger as a metaphor for absence: the absence of a loved one, the absence of comfort, the absence of the version of ourselves that existed before that loss

January

“January” is a poem steeped in atmosphere, cold, stripped-back, edged with the sharpness of early winter light. “ If “Hunger” deals with emotional emptiness, then “January” explores a different kind of barrenness: the moment when a year begins but the speaker feels suspended, waiting for something unnamed.

Seamount

“Seamount” for me personally is one of Kennefick’s most evocative poems — a piece that feels geological, mythic, and intensely emotional. A seamount (an underwater mountain) is a perfect metaphor for what lies beneath the surface: memory, grief, buried desire, hidden versions of the self.

Why She Matters:

Kennefick stands out because she writes poems that feel lived, not merely crafted. She brings to the page a rare combination of emotional immediacy and technical precision. Her work speaks to the complexities of contemporary Irish identity, but equally, it transcends geography. Anyone who has experienced loss, longing, or the intricate nature of family will find themselves reflected in her lines.

She is a poet unafraid of vulnerability, unafraid of darkness, unafraid of the truths the body carries. And as she continues to evolve, her work feels like it’s only becoming more powerful.

Conclusion:

If you’re discovering Victoria Kennefick for the first time, begin with Eat or We Both Starve. It’s a bold, unforgettable debut full-length collection that will show you exactly why she has become one of the most significant Irish poets of the last decade.

The move straight into Egg/Shell, a collection that demonstrates growth, depth, and daring.

In a poetry landscape hungry for honesty, clarity, and emotional resonance, Kennefick offers all three — in abundance.