Poetry Divas at Babble Festival

I hope to see a load of you this Friday 16th August in Cavan, at the Open Mic as part of the Babble Literary Festival. It's hosted by the lovely people at Cavan Creative Writers' Forum. 8pm Blessings Bar. Come and say hello. Come and read some poetry. Come and listen.

It aims to showcase some of the established and emerging literary talents that this border region has to offer. - See more at: http://www.cavanliving.ie/index.php/2013/08/02/babble-cavans-summer-literary-festival

The Babble Festival weekend will start on Friday night with Poetry Slam supremo Stephen James Smith and he Fabulous Poetry Divas in Blessings Bar in Cavan Town plus readings and music. An afternoon on the Saturday writing workshop with Tom McIntyre at the Backyard Arts Centre, Moynehall, Cavan. A debut of a new play by Cavan-based playwright, Tara Maria Lovett at Chapter 1, Cavan and an open air concert with Mundy on Saturday night. The Festival ends with the official launch of the “Babble Journal 2013” by keynote author, teacher & Fermanagh resident Carlo Gébler at the Kilmore Hotel in Cavan.

The members of Cavan Creative Writers’ Forum came up with the name Babble for this summer’s literary festival. The name was chosen for a number of reasons.

Firstly, the group felt that water was the powerful and fluid connective between counties in this border area. The ‘babbling’ fluidity of the porous Lakeland region was seen as a byword for the more static and hackneyed emblem of the bridge, often referred to in the Peace building measure. Water, the Forum believes has more kinetic power to flow, change and it transgresses most rigid or mapped borders between lands, people, communities and nationalities.

Secondly, the Forum chose Babble for its slightly subversive and quirky quality. In many ways, all talk is nonsense — right back to our pre-verbal cries, gurgles and babble. Moreover, all talk, chatter and verbal exchanges flow in one stream or another gushing or pooling to shape the written words of literature. Sometimes, art and literature can be seen as elitist, lofty and exclusionary (especially by non-writers). Therefore, in choosing Babble it decided to undercut that notion and dispel any assumptions of pretentiousness in a good humoured  way— as satirical literary journals such as Blather (Flann O’Brien et al) once did!