Poetry Reading in Dun Laoghaire/Rathdown

Dún Laoghaire Rathdown Library Voices

Two of Ireland's major poets, Gerald Dawe and Brendan Kennelly, in the company of Leontia Flynn, recent winner of the prestigious Rooney Prize for Literature 2008. Leontia's latest collection from Cape is entitled Drives (2008). Gerald's is Points West from Gallery Press (2008.) Described by one critic as Ireland's "most endearing and reckless poet" Brendan Kennelly has been enchanting reading audiences for longer than he cares to remember.

How: Tickets from DLR libraries 5 Euro or call DLR Library HQ on 01-2781788.
When: Wednesday, November 5th (7.30pm)
Where: County Hall Dún Laoghaire

By the way, the same night

5 November at 6.30 p.m.
Book Launch
Emerging Writers: A collection
Admission Free

In the Irish Writers Centre. This is NOTHING TO DO WITH ME! yes, a fruitless attempt to leap on to my famous coattails, thwarted online.
I have no idea who it is though...

More on Poetry as Public Art

More thoughts on poetry as public art after this post

(I started writing it as a response to on a small island's comment but it got all long!)

The bluechrome blog says National Poetry Day is a waste of time because the general public (GP)consider poetry to be unloveable and don't want to spend the time to understand the linguistic/stylistic intricacies. So it's a waste of time and money.

Isn't the whole point to expose the GP to poetry that is lovable and too-clever-by-half? That poetry didn't stop at the first world war? You don't have to understand sculpture to appreciate and enjoy Barry Flanagan's Hares. You don't need an English PhD to read Carol Ann Duffy or Simon Armitage or Rita Ann Higgins.

And why is it that at times of stress and celebration (weddings and funerals) GP turn to poetry still?

And it also says poetry is thriving. No it's not. Maybe in a 1% of the population who write poetry themselves and another 1/2% or so who read it by choice and subscribe to those small mags that scrabble for cash from one issue to another.

So if you treat poetry as public art, accessible on street corners, in magazines, in doctor's surgeries, you can and will re-introduce some of the GP to poetry as art worth considering. If you only convert a small number, that will swell the total of active poetry users by a considerable percentage.

And while we're on the subject, some of the little magazines are wonderful, some are full of poems from a clique of people known personally to the editors, some are vanity publishing by another name and some are just dire, or worse, a mix of dire with really rather good/promising. I find it depressing when I am lucky enough to have something in a magazine and when I read it, many of the other inclusions are of questionable quality/truly awful and only the poet's mother could love them.

I love the photo above, a guerilla poet going out on the streets and night and chalking up poems (I see it as a man in a hoodie much like Banksy) under the streetlights. Maybe we should all do it.

Oxfam Poems

When:Thursday 6th November 7-10PM
Where: Film Base, Curve St., Temple Bar, Dublin

Oxfambooks is proud to announce the arrival of the Poems for 2009 calendar.

The six new winning poets Anne O Connor, Eamonn Lynsky, Geraldine Mitchell, Liz Gallagher, Patricia Zontelli and David Mohan are published alongside the esteemed Moya Cannon, Patrick Deeley, Dave Lordan, Vona Groarke, Eamon Grennan and Eiléan Ni Chuilleanáin.

Expect a night of fun and frolics with readings from the featured poets. The art works will be exhibited in the ground floor gallery and are for sale on the night.

The calendars will be in Oxfam shops from the second week in November retailing at €12 (I've never got one before they're sold out. They'd make a great Christmas present)

Update: See here for the calendar.

Public Poetry

Temporary Beach poetry
Originally uploaded by Island 2000 Arts

There's no doubt of the passion in this blog post from bluechrome but I strongly disagree with some of the sentiment.

I believe that poetry should not be restricted to a small group of people, mainly only those who write poetry themselves. (And no small number of these never read modern poetry anyway)
I believe poetry should be public art, not hidden in corners.
I believe poetry should be printed on cereal boxes, on bus stops, on T shirts, on shop receipts, on the radio, on TV, on wheelie bins, on rubbish bags.
I believe everyone who can read, can read and appreciate poetry.
I believe generations of English curricula have turned most people off poetry before they've left school.
I believe that there is a core of readers/consumers of fiction and non-fiction who, if they were exposed to the right type of modern poetry, would go and buy it.
I believe you don't need to dumb down to appeal.
I believe poetry should start in the nursery and go on to the retirement home.
I believe National Poetry Day is not only a good idea, it is essential.
I believe.

With a Bang

What are you doing this bonfire night? Setting off fireworks and frightening the cats or listening to a collection of upcoming (dare I say emerging) poets. The Editors of Windows Publications based in Cavan, Heather Brett and Noel Monahan are launching anthology Authors & Artists Introduction Series number 8 featuring Martin Kelly, Kieran Furey, Patrick Toland and Iain Mac Pherson as well as Visual artist Martin Campbell.

Martin Kelly, originally from Bailiboro in County Cavan, spent 34 years in Belfast during the troubles as a curate, hospital chaplain and spiritual director and is now parish priest in Portaferry, County Down.
Award winning poet Kieran Furey is from Curraghroe, Roscommon and writes in Spanish and English. He has lived in Ecuador and Cuba, and travelled widely in Brazil, Africa, India and the US. Kieran lives in Longford.
Belfast poet Patrick Toland has been teacher and housemaster in an English boarding
school for the past ten years and is currently studying for a Masters in Creative Writing at Oxford University. (And I went drinking with him and his brother one memorable snowy evening in Belfast. If he writes as good as he talks, you're in for a treat!)
Visual artist Martin Campbell has just returned from an exhibition of his work in Liverpool. He works in television and the media and is from Newry, Co Down.
Scottish Gaelic poet Iain Mac Pherson is from Canada with family origins from the Scottish Isles of Islay, Mull and Skye. He is a lecturer in The University of Ulster, Coleraine.

Where:Irish Writers Centre.
When: Wednesday 5th November at 6:30pm

Or if you're in or near Cavan this Thursday.

Where: The Johnston Central Library, Farnham Street, Cavan
When: Thursday 30th Oct at 8pm

Augmented Sculpture v1.0 by Pablo Valbuena

Watch this amazing visual art and study how the play of light and shape and sound inspires reactions in you. Try watching it with the sound off for a different experience. Think about light and shadow and movement in your writing.

Seven Deadly Words

Seven Deadly Words of book reviewing as in over used to the point of meaningless-ness. From the New York Times article. They often come in batches. My italics below.

poignant: Something you read may affect you, or move you. That doesn’t mean it’s poignant. Something is poignant when it’s keenly, even painfully, affecting. When Bambi’s mother dies, an adult may think it poignant. A child probably finds it terrifying.

compelling: Many things in life and in books are compelling. The problem is that too often in book reviews far too many things are found to be such. A book may be a page turner, but that doesn’t necessarily make it compelling. Overuse has weakened a word that implies an overwhelming force.

intriguing: It doesn’t mean merely interesting or fascinating although it’s almost always used in place of one of those words. When it is, the sense of something illicit and mysterious is lost. Or it might be a cop out word for a book the reviewer didn't like or didn't understand.

eschew: No one actually says this word in real life. It appears almost exclusively in writing when the perp is stretching for a flashy synonym for avoid or reject or shun.

craft (used as a verb): In “The Careful Writer,” Theodore M. Bernstein reminds us that “the advertising fraternity has decided craft is a verb.” Undeterred, reviewers use it when they are needlessly afraid of using plain old write. They also try to make pen a verb, as in “he penned a tome.” And anyway, he probably word-processed it.

lyrical: Reviewers use this adjective when they want to say something is well written. But using the word loosely misses the sense of expressing emotion in an imaginative and beautiful way. Save lyrical for your next review of Wordsworth.

The next ... fill in the blanks, JK Rowling, Stephen King, Jeffrey Archer, Zadie Smith.
Here's another post on how to write a bad review.