Live Literature

Like every art organisation and all other sectors, Poetry Ireland’s activities during 2020 were deeply impacted by Covid-19. Through the year, we reshaped, reformatted and renewed our programmes, prioritising artists and communities, and tried to view the year as an opportunity to adapt and embrace change. We moved to more digital, safe and accessible ways to enjoy poetry, which while missing the shared collective experience, did help us reach more people nationwide and worldwide.

In the early part of the year, live events at 11 Parnell Square included the book launches of Black Mountain Poems, a debut collection by Arnie Yasinski, and new Dedalus Press titles by poets Enda Coyle-Greene, Paddy Bushe, Gerry Murphy, and Gerry Smyth.

Poetry Ireland was also home to the Living Room Folk Sessions, a night of trad and poetry, and our last in-person event was an International Women’s Day reading, with funds raised for Women’s Aid.

Online events during 2020 included a transatlantic celebration of the life and work of Eavan Boland, in partnership with the Embassy of Ireland USA and the Irish Arts Center, a celebration of Ciaran Carson close to the one year anniversary of his death, and the return of Lemme Talk, in a virtual format on Instagram.

Poetry Ireland partnered with Instituto Cervantes Dublin on an online multilingual reading of poems

Jessica Traynor, one of the poets who took part in our International Women’s Day event in March

in English, Spanish, and Irish, and partnered with MoLI and The Gallery Press for the online launch of Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin’s Collected Poems. We also hosted a video tribute event as part of the Frank Harte Festival (curated by our Poet in Residence Catherine Ann Cullen), and a streamed event as part of Dublin Arts and Human Rights Festival.

In partnership with Dublin Book Festival, we celebrated the publication of Issue 9 of Trumpet with a podcast featuring guest editor Chandrika Narayanan-Mohan and several contributors. We hosted three online launches of Poetry Ireland Review during the year, featuring videos of contributors reading their work. Culture Night featured a number of quotes from poems popping up on multimedia screens across Dublin and Belfast. We also celebrated the winners of the Trócaire Poetry Ireland Poetry Competition with a special video event.

We supported IMRAM’s presentation of Ovid’s Metamorphoses in Irish, through five multi-media films. We also supported Unlaunched Books, a podcast series presented by John McAuliffe, Victoria Kennefick and Seán Hewitt in which they talked to poets, critics, curators and readers about the books they would have been launching and talking about during this year if Covid-19 had not intervened. And we also supported weekly podcast, Words Lightly Spoken.

As part of Culture Night 2020, poetry popped up on screens in Dublin, Cork and Belfast

We supported events with the John Hewitt Society during 2020 and continued to support regular poetry series like Ó Bhéal in Cork and Over the Edge in Galway, and events at festivals around the country such as Bealtaine, Red Line Book Festival, ILFDublin and many more.

In partnership with the Brinkerhoff Foundation, we produced poetry films featuring emerging poets Nithy Kasa, Samuel Yakura, Sasha Terfous, Kayssie K, and Dagogo Hart.

We were delighted to announce in November two new commissions with poets Nithy Kasa and Dagogo Hart, supported by the Arts Council of Ireland. This will enable them to complete significant new bodies of work during 2021 - stay tuned for more details.

Dagogo Hart and Nithy Kasa

“Watching on our TV in London. Ain’t technology

wonderful.” Feedback from one of the attendees at an event during the year

A Transatlantic Tribute to Eavan Boland, which took place in May

One of the poetry films, in partnership with the Adrian Brinkerhoff Poetry Foundation, featured Kayssie K