Poet in Residence

Our Poet in Residence, Catherine Ann Cullen, had a busy year, engaging, inspiring and supporting many communities in their interactions with poetry. Here are a few highlights:

Pathways Centre Until July, Catherine Ann was leading weekly writing workshops with a group from the Pathways Centre, which facilitates the re-integration of former prisoners. Covid-19 restrictions saw the workshops move online from mid-March and Catherine Ann is proactively working with the Centre which, along with its clients, has been disproportionately affected by pandemic-related closures. Poetry Prompts On 13 March, the first day of the closure of Poetry Ireland, schools and colleges and businesses, Catherine Ann began posting a daily #PoetryPrompt duo on Twitter and Facebook, one for adults and one for children. From August, after 200 prompts had been posted, these changed to two weekly prompts. They’ve engaged poets of all ages, many writing for the first time, and we’ve received enthusiastic

Catherine Ann appearing on RTÉ News2Day

“Catherine Ann, a sincere thank you for your initiative and imagination. You got me back to the writing table!”

feedback from responders who have formed a supportive online community.

Alphabet Blitz for the City of Dublin The ABCD project, launched in July, is a crowd-sourced rhyming alphabet for Dublin. The project runs for 26 weeks until December and individuals, schools and groups can use social media, email or post to submit a response for one letter or a whole alphabet. In the first three months, the project had 307 submissions and a huge reach on social media. Catherine Ann talked to schoolchildren about the project on RTÉ’s News2Day programme in September. Other projects included live and recorded readings for Irish and international audiences, developing the Behind the Lines video series with Poetry Ireland’s Education Department, composing lyrics for Ode to Joy (a nationwide tribute to frontline staff by the Royal Irish Academy of Music), holding online poetry clinics for Poetry Day Ireland, school visits and residencies, and writing workshops including with the Fatima Poetry Group, formed in October. Catherine Ann also curated the streamed video event Living Ghosts: A Tribute to Frank Harte, in partnership with An Góilín, as part of the Frank Harte Festival 2020.

Read more about Catherine Ann’s work during 2020 in this Q&A news article.

Thanks to the funders of the Poet in Residence project: Adrian Brinkerhoff Poetry Fund of the Sidney E Frank Foundation, and Rethink Ireland.