David Maybury | Blog

Children’s writer and poet Philip Gross is coming to Dublin in March. Gross will feature as part of the Poetry Now festival in Dún Laoghaire (running from 25 – 28).

Actually Philip will be very busy as part of the Poetry Now festival – with an entire programme of events planned around his visit. Aimed at introducing 8 – 10 year olds to contemporary poetry – Gross will be facilitated teachers’ workshops as well as a number of visits before, during and after the festival.

Philip will also be reading in the Pavilion Theatre 0n Friday 26 March at 10am.

If you have a few minutes I’d recommend checking out what the folks over at Children’s Books Ireland have been up to with their  Write Stuff project. The residencies are finished, the work has been produced – and all that’s left is for it to find an audience!

So have at it folks – if ye have a spare 5 minutes, or you just fancy reading some good writing, then have a click to see what the gang from Monaghan and Clones got up to with Celine Kiernan.

Or what David Donohue discovered about with the (backward) messers in Sligo. And while you’re there – have a read of the poems from the gang in Longford, who worked great with Mary Melvin Geoghan.

G’wan. Have a click!

Michael Rosen launched the Perform-a-Poem site in the UK earlier this week – a school safe video sharing site for poetry performances (there’s a mouthful!) It’s a great idea – and one that the folks at Poetry Ireland have been watching closely.

(They’ve been experimenting with their own videos too – Paula Meehan did a live webcast to libraries around the country on October 1)

Poetry Ireland are in full swing at the minute with their Poetry Aloud competition, pitting students all over the country against each other – all in a bid to perform the best poem. (The nice folks at PI asked me to judge a few sessions – I did my best Simon Cowell impression but I was a bit too nice… and came off more as a not-so-pretty Cheryl Cole.)

The final of the awards are in December and will be presented by Mary McAleese (el President herself) – looking forward to seeing who wins!!

And if all that wasn’t enough for ye – check out Oisín McGann live… just cause ye can!

Did I mention that today is inaugural All-Ireland Poetry Day?

Happy October 2nd to all the poets and poetry readers (and 30th birthday to Poetry Ireland)

There are events across the country today – see here for more or click on a county to see what’s on what’s happening near you.

Last night saw the (re?)launch of O’Brien Press’ award winning and successful poetry anthology Something Beginning with P.

Click on the image for a better look >>>

The new paperback edition follows the original four years later with no changes to the text – it is still edited by Seamus Cashman and it still brings some of Ireland’s best poets together alongside the artwork of Alan Clarke, Corrina Askin and Emma Page.

The poems move from funny to sad, poignant, mythological and farcical but each one of them is brought to life by the imaginative and fantastic illustrations that appear on every page. I couldn’t recommend a better anthology of Irish poetry for children.

> The Poetry Ireland Bookstore is up and running. Some of the best new poetry titles, including Harry Clifton’s new book, at really decent prices. Go on – splash out.

> Andrea Deakin‘s brilliant online newsletter is, ehm, online. (Via AchockaBlog)

> Grammatical correctness. Who could say no to such a move?

> Font Vader. (Made entirely out of Sans Serif fonts!?) Huzzah! (Via Boing Boing)

> Are these the greatest looking libraries in the world? (Via Deputy Dog)

Following Darragh Doyle’s post about Pat Ingoldsby and the question:

How can the online community support our artists and poets more?

The most important way for the online community to help poets and artists is to buy their work.

Unfortunately, poetry books don’t sell and any drop in poetry sales is a big deal. Poets don’t write and produce books expecting a windfall from sales; but publishing is a numbers game. For publishers’ continued survival they have to turn some profit, no matter how small. And that profit relies on the continued support of readers.

Poetry Ireland is the national organisation, set-up to support poets and promote poetry across the country. As part of that remit it is working to promote the sale of poetry.

They are just about to launch an online bookstore – offering readers a chance to get some great books at low prices, direct from the publishers. The list of books offered is being finalised, and will include the recent winner of the Irish Times Poetry Now Award Secular Eden: Paris Notebooks 1994-2004 by Harry Clifton (Wake Forest University Press).

Visit poetryireland.ie for more. (Cross post from here)

A clip of the rarely filmed Alan Finsberg reading from his long poem Howl.