New Creative Writing from UCC
Each February, Ó Bhéal presents poets and short fiction writers engaged in UCC’s MA Creative Writing programme, who read from their new work. This event will be held both in-person, hosted in the Hayloft bar, upstairs in Long Valley, Winthrop St Cork, as well as on Zoom.
Readers include:
Sean Noonan, Robyn Kelly and Noel Reiling.
You can listen to all seven poets reading here.
Ben Donnellan is a poet from Cork, currently studying for a masters in creative writing at UCC. His work attempts to draw on the inherent mythology present in the lives of the individual, framing everyday life, its struggles and its pleasures, in an epic context.
Conor Daly is poet and short fiction writer from Cork. He has an undergraduate degree in English and German from UCC where he is now undertaking an MA in Creative writing. His work focuses on people, place and capturing the mundane and it has previously appeared in Motley Magazine.
Mary Dunne is a 24-year-old writer from Westmeath, Ireland. She has an International Degree in English and French from University of Galway. Mary is currently completing her Masters in Creative Writing in University College Cork. Her work has been published in ROPES literary journal. She writes both poetry and fiction.
Sam Wingfield-Karpowitz is a MA student in Creative Writing at University College Cork. He is from Alexandria, Virginia, and has since lived in Minnesota and northern California before arriving in Cork.
Seán Noonan writes poetry with an outdoor slant – professionally and personally he is fascinated by nature and its power to heal for many years now. In addition, he sees poetry as a form of personal adventure, and when he’s not outdoors poetry offers him an outlet for exploration through words, images, and stories.
Robyn Kelly (They/she) is a poet and fiction writer studying for their MA in Creative Writing at UCC. Her pieces focus predominantly on themes of isolation, grief, and self reflection. Their work has been featured in New Word Order, Motley Magazine, and The Caveat Lector.
Noel Reiling is a writer from St Paul, Minnesota currently living in Cork. He is studying for a masters in creative writing at UCC, and enjoys writing both poetry and prose with a focus on the natural world.
This event will be both in-person, hosted in the Hayloft bar, upstairs in Long Valley, Winthrop St Cork, as well as on Zoom (which is limited to 100 people). Participation in the open-mic session and five word challenge is open to both in-person and virtual attendees. The session will be live-streamed at obheal.ie/live and via Ó Bhéal’s Vimeo, Facebook and YouTube channels. Note to Participants: Our hybrid events are recorded and remain viewable on video via these same channels.
We are no longer posting the zoom link via our social media channels. Upon written request to info@obheal.ie with a sentence outlining your reason for participation, a link to join the session will be emailed to you on the evening of the event, which is expected to run for between 2-3 hours.
7-7.45pm: Poetry-Films (random play from Ó Bhéal’s Poetry-Film comp archives – NOT STREAMED);
8.30pm: Five Word Challenge (max 30 – after the allotted 15 minutes writing time);
9.30pm: Featured Guest Poets (will read for up to 8 minutes each, or 40 minutes total);
10:20pm: Open-Mic Session for original poetry (max 30).
(Entering a Zoom meeting is all explained here >>>. This link provides you with a step-by-step guide and YouTube tutorial if necessary. You should check this out if you’re unfamiliar with the Zoom platform – it also shows you where to download the zoom client/app for your computer/phone. Please Make sure to know where the chat box is and how to mute yourself to reduce background sound.)
Tania Haberland and Michael McKimm
(via Zoom) (in-person)
Tania Haberland, a tri-national poet (German-South African-Mauritian), body-worder and biophile is the hybrid of a Hamburg sailor and a Mauritian artist, born in Africa, raised in Arabia, mis-educated in America and ‘matured’ in Europe. She publishes, performs and exhibits her poetry and multi-media collaborations across the globe. She lives in Italia and Mauritius where she writes, teaches, sings and creates with the water as her element of connection to this world.
Tania’s first collection Hyphen (UCT Writers Series 2009) won the 2010 Ingrid Jonker Prize. Her second collection, Water Flame / Fiamma d’acqua was published by Mille Gru editions in 2019. She co-edits the online bilingual ecopoetic Poetura column for Poetry Therapy Italia. IG:@thetechnologyoftenderness
Michael McKimm grew up in Co. Antrim and lives in London. His latest collection of poems is Because we could not dance at the wedding (Worple, 2023), following Still This Need (Heaventree, 2009) and Fossil Sunshine (Worple, 2013), a climate project funded by Arts Council England.
His poetry has recently appeared in the anthologies Queering the Green: Post-2000 Queer Irish Poetry (Lifeboat, 2021) and Windfall: Irish Nature Poems to Inspire and Connect (Hachette, 2023), and his short fiction was highly commended in the Cúirt New Writing Prize 2023.
A librarian at the Geological Society, in 2015 Michael commissioned and edited the anthology MAP: Poems After William Smith’s Geological Map of 1815, celebrating the first geological map of Britain. This was followed in 2017 with The Tree Line: Poems for Trees, Woods & People, in support of the Woodland Trust. Or Land The Sea: A Photo-Poem, co-created with artist Julie Cuthbert, will be published in 2024.
This event will be both in-person, hosted in the Hayloft bar, upstairs in Long Valley, Winthrop St Cork, as well as on Zoom (which is limited to 100 people). Participation in the open-mic session and five word challenge is open to both in-person and virtual attendees. The session will be live-streamed at obheal.ie/live and via Ó Bhéal’s Vimeo, Facebook and YouTube channels. Note to Participants: Our hybrid events are recorded and remain viewable on video via these same channels.
We are no longer posting the zoom link via our social media channels. Upon written request to info@obheal.ie with a sentence outlining your reason for participation, a link to join the session will be emailed to you on the evening of the event, which is expected to run for between 2-3 hours.
7-7.45pm: Poetry-Films (random play from Ó Bhéal’s Poetry-Film comp archives – NOT STREAMED);
8.30pm: Five Word Challenge (max 30 – after the allotted 15 minutes writing time);
9.30pm: Featured Guest Poets (20 minutes each);
10:20pm: Open-Mic Session for original poetry (max 30).
(Entering a Zoom meeting is all explained here >>>. This link provides you with a step-by-step guide and YouTube tutorial if necessary. You should check this out if you’re unfamiliar with the Zoom platform – it also shows you where to download the zoom client/app for your computer/phone. Please Make sure to know where the chat box is and how to mute yourself to reduce background sound.)
