Robyn Rowland
You can listen to Robyn’s reading here.
Dr. Robyn Rowland AO has published 9 books, six of them poetry. Silence & its tongues (Five Islands Press, 2006) was runner up for the 2007 ACT Minister’s Judith Wright Poetry Prize. Robyn has won the Catalpa Poetry Prize and overall Writers Prize from the Australian-Irish Heritage Association, and the Jean Stone Poetry Prize. Robyn annually reads/teaches in Ireland at major festivals. She has also read in Portugal, Turkey, Greece, the USA and the UK. Her work has been featured regularly on Australian National Radio, particularly on PoeticA and on The Spirit of Things covering her Irish experience of exile and belonging. She has judged a number of poetry competitions. Robyn has published non-fiction, journalism, and research papers as well as poetry.
An Honorary Fellow, School of Culture and Communication, University of Melbourne, Robyn was previously Professor of Social Inquiry at Deakin University, retiring in 1996 after breast cancer and burnout. She recently retired from her honorary position as Deputy Chair of the Board of the Australian Poetry Centre (2007-2008). Some of Robyn’s work, a short bio and photo can be viewed at Other Voices Poetry International, an invitation-only cyber anthology at
http://www.othervoicespoetry.org/vol38/rowland/index.html
or on her website www.robynrowland.com.
Robyn will also be giving a workshop from 7pm entitled Landscapes of the Self. For more information click here.
Terry McDonagh
You can listen to Terry’s reading here.
Terry McDonagh, www.terry-mcdonagh.com, poet and dramatist, has published four collections of poetry; a play; a book of letters, as well as a novel and poetry for children.
His work has been translated into Indonesian and German, funded by Ireland Literature Exchange. With piper Diarmaid Moynihan, he completes poet/piper duo, Raitneach. Twelve of his poems have been put to music by German composer, Eberhard Reichel. His latest poetry collection (’08) CILL AODÁIN & NOWHERE ELSE is illustrated by artist Sally McKenna. Mulligan, detective stories set in North Germany, are to be published in 2009.
Robert Gray and Alison Croggon
You can listen to Robert’s reading here.
Robert Gray grew up in Coffs Harbour and was educated in a country town on the north coast of New South Wales. He trained there as a journalist, and since then has worked in Sydney as an editor, advertising copywriter, reviewer and buyer for bookshops. His first book of poems, Creekwater Journal, was published in 1973.
Gray has been a writer-in-residence at Meiji University in Tokyo and at several universities throughout Australia including Geelong College in 1982. He has won the Adelaide Arts Festival and the New South Wales and Victorian Premiers’ Awards for poetry. In 1990 he received the Patrick White Award. With Geoffrey Lehmann, he edited two anthologies, The Younger Australian Poets and Australian Poetry in the Twentieth Century, and he is the editor of Selected Poems by Shaw Neilson, and Drawn from Life, the journals of the painter John Olsen. Nameless Earth is his latest collection of poetry. 2008 saw the much anticipated publication of his memoir, The Land I Came Through Last.
Awards:
1986 – New South Wales Premier’s Literary Awards Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry for Selected Poems 1963-83
1986 – The Adelaide Festival of the Arts Award
1986 – The Grace Leven Prize for Poetry
1990 – Patrick White Award
1994 – Victorian Premier’s Literary Award – C. J. Dennis Prize for Poetry for Certain Things
2002 – The Age Book of the Year Dinny O’Hearn Poetry Prize for Afterimages
2002 – Victorian Premier’s Literary Award – C. J. Dennis Prize for Poetry for Afterimages
Born in 1962, Alison Croggon is one of a generation of Australian poets which emerged in the 1990s. She writes in many genres, including criticism, theatre and prose. She is Melbourne theatre critic for the national daily newspaper, The Australian, and keeps a blog of theatre criticism, Theatre Notes, for which she was won the 2009 Geraldine Brooks Critic of the Year award.
Her poetry has been published widely in anthologies and magazines in Australia and overseas, and her work has been nomiated . Her most recent collection, Theatre, came out last year with Salt Publishing. Her poetry has won the Anne Elder and Dame Mary Gilmore Prizes, and been shortlisted for Victorian Premier’s Poetry Prize and the Kenneth Slessor Poetry Prize in the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards. In 2000 she was the Australia Council Writer in Residence at Pembroke College, University of Cambridge (UK).
Alison Croggon is also the author of the acclaimed young adult fantasy quartet, The Books of Pellinor. The first volume was nominated in two categories in the Aurealis Awards for Excellence in Australian Speculative Fiction in December 2002 and named one of the Notable Books of 2003 by the Children’s Book Council of Australia. The series has since been released to critical and popular acclaim in the US, the UK and Europe.
Alison has written and had performed nine works for theatre, with operas and plays presented at the Melbourne and Perth International Arts Festivals. She was one of a thousand Australians invited to Canberra in April 2008 for the Australia 2020 Summit, where she was a member of the Creative Australia discussion. She was poetry editor for Overland Extra (1992), Modern Writing (1992-1994) and Voices (1996) and is founding editor of the literary arts journal Masthead.
For Jazz-Poetry Night 2009 (evening runs late):
BACKRA MeN
– Morley Hayden & Haines
and a reading by Romanian poet
Denisa Mirena Pişcu
BACKRA MeN are bass guitarist Si Hayden, drums by Ben Haines and poetry by Jon Morley. From the reviews:
‘They’re a rare breed, great poets crossing over to music, and with only a couple of names springing to mind, Jonathan Morley – stands closer to Gil Scott-Heron rather than Leonard Cohen. His lines chime with jive, so Morley teams up with guitarist and composer Si Hayden and drummer Ben Haines to deliver them in style. Cue this album, a companion piece to Backra Man the book (note the singular as opposed to the plural in the record’s title), a jazzy experience which starts creepingly with Hayden’s piano rippling over Haines’ shadowy cymbals and Morley’s gloomy voice reciting strange images – The music feels as strange as the poems but one fits the other perfectly – This fusion of poetry and sparse melodies seems sinister indeed, yet it’s not aggressive at all, save for the Rasta talk of ‘Sistah’ that sounds melodious even without ragged accompaniment, whereas the ‘Duskfall’ lace is pure elegance and ‘Iberian Baroque’ gently takes a listener on an Indiana Jones-like adventure to the Indian pyramids’ Haunting!’ – Dmitry M. Epstein, Let it Rock
‘There is something organic about poetry and well tuned musicians. And Si’s work is just great, the double bass playing is spot on. It really sounds like the musicians overstood the poetry’ – Benjamin Zephaniah
‘Ranges confidently from the delightfully and deliberately graceless to the coolly satisfying, taking in some streetwise dialect along the way’ – The Shearsman
‘You might find a methodology to Hayden’s playing, but every composition is so tailored with its own voice that it negates everything you have ever learned about method playing. These are not finger moves that are taught in school. They are moves with such imagination and independent thinking that they make you feel honored to hear them. The music has a striking star quality that few artists can achieve’ – Susan Frances, Jazz Review
‘A lot of jazz influence – walking bass lines, tapping, blazing scale work, great bluesy, funky grooves, jazz chordings, some Spanish guitar flourishes, and lots of quick arpeggios” – Kirk Albrecht, Minor 7th
Sample tracks from the album:
‘Map’ with video is at youtube here.
‘For Lee Miller’ with video is here.
Disposable People by Denisa Mirena Pişcu
Denisa Mirena Pişcu is a Romanian poet residing in Bucharest. She was born on August 22nd, 1980 at Rădăuţi, Suceava county. She graduated the Faculty of Letters, University of Bucharest, followed by an interdisciplinary master at the Center of Excellence for the Study of Image. She has worked as journalist and translator and at present she is project coordinator at the Romanian Cultural Institute in Bucharest.
Denisa Mirena Pişcu published the first selection of her poems in Astra magazine (Braşov, 1992), followed by the publication of poetry, prose and essays in various cultural magazines in Romania, such as: Vatra, Viata Romaneasca, Bucureştiul Cultural, Ziua Literară, Suplimentul de Duminică, tiuk! , Fracturi (which founded the literary trend fracturism) etc.
During the faculty years she published the underground booklet fluffy and mechanical, carmen collection no.9 (2002).
The editorial debut was in 2003, at Vinea Publishing House, with a book of poems bearing the same title, Fluffy and Mechanical – which was awarded the prize for debut by the Association of Writers in Bucharest and the Writer’s Union, Brasov branch.
Her poems are included in the anthologies: Douămiismul poetic românesc (Generation 2000 in Romanian Poetry) by Ştefania Mincu, Pontica 2007; Generation 2000 by Marin Mincu (Pontica, 2004); The Second Top by Al. Cistelecan (Aula, 2004); Euridice Literary Circle, vol. 3, coordinated by Marin Mincu (Ziua, 2004).
During the years 2007-2008, she was involved in the international project ‘Overcoming Dictatorships – the Encounter of Artists, Poets and Writers’, sponsored by the EU, gathering artists and writers from the Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Romania and Poland. At present, she’s studying sound poetry for her master thesis.
This tour of Ireland sees Denisa launch her second full collection ‘Disposable People’, published by Galway Print and which will be available at the readings.
Ó Bhéal in association with Foras na Gaeilge presents a bi-lingual evening with
a bi-lingual poetry evening with
Gabriel Rosenstock
You can listen to Gabriel’s reading here.
Gabriel Rosenstock is a poet and haikuist, member of Aosdána and Founding Associate of the Haiku Foundation. He is the author/translator of over 150 books, mostly in Irish. Cló Iar-Chonnachta has published his Rogha Dánta/Selected Poems and Salmon recently published a debut volume in English, Uttering Her Name. Coiscéim published an anthology of sacred poetry from around the world, Guthanna Beannaithe an Domhain in two volumes and you can expect a third. He edited A Treasury of Irish Love for Hippocrene Books, New York. Dedalus brought out a bilingual volume of poems Bliain an Bhandé/ Year of the Goddess and Cambridge Scholars Publishing brought out his spiritual and cultural musings on haiku earlier this year in two volumes, Haiku Enlightenment and Haiku, the Gentle Art of Disappearing. For his Irish-language versions of poets Munir Niazi and Muhammad Iqbal, he was awarded the Tamgha-I-Khidmat medal by the President of Pakistan.
Maurice Scully
You can listen to Maurice’s reading here.
Maurice Scully was born in Dublin in 1952, grew up between Clare, the Ring Gaeltacht and Dublin and after studying at Trinity College, Dublin, spent a number of years between Ireland, Italy, Greece and Africa. He is now a teacher, settled in Dublin with his wife and four children.
In a writing career that began in the early ’70s he has published over a dozen volumes of poetry and taken part in conferences and festivals in the UK & US where his readings are prized as key interpretations of his complex, engaging work. The selection in this volume, made by the poet himself, draws on the extensive Things That Happen project (1981-2006), as well as three new books, Several Dances, Humming & Work. – Dedalus
His books include Love Poems & Others (Dublin, Raven Arts Press, 1981); 5 Freedoms of Movement (Swansea, Galloping Dog Press,1987 [2nd edition, South Devonshire, Etruscan Books, 2001]); The Basic Colours (Durham, Pig Press, 1994); Priority (London, Writers’ Forum, 1995); Steps (London, Reality Street Editions, 1998); Livelihood (Bray, Wild Honey Press, 2004), Tig (Exeter, Shearsman Books, 2006); and Sonata (Reality Street Editions, 2006).
He has also produced a number of pamphlets, including Prior (Staple Diet 1991; Tel Let, U.S. ed., 1992); Certain Pages (Form books, 1993), Over & Through (Poetical Histories, 1993); Prelude, Interlude, Postlude (all Wild Honey Press, 1997); and Doing the Same in English, A Sampler of work 1987-2008 (Dublin, Dedalus Press, 2008).
Enda Coyle-Greene
Enda Coyle-Greene lives in Co. Dublin. Her work has been published widely in literary journals and anthologies in Ireland and abroad and she is a frequent contributor to RTE radio programmes. Prizes for poetry include a Hennessy Award nomination in 2002. The manuscript of her first collection, Snow Negatives, won the Patrick Kavanagh Poetry Award in 2006 and was published in 2007 by The Dedalus Press. She is currently studying for an MA in Creative Writing at the Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry at Queen’s University, Belfast.
The Whitehouse Poets
You can listen to The Whitehouse Poets’ readings here.
Six poets from The Whitehouse Poets, Barney Sheehan, Dominic Taylor, Tom McCarthy, Evelyn Casey, Teri Murray and Donal O’Flynn will read their poetry from Shannonside, as part of a Munster poetry exchange between the Whitehouse and Ó Bhéal (six Ó Bhéal poets will read at The Whitehouse in Limerick on the 2nd of December).
Donal O’Flynn is from Charleville Co. Cork. Has had poems published in various anthologies. An engineer he has lived and worked in the Middle East, the Far East, Africa and America. His first collection, Lost Grace, was published by Revival Press this year.
Tom McCarthy is from Limerick but lives in Co Clare. He is a poet, songwriter and artist. A poet in the old Irish Bardic tradition he has one chapbook published and has also being published in Revival. Winner of the inaugural Desmond O’grady International Festival trophy also a finalist in the 2009 All-Ireland Poetry Slam to be held in Galway.
Teri Murray has had three collections of poetry published by Stonebridge also a childrens novel is ready to be published. She is currently editor of Revival. Her new and selected poems will be published in 2010 by Revival Press.
Barney Sheehan was the original founder of the White House Poetry Revival at the White House Pub, Limerick. In a varied career of salesman, craftsman, would be local politician and poet, Barney has been responsible for putting Limerick on the poetry map. A talented poet he is a member of Cuisle Limerick International Poetry Festival committee
Dominic Taylor is from Limerick and co-organises the White House Poetry Revival. He has had work published in Revival, The Stony Thursday Book, Boyne Berries, Crannog and Microphone On – the White House Anthology. He is also a songwriter and produced two albums of his work. He is a board member of The Limerick Writers’ Centre.
Evelyn Casey is from Limerick and has lived in north Germany for fourteen years. She is a fitness and health consultant and trainer working at the University of Limerick Sports Arena. She has been writing since she can remember.
Joseph Woods
You can listen to Joe’s reading here.
Joseph Woods is a poet and Director of Poetry Ireland. A winner of the Patrick Kavanagh Award, his two collections, Sailing to Hokkaido (2001) and Bearings (2005) are both published by Worple Press (UK). He co edited Our Shared Japan (Dedalus Press, 2007), an anthology of contemporary Irish poetry concerning Japan. He is currently working toward a third collection.
Woods can’t help but evince his deep and extensive engagement with contemporary poetry. Wide-ranging but subtle effects suggest there’s much held in reserve here; and more to come.
– Fiona Sampson, The Irish Times.
