Kino
(Washington St, Cork)
Ó Bhéal Hayloft Bar
(Long Valley, Winthrop St, Cork)
Civic Trust House
(Pope’s Quay, Cork)
Ó Bhéal’s 7th Winter Warmer festival presents 23+ poets from seven countries in the Kino. Two workshops will run on the Friday afternoon, after which Corn Uí Riada winner and acclaimed sean-nós singer Máire Ní Chéileachair will open the festival, accompanied by Cork musicians Con O’Drisceoil (accordion) and Johnny McCarthy (fiddle, flute). 2019 has a strong poetry-film theme as acclaimed Australian poetry-filmmaker Marie Craven leads a workshop, a panel discussion, presents a curated screening and a live audiovisual poetry performance with Australian actor/writer Claudia Larose-Bell. Later into the Friday evening local trio Dourga will blend music, song and spoken word.
The Saturday afternoon as usual features a closed-mic set for ten local poets. Events on Sunday 24th take place at Ó Bhéal’s regular home in The Hayloft Bar (Winthrop St), starting with a selection from Ó Bhéal’s 2019 Poetry-Film competition, followed by a multilingual Many Tongues of Cork session curated by Joanna Dukkupati to celebrate diversity through writing (and translation), presenting six female voices who represent a wide range of Cork communities. The session will include sign language interpretation from Ray Greene and projected translations.
The Kino, The Long Valley Bar, The Arts Council, Foras na Gaeilge, Dunnes Stores, Forum Publications,
Colmcille, Arc Publications, Isaacs Hotel, Cork City Council, Poetry Ireland, UCC English Dept,
Café Torino and Paradiso.
Workshops
Civic Trust House , Pope’s Quay
Workshop 1/2
The Meeting of Poetry and Film: Marie Craven & Claudia Larose-Bell
Facilitated by Australian film-maker/curator Marie Craven, and actor/writer Claudia Larose-Bell, this workshop will discuss different approaches to combining poetry, film and performance, and the challenges and rewards of collaboration across art forms.
Participants will be asked to bring one of their previous creative works, as poets, film-makers, performers, or any other art form. In addition they will be asked to bring a new idea for a poetry film they would like to make. Marie and Claudia will facilitate group discussion and feedback on the creative work shared, giving rise to a group brainstorming session on how next to develop the poetry film projects of each participant.
Photo by Nigel Wells
Marie Craven has been a maker of short films for 35 years. These have exhibited extensively at international festivals and events, and gathered many awards. These include Best Film at the 2016 Ó Bhéal Poetry Film Competition, where her work has been among the finalists every year since. Her films since 2014 have been devoted exclusively to the poetry film genre. Over the decades she has been producer, director, writer, and on occasion the voice artist for her 70+ short films. She creates collaboratively, often via the internet, with poets, musicians, videographers and other artists around the world.
Marie’s long vocation in the arts has included sessional teaching and independent assessment at universities, technical colleges and community centres, reviewing films and books, arts administration, and festival programming. She was researcher, curator and manager of the 50-film Australian National Focus at the Semana de Cine Experimental de Madrid in 1994, touring a selection of the films to Paris and Vienna. In mid-2019 she became co-editor of Moving Poems, the world’s major website for nurturing and expanding awareness of the poetry film form. In December 2019 she will be a featured artist at the International Video Poetry Festival in Athens.
Photo by Marie Craven
Claudia Larose-Bell has worked as an actor, writer, director, and producer in Australian theatre for over 30 years. A graduate of the prestigious Victorian College of the Arts in Melbourne, Claudia went on to perform the principal female lead in many plays for the Adelaide State Theatre Company for over a decade, including in collaboration with the Perth and Melbourne State Theatres. She is a co-founder of the Multi-Cultural and Indigenous Theatre Ensemble, established in 1994 to produce community theatre addressing exploration of social issues such as mental illness, homelessness, disability and displacement.
Workshop 2/2
Perspective in Poetry: Kimberly Reyes
In this workshop we’ll be critiquing a persona poem and a poem told in the third person that handle perspective in incredibly affecting ways. We’ll be looking at works from Gwendolyn Brooks and Frank Bidart to see how they step into the life of another to foster empathy through unexpected perspectives. We’ll be working with prompts to help us discover new and interesting perspectives from which to write. What does it take to write a poem of artistic and historical importance from another’s perspective? How can that enhance our ability to relate to each other and ourselves? Let’s find out!
Kimberly Reyes is an award-winning poet, essayist, and second-generation New Yorker whose work has appeared in The Atlantic, The Associated Press, Entertainment Weekly, Time.com, The New York Post, The Village Voice, Alternative Press, ESPN the Magazine, Jane, NY1 News, The Best American Poetry blog, poets.org, The Feminist Wire, and Columbia Journal, among other places.
She is the author of the poetry collections Running to Stand Still (Omnidawn) and Warning Coloration (dancing girl press), and her nonfiction book of essays Life During Wartime (Fourteen Hills) won the 2018 Micheal Rubin Book Award. Kimberly currently lives in Cork as the 2019-2020 Fulbright fellow studying Irish Literature and Film at University College Cork.
Readings & Performances
Kino, Washington St.
Máire Ní Chéileachair, Con O’Drisceoil & Johnny McCarthy
Ciara Ní É | Philip Wilson | The Love of the Sun
Máire Ní Chéileachair is a sean-nós singer from Farran, Co. Cork, who inherited her love of traditional songs and music from her family roots in Kilnamartyra in the Muskerry Gaeltacht of Co. Cork. She has been teaching sean-nós singing to young people in that Gaeltacht since the “Aisling Gheal” scheme started in 2000.
A winner of many prizes at Fleadh Cheoil and Oireachtas na Gaeilge singing competitions she won the premier sean-nós singing competition Corn Uí Riada in 2018. She was also awarded Gradam Ceoil TG4 Amhránaí na Bliana / Singer of the Year in 2018. She is a member of Cork Singers’ Club and a regular visitor and guest at singing festivals around Ireland, Europe and North America. She has issued two CDs, one in 1999 called Guth ar Fán, and in November 2018 a new double CD of her songs, in Irish and English, called Ceantar Glas Mhúscraí.
Is amhránaí sean-nóis í Máire Ní Chéileachair a rugadh agus a tógadh ar an bhFearann i gCo. Chorcaí agus is ó Chill na Martra i nGaeltacht Mhúscraí dá muintir roimpi. B’í an chéad stiúrthóir í ar Aisling Gheal – Scéim Forbartha Amhránaíochta Mhúscraí – sa bhliain 2000 agus tá blianta caite aici i mbun ranganna do aos óg Mhúscraí ó shin. Tá mórán duaiseanna bainte amach aici féin ag Fleadhanna Ceoil agus ag Oireachtas na Gaeilge. Bhuaigh sí Corn Uí Riada, príomhchomórtas amhránaíochta ar an sean-nós sa bhliain 2018. Bronnadh Gradam Ceoil TG4 Amhránaí na Bliana uirthi sa bhliain 2018 chomh maith. Is minic í páirteach i bhféilte ceoil agus amhránaíochta ar fuaid na tíre agus thar lear. Tá dhá CD aici – Guth ar fán (1999) agus Ceantar Glas Mhúscraí (2018).
Cork musicians Con O’Drisceoil (accordion) and Johnny McCarthy (fiddle, flute) have been playing music together for over three decades, usually with Pat “Herring” Ahern in the Four Star Trio. They share a keen interest in the music of Sliabh Luachra, as well as a repertoire that ranges over many regions of Ireland and includes the occasional piece from Scotland and England. As the Four Star Trio, they have issued two CDs, The Square Triangle (1997) and Magnetic South (2018). They have played at festivals and concerts all over Ireland, and at venues in Austria, Italy, France, Switzerland, Slovakia and the UK.
Dubliner Ciara Ní É (sounds like KNEE YAY) is the founder of REIC, a monthly multilingual spoken word and open mic night that features poetry, music, storytelling and rap. She has performed in New York, London, Sweden, and across Ireland including festivals like Electric Picnic, Body and Soul, and IMRAM. She has been published in a variety of journals including Icarus and Comhar, and was chosen for Poetry Ireland’s Introductions series 2017. In 2018 she released a series of 4 poetry videos in partnership with the Irish Writers Centre. Commissions include RTÉ 1 TV; UNESCO Dublin City of Literature. Her poem for Seó Beo Pheil na mBan on TG4 received more than 300,000 views online.
Is Bleáthcliathach í Ciara Ní É. Ise a bhunaigh an oíche mic oscailte REIC, a mbíonn filíocht den fhocal labhartha, rap, ceol, agus scéalta le cloisteáil ann. Scríobhann sí i mBéarla agus i nGaeilge Tá a cuid filíochta léite aici i Nua Eabhrac, i Londain, sa tSualainn, agus in Éirinn ag féiltí éagsúla – Electric Picnic, Body and Soul, IMRAM, agus neart eile. Foilsíodh saothar dá cuid in irisí éagsúla, Icarus agus Comhar ina measc. Roghnaíodh í don scéim Introductions de chuid Poetry Ireland in 2017. Anuraidh d’eisigh sí sraith físdánta i gcomhar le Áras Scríbhneoirí na hÉireann. Tugadh coimisiún di dán a scríobh i gcomhair sraith UNESCO Dublin City of Literature 2015, agus thaifead sí dán don chlár Seó Beo Pheil na mBan TG4 a fuair breis is 300,000 radharc ar líne.
Philip Wilson teaches philosophy at the University of East Anglia. His publications include: The Luther Breviary (with John Gledhill); Literary Translation: Re-drawing the Boundaries (with Jean Boase-Beier and Antoinette Fawcett); Translation after Wittgenstein; The Routledge Handbook of Translation and Philosophy (with Piers Rawling); The Histories of Alexander Neville (with Ingrid Walton and Clive Wilkins-Jones); Simone Weil’s Venice Saved (with Silvia Panizza, Bloomsbury). The Bright Rose (Arc 2015) is an edition of texts and translations of German poetry from 800 to 1280. He is interested in German Baroque poetry and has poems in many magazines.Photo by Brendan Bonsack
The Love of the Sun, an audiovisual poetry performance is inspired by the latest collection from Australian writer Matt Hetherington (pictured), titled The Love of the Sun (Recent Work Press, 2018). Directed by Marie Craven, it features Australian actor, Claudia Larose-Bell (biographies above), former lead player with the Adelaide State Theatre Company. Writer Matt Hetherington has published over 300 poems and five books during the past 20 years, in Australia, Europe and USA. Music is composed by musician and DJ Steve Kelly, in the UK.
Amanda Bell | Gabriel Rosenstock | Danielle McLaughlin
Amanda Bell is a writer, editor and reviewer, with an MA in Poetry Studies. Her publications include First the Feathers (Doire Press, 2017), which was shortlisted for the Strong Shine Award; Undercurrents (Alba, 2016), which won a HSA Kanterman Merit Book Award and was shortlisted for a Touchstone Distinguished Books Award; an illustrated children’s book, The Lost Library Book (Onslaught, 2017); and the loneliness of the sasquatch, from the Irish by Gabriel Rosenstock (Alba, 2018).
Bell is a winner of the Allingham Prize, and her work has been shortlisted for numerous awards, including the Listowel Writers’ Week Irish Poem of the Year 2017. She is currently working on her second novel. To find out more visit: clearasabellwritingservices.ie
Photo by Héilean Rosenstock-Armie
Gabriel Rosenstock was born c. 1949, Kilfinane, Co. Limerick, in postcolonial Ireland. He is a poet, tankaist, haikuist, novelist, essayist, playwright, author/translator of over 180 books, mostly in Irish, or bilingual editions. He is a member of Aosdána (Irish academy of arts & letters), a Lineage Holder of Celtic Buddhism, a Former Chairman of Poetry Ireland/Éigse Éireann and a prolific translator into Irish of international poetry (among others Ko Un, Seamus Heaney, K. Satchidanandan, Rabindranath Tagore, Muhammad Iqbal, Hilde Domin, Peter Huchel etc.), plays (Beckett, Frisch, Yeats) songs (Bob Dylan, Kate Bush, The Pogues, Leonard Cohen, Bob Marley, Van Morrison, Joni Mitchell, David Bowie, Bruce Springsteen, Nick Drake and numerous Lieder or art songs).
His most recent volume of poems is Glengower: Poems for No One in Irish and English. (The Onslaught Press, 2018). Rosenstock’s collaborative work with visual artists and photographers has featured on many platforms, such as The Culturium, most recently with Kashmiri artist Masood Hussain who illustrated Rosenstock’s book for young adults and the general reader alike and Walk with Gandhi, published to coincide with the 150th anniversary of the birth of the Mahatma. For more about Gabriel visit: www.theculturium.com/author/gabriel-rosenstock/
Danielle McLaughlin‘s stories have appeared in newspapers and magazines such as The Stinging Fly, Southword, The Irish Times, The Sunday Times and The New Yorker, and have been broadcast on RTE Radio 1 and BBC Radio 4. Her debut collection of short stories Dinosaurs on Other Planets was published in Ireland by The Stinging Fly Press in 2015, and in the UK (John Murray), US (Random House) and Slovakia (Inaque) in 2016. She edited Counterparts, an anthology of work by writers with legal backgrounds, published in November 2018 by The Stinging Fly Press, proceeds in aid of Peter McVerry Trust.
In 2019, McLaughlin was a Windham-Campbell Prize recipient and won the Sunday Times Audible Short Story Award. Her first novel, Retrospective, will be published in 2021. Together with Madeleine D’Arcy, she co-runs Fiction at the Friary, a free monthly fiction event in Cork which takes place at the Friary Bar, North Mall on the last Sunday of every month.
Dourga | Zsuzsa Csobánka | Richard Hawtree | Kimberly Reyes
Dourga is a trio of musicians, singers, poets and healers. Their music is rooted in an awareness of the healing power of Sacred Sound and the exciting energy of fusion of musical genres, creating a vibrant musical and emotional journey for the audience. Using music, spoken word and sound as catalysts for human and cultural consciousness, Dourga’s original compositions weave together a rich tapestry of songs, spoken word and music, as well as some of the traditions of chant from around the world.
Jayne O’ Donnell has trained as a Naked Voice Facilitator with Chloë Goodchild, founder of The Naked Voice, and as a Therapist and Tutor with the College of Sound Healing. Guided by the teachings of spoken word artist and teacher of self enquiry, Kim Rosen, Jayne also works through the medium of spoken poetry and is deeply called to share the inherent wisdom of voice, sound and music as tools for personal development and for promoting health and well being.
Clare Sanders is a classically trained musician who has also studied Jazz, Word Music and Traditional Irish Music. She is also a composer and teacher who combines a love of music and sound through her various instruments including, flutes, harp, guitar, fiddle, drums and voice, with the power of musical expression as a healing tool, and is passionate about sharing and helping others to find and express their true sounds.
Mary Doherty is a therapist, facilitator and trainer with over 25 years’ experience. Mary combines Sound Healing, Naked Voice, along with many other therapies and is a classically trained singer and performer. Her private practice is based in her native Cork city and she also travels throughout Ireland teaching, training and performing. Mary also works with The Next Step program which promotes the Creative Arts in supporting mental health.
Photo by Ádám Draskovics
Zsuzsa Emese Csobánka (1983, Miskolc, Hungary) is an author of seven books, three collections of poems Knot, Cold sins, Every harbour and four novels Fingering me, Almost Auschwitz, The missing body, Killing nicely. She worked as a teacher in Hungary and achieved a PhD about opportunities for teaching contemporary literature in the classroom. She won a scholarship founded by the Hungarian government in both 2018 and 2019, so is spending 9 more months in Cork teaching children in the Hungarian School and organizing cultural events for the Hungarian community.
Richard Hawtree’s poems have appeared in literary magazines including: the Stinging Fly, Banshee, The Blue Nib, The Honest Ulsterman, SOUTH, and Skylight 47. He lives in Surrey, where his academic interests encompass medieval literature and creative writing. He is a visiting lecturer at the University of Brighton and he has taught Old English language and literature at the University of Leicester. His pamphlet The Night I Spoke Irish in Surrey was published by Dempsey and Windle earlier this year.
Kimberly Reyes is an award-winning poet, essayist, and second-generation New Yorker whose work has appeared in The Atlantic, The Associated Press, Entertainment Weekly, Time.com, The New York Post, The Village Voice, Alternative Press, ESPN the Magazine, Jane, The Best American Poetry blog, poets.org, The Feminist Wire, and Columbia Journal, among other places.
She is the author of the poetry collections Running to Stand Still (Omnidawn, 2019) and Warning Coloration (dancing girl press, 2018), and her nonfiction book of essays Life During Wartime (Fourteen Hills) won the 2018 Micheal Rubin Book Award. Kimberly currently lives in Cork as the 2019-2020 Fulbright fellow studying Irish Literature and Film at University College Cork.
Screenings / Readings & Performances
Kino, Washington St.
Poetry Films | Poetry Film Discussion | Closed Mic
Poetry + Video is a program of international poetry films that premiered in May 2019 to a booked-out audience in Murwillumbah, Australia. Since then the program has gathered touring dates for 10 international festivals and events, including the Ó Bhéal Winter Warmer Festival in Cork.
Curated by Marie Craven, the program covers a wide range of approaches to bringing together text with film: screen adaptations of page poetry, prose poetry, videos from found text and media, animations, poetic cinema, text-on-screen, and spoken word.
Panellists include: Australian film-maker and curator, Marie Craven who will lead the discussion; Paul Casey, Director of Ó Bhéal; Australian actor and writer, Claudia Larose-Bell; and Colm Scully, poet and film-maker in Cork, one of the judges of the Ó Bhéal Poetry Film Competition 2019. Together they will discuss what they have seen of poetry film in Ireland and Australia.
Poetry film is a genre of film-making with origins reaching far back into cinema history, especially within the areas of the experimental and avant garde. Beyond this, it is a modern manifestation of poetry itself, which began in ancient time as an oral form, and has been adapting and evolving with new technologies ever since.
Marie Craven has been a maker of short films for 35 years. These have exhibited extensively at international festivals and events, and gathered many awards. These include Best Film at the 2016 Ó Bhéal Poetry Film Competition, where her work has been among the finalists every year since. Her films since 2014 have been devoted exclusively to the poetry film genre. Over the decades she has been producer, director, writer, and on occasion the voice artist for her 70+ short films. She creates collaboratively, often via the internet, with poets, musicians, videographers and other artists around the world.
Paul Casey’s poems appear in journals and anthologies in Ireland and abroad, recently in Universal Oneness and Pratik. His collections are Virtual Tides (Salmon Poetry, 2016), home more or less (Salmon, 2012) and a chapbook It’s Not all Bad (Heaventree Press, 2009). He edited A Journey called Home (Cork City Libraries, 2018), an anthology of poems and stories from immigrant writers with translations in 20 languages. His poetry-film, The Lammas Hireling (on vimeo here) has screened in competitions and at festivals worldwide. He leads poetry workshops for UCC Ace and curates the annual Unfinished Book of Poetry, featuring writing by secondary school students.
Claudia Larose-Bell has worked as an actor, writer, director, and producer in Australian theatre for over 30 years. A graduate of the prestigious Victorian College of the Arts in Melbourne, Claudia went on to perform the principal female lead in many plays for the Adelaide State Theatre Company for over a decade, including in collaboration with the Perth and Melbourne State Theatres. She is a co-founder of the Multi-Cultural and Indigenous Theatre Ensemble, established in 1994 to produce community theatre addressing exploration of social issues such as mental illness, homelessness, disability and displacement.
Colm Scully is a Cork poet and film maker. His first collection, ‘What News, Centurions?’ was published by New Binary Press in 2014. He won the Cúirt New Writers Prize and was selected for the Poetry Ireland Introductory Series. He makes and collaborates on Poetry Film. One of his films, ‘A Prayer to St. Anthony’ won the Smart Phone Category at 2018 Rabbits Heart Poetry Film Festival. His films have been published on Atticus Review and Poetry Film Live Websites. His Poem films have been shortlisted for O’Bheal Poetry film Competition and Rabbits Heart Poetry Film Festival, and shown at festivals in the UK, Europe and India.
A Closed Mic will showcase ten poets who appear regularly at the Ó Bhéal open-mic sessions (after the guest readings) on Monday nights in the Long Valley.
Afric McGlinchey | Francis Jones | Ciaran O’Driscoll
From a theatrical family, Afric McGlinchey is a multi-award-winning poet based in West Cork. A recipient of bursary awards from the Arts Council of Ireland and from Cork County Council, her work has been published in The Irish Times, Numéro Cinq, Poetry Ireland Review, Prelude, The Stinging Fly, Magma, The Salzburg Review, Rochford Street Review and elsewhere.
Raised in various countries in Africa, her debut collection, The lucky star of hidden things (Salmon Poetry, 2012) was translated into Italian (L’Arcolaio) and studied in a Poetics of Dislocation Series at Bologna University. Poems have been also translated into Spanish, Polish, Romanian and Irish. Her second collection, Ghost of the Fisher Cat (Salmon, 2016) was nominated for the Forward Prize and the Piggott Prize. Her recent chapbook, Invisible Insane (SurVision) explores the embedded meanings that emerge from surrealist poetry and return to her recurrent themes: migration, climate change, connection and disconnection; absences and presences. For more visit: www.africmcglinchey.com
Francis Jones translates poetry into English from various European languages: mainly Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian and Dutch, along with Hungarian, Russian, and Caribbean creoles. His poetry translations have won 14 UK and international prizes. He lives in Northumberland, England, and is Professor of Translation Studies at Newcastle University. His most recent book-length translation is:– Miklós Radnóti (1944/2019), Camp Notebook, translated from the Hungarian by Francis R. Jones: Todmorden, Arc (2nd edition).
Ciaran O’Driscoll lives in Limerick. A member of Aosdána, he has published nine books of poetry, including Gog and Magog (1987), Moving On, Still There (2001), and Life Monitor (2009). His work has been translated into many languages. His fourth collection, The Old Women of Magione, was translated into Italian in 2006, and a Selected Poems in Slovene translation was published in 2013. A poetry chapbook, The Speaking Trees (SurVision Books, 2018), is his most recent publication.
Liverpool University Press published his childhood memoir, A Runner Among Falling Leaves (2001). His novel, A Year’s Midnight, was published by Pighog Press (2012). His awards include the James Joyce Prize and the Patrick and Katherine Kavanagh Fellowship in Poetry. His poem ‘Please Hold’, featured in Forward’s anthology Poems of the Decade (2015), has become a set text for A Level English Literature.
Louis Mulcahy | Aifric MacAodha | Anne Frater
Louis Mulcahy was born in Wexford in 1941. He is a well-known potter who writes poetry. He has four full collections, one in Irish. The first three were published by An Sagart Publishing. His latest, A Potter’s Book, appeared this year from Doire Press. His work has been in Poetry Ireland Review, The Stinging Fly, The Shop, Stony Thursday, Southword etc., and read on RTE1, Lyric Radio and Radio na Gaeltachta.
In 2012 and again in 2019 he read at the Cork International Poetry Festival. He has read at Féile na Gréine in Waterville and at The Fermoy Poetry Festival amongst many other venues. He shared festival readings with Paul Muldoon, Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin and Ailbhe Ní Ghearbhuigh on different years at Féile na Bealtaine, Dingle. He was Founder and Director of An Fhéile Bheag Filíochta from 2007 to 2014. In the past he has served as Chairman of the Crafts Council of Ireland and of Samhlaíocht Chiarraí (Kerry Arts) and was a member of the Government Task Force on Small Business. In 2004 he received an Honorary Doctorate from the N.U.I. for his artistry and contribution to his community. He is married to the tapestry artist Lisbeth Mulcahy.
Chaith Aifric Mac Aodha seal ina heagarthóir ar Comhar agus, le tamall de bhlianta, tá sí ag obair ina heagarthóir filíochta ar The Stinging Fly, gorse agus Trumpet. Bhronn An Chomhairle Ealaíon mórchuid sparánachtaí uirthi agus bhain sí an chéad duais amach san Oireachtas sa bhliain 2016. Chuir The Gallery Press cnuasach léi i gcló le déanaí, Foreign News (aistriúcháin le David Wheatley, 2017). Chuir sí féin agus Peter Fallon Calling Cards in eagar, cnuasach ina bhfuil bundánta Gaeilge ó pheann deichniúr filí den ghlúin is déanaí mar aon le haistriúcháin ó fhilí mór le rá eile as Éirinn.
Aifric Mac Aodha was born in 1979. Her first collection, Gabháil Syrinx was published by An Sagart in 2010. She is a former editor of Comhar, and the current Irish-language poetry editor of The Stinging Fly, gorse and Poetry Ireland’s Trumpet. The Arts Council of Ireland awarded her several bursaries and in 2016, she received the Oireachtas prize for poetry. Foreign News is Aifric Mac Aodha’s first collection with The Gallery Press (translations by David Wheatley, 2017). Recently, herself and Peter Fallon edited Calling Cards, a vibrant anthology that pairs the work of ten younger Irish-language poets with translations by some of Ireland’s finest poets.
Anne C Frater was brought up in the village of Upper Bayble in the Isle of Lewis, in a home and a community where Gaelic was the main language. Scottish Gaelic is her first language, and the language in which her poetry is written.
After gaining an M.A. and then a Ph.D from Glasgow University, she worked in various roles in the media before returning to Lewis in 1999 to teach on the Gaelic-medium degrees at Lews Castle College UHI. She is currently on the board of directors of Fèisean nan Gàidheal as well as being involved in Taigh Cèilidh an Rubha, a community initiative to promote the use of Gaelic in an informal setting. Her work has been published in various anthologies, as well as her own collections, Fon t-Slige (Under the Shell) (Gairm, 1995) and Cridhe Creige (Rock Heart) (Acair, 2017).
Thogadh Anna C Frater ann am Pabail Uarach ann an Eilean Leòdhais, ann an dachaigh agus coimhearsnachd far am b’ e a’ Ghàidhlig a’ phrìomh chànan. An dèidh M.A. agus an uairsin ceum Ollamhachd a chosnadh ann an Oilthigh Ghlaschu, bha i ag obair ann an diofar dhreuchdan anns na meadhanan mus do thill i a Leòdhas ann an 1999 a theagasg air ceumannan Gàidhlig UHI aig Colaisde a’ Chaisteil. Tha i na ball de bhòrd stiùiridh Fèisean na Gàidheal agus an sàs ann an Taigh Cèilidh an Rubha, iomairt a tha a’ feuchainn ri cleachdadh na Gàidhlig a bhrosnachadh ann an suidheachadh neo-fhoirmeil. Chaidh an obair aice fhoillseachadh ann an diofar chruinneachaidhean, cho math ris an dà leabhar aice fhèin, Fon t-Slige (1995) agus Cridhe Creige (2017).
Trevor Joyce | Jackie Wills | Liz Berry
Trevor Joyce‘s most recent books include The Immediate Future (Smithereens, 2013), Rome’s Wreck (Cusp Books, 2014), Selected Poems (Shearsman, 2014) and Fastness: A Translation from the English of Edmund Spenser (Miami UP, 2017). He co-founded New Writers’ Press in Dublin in 1967, and the SoundEye festival in Cork in 1997. He was a founding editor of the influential journal of poetry and criticism, The Lace Curtain and his early publications included Watches (1968), Pentahedron (1972) and The Poems of Sweeny Peregrine (1976). Born in Dublin, he has lived in Cork for thirty-five years. He is a member of Aosdána.
Photo by Giya Makondo-Wills
Jackie Wills has spent her working life as a journalist, editor and teacher. Her first collection Powder Tower (Arc, 1995) was shortlisted for the 1995 T.S. Eliot prize and on publication of Fever Tree (Arc, 2004), Mslexia magazine selected her as one of the top 10 new women poets of the decade. Jackie’s sixth collection, A Friable Earth, has just been published by Arc Publications. Wills is a lifetime member of the National Union of Journalists, former Royal Literary Fund Fellow at the universities of Surrey and Sussex and a Lector, leading reading groups in Brighton and in hospital for young people with mental health problems.
Wills’ work as a tutor includes projects for multinational corporations, orchestras, museums, a children’s secure unit, refugees, homeless people, older people and substance misusers. Wills has published short stories in The Manchester Review and For Books’ Sake, and is a poetry reviewer and critic. She’s published a handbook on how to run writing workshops and has been blogging since 2005. This autumn she launches a pilot community writing group for the RLF.
Liz Berry was born in the Black Country and now lives in Birmingham. Her first book of poems, Black Country (Chatto 2014), described as a ‘sooty, soaring hymn to her native West Midlands’ (Guardian) was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation, received a Somerset Maugham Award and won the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Award and Forward Prize for Best First Collection 2014. Her pamphlet The Republic of Motherhood (Chatto, 2018) was a Poetry Book Society Pamphlet choice and the title poem won the Forward Prize for Best Single Poem 2018.
Yolanda Castaño | Cormac Lally | Michelle Delea
Photo by Pedro Castro
Yolanda Castaño was born in Santiago de Compostela. She has been a columnist, has worked in Galician TV for many years and is an editor and very active culture manager with her own Residency for Writers in Galicia. She has published six poetry books in Galician and Spanish, Depth of Field and The second tongue being her most recent, and several chapbooks in Spanish, German, French, Chinese, Croatian and Macedonian. The most international name in Galician contemporary poetry, Castaño has poems translated into more than 35 languages, but also poetry volumes in Italian, French, Macedonian and Armenian, as her new books into English and Serbian are about to be launched.
A finalist of the National Poetry Prize, her poetry awards include the National Critics Award, the Espiral Maior Poetry Award, the Fundación Novacaixagalicia, the Ojo Crítico (best poetry book by a young author in Spain) and the Author of the Year Galician Booksellers’ Award. She is a relevant cultural activist, regularly organizing festivals, literary and translation workshops and the only international monthly readings series in all Spain, all of them hosting local to international poets (Galician Critics’ Award Best Cultural Manifestation 2014). Yolanda’s collection A segunda lingua (PEN Clube de Galicia, 2014) has just recently been translated by Keith Payne as Second Tongue, imminently due from Shearsman Books (2019/20).
Photo by Turlach O’Broin
Cormac Lally is a poet and writer living in Skibbereen Co. Cork. He’s the first poet to be a winner of both a Leinster and Munster slam championship. In 2017 himself and Cork legend Julie Goo wrote their spoken word show Me, Myself and Ireland and have performed it to packed rooms with rave reviews. He earns a crust writing killer best man speeches through his company Be Spoke. For more: www.bespokeweddingspeeches.com.
Cork poet Michelle Delea has developed her writing during her practice of dance and her study of architecture. Curious depictions of space, materiality and human interaction breed the bedrock of her work. She has performed at many festivals in Ireland, including Shannonside, Townlands and Cork Midsummer Festival’s Live at St. Lukes.
Michelle was invited to perform internationally at the French Festival de Voulmentin and The Coventry Peace Festival, following the publication of Spoken Worlds: Exhaling Ink (Ó Bhéal, 2018). She was part of the original ensemble that brought The Crossover to Cork City in March 2018, and again to Electric Picnic in 2019. This work saw a playful merging of her creative outlets in collaboration with the multidisciplinary team of artists. Michelle is currently completing her Masters in Architecture here in Cork city.
Screenings / Readings / Performances
Ó Bhéal, Long Valley Bar, Winthrop St.
A selection of Poetry Films, including shortlisted films and the winner of the 2019 Ó Bhéal Poetry-Film Competition. The 2019 Ó Bhéal judges, poet-filmmaker Colm Scully and poet Stanley Notte, chose a shortlist of 31 films from 198 International entries (from 33 countries) and the overall winner who received the IndieCork festival award for best poetry film. Fiona Aryan won the 2019 competition for her film Virginia Gave me Roses (after the poem by Lani O’Hanlon).
“In diversity there is beauty and there is strength.” – Maya Angelou. Many Tongues of Cork is a space filled with prose & poetry in different languages. All are welcome to enjoy the flavourful sounds of a few of the languages spoken in our incredible city. Six women will read their poems in the original language (with translations projected overhead), including Tamil, Italian, French, Marathi, Polish and German. This recently established event, produced and presented by the inimitable Joanna Dukkupati, has taken place a number of times this year already and each time one leaves feeling more connected to the wider Cork community.
Readers for this all-Women presentation include: Dr Lekha Menon Margaseery (Tamil), Michaela Lagoria (Italian), Nelly Azzapordi (French), Rosalin Blue (German), Mummy Harmony (Polish) and Pratibha Patil (Marathi).
Joanna Dukkipati is an enthusiastic gatherer of all things that raise kindness and positivity in our community. Joanna grew up in India and has the experience of living and working in Kenya, Zimbabwe, Australia, Zambia and Mozambique. She believes in the strength of diversity. She is the founding editor of Good Day News, a magazine that only features local uplifting news. Joanna began Many Tongues of Cork to highlight the different languages spoken in Cork with the goals of bringing people closer together and learning about different cultures.
Ray Greene became a qualified Irish Sign Language/English Interpreter in 2004. She has been working as a full time Interpreter ever since and works in a broad variety of settings such as education and training, employment, religious ceremonies, theatre, counselling, medical work… and poetry sessions. This is her second time interpreting at the festival and she’s very much looking forward to it!
For more about Ray, visit corkinterpreter.com/aboutus/raygreene.
