Online Festival Stage
& Via Facebook
(facebook.com/winter.warmer)
& Via YouTube
(www.youtube.com/OBheal)
Ó Bhéal’s 10th Winter Warmer (and 2nd hybrid) festival presents over 30 poets from seven countries. Most of these featured guests will read/perform in-person at Nano Nagle Place, with others appearing virtually. All events will be free to access via our online Festival Stage and usual social media channels. In-person audience capacity is 120.
The festival will host two poetry workshops, music from Fiona Kelleher (in-person), a Round Table discussion centered on relationships between Human & Non-Human Life in Port Cities Poetry, and a Closed-Mic set for poets who have featured in Ó Bhéal’s regular open-mic sessions during 2022.
The shortlist and prize-giving for Ó Bhéal’s 10th International Poetry-Film Competition will be screened and simulcast, as will an additional, special selection of poetry-films made in Ireland.
This year’s Winter Warmer will also host the 2022 All-Ireland Poetry Slam Championship Final, featuring 12 poets (three from each province) who will compete over three rounds. This is the only ticketed event of the festival, to book your seat please visit our eventbrite page.
(€5 suggested donation)
7.00pm – 9.00pm
Writing with the More-than-Human with Eleanor Rees
SPACES AVAILABLE
Join widely published Liverpool-based poet Eleanor Rees for an online workshop to explore ‘writing with the more-than-human’. We will consider the definition of the term in contemporary philosophy, and the implications for poetry writing. How do poets write with an environment, rather than about it? Can a place, creature or apparition intercede in the writing of a poem? What does this mean for our understanding of the lyric voice?
Eleanor will lead a series of original writing exercises based on the creative process behind her fifth collection of poems, Tam Lin of the Winter Park (Guillemot Press, 2022). The poems communicated with a parkland and beyond to create a posthuman lyric voice. There will also be plenty of time for discussion and feedback of work-in-progress created in the workshop.
Eleanor Rees is the author of four collections of poetry. Her most recent is The Well at Winter Solstice (Salt, 2019) and her fifth collection is Tam Lin of the Winter Park (Guillemot Press, 2022). Eleanor is working on an academic book on Posthuman Poetic Practice and has worked extensively as a poet in communities. Eleanor is senior lecturer in creative writing at Liverpool Hope University and lives in Liverpool.
1.00pm – 3.00pm
Intercultural Connections in Eco-poetry with Yairen Jerez Columbié
SPACES AVAILABLE
To book a place, please email info@obheal.ie
In this workshop we will take words out of their context and draw inspiration from the environment and the natural sciences to transform them on the white page.
We will also look at the work of poets such as Jane Lovell, Kei Miller, Legna Rodríguez Iglesias and Urayoán Noel, to make new connections by moving between diverse languages, cultures, disciplines, environments and poetic forms.
Everyone welcome.
Yairen Jerez Columbié grew up and studied in Havana, Cuba, before living in Catalonia and Ireland. Her first poetry collection Fósiles de lluvia was published in 2022 by Betania, in Madrid, through a Trinity College Dublin Association and Trust Grant. Her poetry has appeared in Revista Temporales of New York University’s MFA in Creative Writing in Spanish, Anthropocene, Altavoz Cultural, Aigne, Eñe: Revista para Leer and The Poetry Review. She holds a PhD in Hispanic Studies and is also an essayist and researcher teaching Latin American Studies and Intercultural Communication at Trinity College Dublin.
5.00pm – 6.30pm
Fiona Kelleher | Mícheál Ó hAodha
Marion F. Morrison (via zoom) | Maoilios Caimbeul
Fiona Kelleher is a singer and musical artist. She performs and collaborates with artists of all disciplines. Traditional song and Medieval song are areas of special interest and she has recorded work in both genres which has featured in film, theatre and music recordings. She also specialises in music performance and composing for Early Years audiences. Her work in communities includes projects in Early Years settings, schools, Direct Provision Centres, Hospitals and Day Care Centres across Cork City and county. She creates music for theatre, film, dance and live musical performance.
Improvisation and collaboration are key elements of her practice. Creating sound worlds that reference and celebrate the natural world and it’s beauty is an area of special interest. Work includes I am A little Boat for Early Years (performance and recording), Do Chuala Ceol (film with live score for voice and piano) 2020 and Cocoon, an animation released in 2021. Fiona is a member of the Arts Council Peer Panel. She mentors artists and musicians working in Early Years Arts and Arts for Health and Community Arts practice. She is currently writing new music and continues to research, perform and also facilitate for Early Years audiences.
Born in Galway, Mícheál Ó hAodha grew up between the west of Ireland and the north of England. He is one of the last of a small group of poets who write solely in Irish. His collections include Slán le hÉirinn (Coiscéim, 2012) (A Farewell to Ireland: Migrant Poems); Leabhar Dubh an tSneachta (The Black Book of Snow) (2015) Leabhar na nAistear (The Book of Journeys) (2017), Leabhar na nAistear II (2019) and Leabhar na nAistear III (2022) based on the Irish migrant experience in Britain, exploring feelings of loss and longing, silence and speech, memory and forgetting. Recent translations from the Irish include: Seán Ó Ríordáin: Life and Work by Seán Ó Coileán (Mercier Press, 2018); Exiles by Dónall Mac Amhlaigh (Parthian, 2020); This Road of Mine by Seosamh Mac Griannna (Lilliput, 2020) and I am Lewy by Eoghan Ó Tuairisc (Galway: Bullaun Press, 2022).
Is Gaillmheach é
Mícheál Ó hAodha a chaith tréimhse fada ag cur faoi i dtuaisceart Shasana. File Gaeilge agus aistritheoir. I measc na n-aistriúchán atá déanta aige tá This Road of Mine (BÁC: Lilliput, 2020); Seán Ó Ríordáin: Life and Work (Mercier: 2019); Exiles (Parthian: RA, 2020); I am Lewy (Bullaun Press, 2022). Leabhair filíochta leis, foilsithe: Dúchas Dóchasach (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2007); Slán le hÉirinn (Coiscéim, 2012); Leabhar Dubh an tSneachta (2015); Leabhar na nAistear I (Coiscéim, 2017); Leabhar na nAistear II (Coiscéim, 2019); agus Leabhar na nAistear III (2022).ó
Marion F. Morrison was born on the Isle of Barra, Western Isles and brought up in the City of Glasgow. She gained the degree of MA and also an M Litt. from the University of Glasgow after which she taught in Glasgow and then in the Western Isles. In 2017 she won the New Writer’s Award for Gaelic poetry from the Scottish Book Trust and published her first anthology of poetry (Adhbhar ar Sòlais – Cause of Our Joy) in 2018. She is currently working on a new poetry anthology and writing short stories.
Rugadh
Marion NìcIlleMhoire ann am Barraigh agus chaidh a togail ann an Glaschu. Rinn i ceum MA agus M Litt ann an Oilthigh Ghlaschu agus bha i na neach-teagaisg ann a Glaschu agus anns Na h-Eileanan Siar. Ann a 2017 bhuannaich i Duais nan Sgrìobhadairean Ùra airson bàrdachd bho Chomhairle nan Leabhraichean, ann a com-pàirteachas le Urras Leabhraichean na h-Alba. Choisin an leabhhar bàrdachd aice, Adhbhar Ar Sòlais an darna àite airson Duais Dhòmhnaill Meek ann a 2018. Tha i an dràsta a’ sgrìobhadh bàrdachd agus sgeulachdan ghoirid.Photo by Sara Bain
Isle of Skye poet Myles Campbell writes mainly in Scottish Gaelic. He studied Celtic and History at the University of Edinburgh, graduating in 1976. Recent poetry publications include Gràs / Grace (Handsel Press, 2019), An Dà Anam / In Two Minds (Clò Dhùnain, 2017) and Tro Chloich na Sùla (Clàr Publishers, 2014). The poem sequence ‘Tìr a’ Gheallaidh’ was published in his autobiographical Island Conversion: The Transition of a Gaelic Poet from Sceptic to Believer, co-authored with his wife, Margaret Campbell (Islands Book Trust, 2011). The latter book highlights his lifelong interest in the interface between science / philosophy and religion. Awards include Gaelic Books Council awards for early collections, prizes in poetry competitions in Scotland and Ireland, and the An Comunn Gàidhealach National Mod Bardic Crown in 2002. He has been Honorary Bard of Comunn Gàidhlig Inbhir Nis / Gaelic Society of Inverness since 2012.
’S ann às an Eilean Sgitheanach a tha am bàrd
Maoilios Caimbeul, a bhios a’ sgrìobhadh airson a’ chuid as motha ann an Gàidhlig na h-Alba. Cheumnaich e bho Oilthigh Dhùn Èideann ann an 1976 agus às dèidh sin bha e na thidsear Gàidhlig àrd-sgoile. Bha e na sgrìobhaiche còmhnaidh ann an Sabhal Mòr Ostaig ann an 2008. Am measg sgrìobhaidhean bàrdachd o chionn ghoirid tha Gràs / Grace (Handsel Press 2019), An Dà Anam / In Two Minds (Clò Dhùnain 2017) agus Tro Chloich na Sùla (Clàr, 2014). Sgrìobh e eachdraidh a bheatha, The Transition of a Gaelic Poet from Sceptic to Believer (2011) còmhla ri a bhean Mairead. Tha an leabhar a’ sealltainn na h-ùidh a th’ aige anns a’ cheangal eadar creideamh agus saidheans / feallsanachd. Tha e air ochd nobhailean goirid a sgrìobhadh do dhaoine òga. Thàinig cruinneachadh de sgeulachdan goirid, Dòrlach Sìl (Luath Press) a-mach bhuaithe an-uiridh. Tro na bliadhnaichean, tha e air grunn dhuaisean a ghleidheadh airson bàrdachd. Chaidh a chrùnadh mar bhàrd a’ Chomuinn Ghàidhealaich ann an 2002 agus tha e air a bhith na Bhàrd Urramach do Chomann Gàidhlig Inbhir Nis bho 2012.
7.00pm – 8.30pm
Yairen Jerez Columbié | Forrest Gander (via zoom) | Catherine Foley
Yairen Jerez Columbié grew up and studied in Havana, Cuba, before living in Catalonia and Ireland. Her first poetry collection Fósiles de lluvia was published in 2022 by Betania, in Madrid, through a Trinity College Dublin Association and Trust Grant. Her poetry has appeared in Revista Temporales of New York University’s MFA in Creative Writing in Spanish, Anthropocene, Altavoz Cultural, Aigne, Eñe: Revista para Leer and The Poetry Review. She holds a PhD in Hispanic Studies and is also an essayist and researcher teaching Latin American Studies and Intercultural Communication at Trinity College Dublin.
A writer and translator with degrees in geology and literature, Forrest Gander was born in the Mojave Desert and taught at Harvard University and then Brown University where he was the AK Seaver Professor of Literary Arts and Comparative Literature. He’s the recipient of The Pulitzer Prize, Best Translated Book Award, and fellowships from the Library of Congress, Guggenheim, and US Artists foundations. His books, often concerned with ecology and intimacy, include Be With (New Directions, 2018), the desert novel The Trace (New Directions, 2014) and — most recently — Your Nearness (Arc Publications, 2022).
Gander’s many translations include Alice Iris Red Horse: Poems by Gozo Yoshimasu and It Must be a Misunderstanding by Coral Bracho. His essay collection, A Faithful Existence, considers translation and the relation between science and literature. His collaborative book with Australian poet/activist John Kinsella, Redstart: an Ecological Poetics, is frequently cited by scholars and writers in reference to “eco-poetics.”
Catherine Foley is a full-time writer, journalist and broadcaster. She is a former staff journalist with The Irish Times. Her book, Beyond the Breakwater: Memories of Home, winner of the 2018 Waterford News & Star Green Room Award for Best New Book, was published by Mercier Press the same year. She is a regular contributor to RTÉ’s Sunday Miscellany program. Her first poetry collection, Ag Marú Maicréal, was published by Coiscéim in 2019. Cuisle an Chósta, her collection of newspaper and radio columns, won first prize at the Oireachtas Literary Awards in 2016: it was subsequently published by LeabhairCOMHAR in 2020 and became the first non-fiction title in the popular Foghlaimeoir Fásta (adult learner) series. She has scripted, presented and co-produced a number of documentaries for the Irish-language broadcasting station, TG4, including programmes about the writer Molly Keane, the singer Frank Patterson, the photographer Annie Brophy and the balladeer Tom Clancy, all made by the An Corsaiceach company, which she co-founded with her sister, RoseAnn Foley.
Is scríbhneoir cruthaitheach, file, craoltóir agus iriseoir í Catherine Foley. Foilsíodh a céad bailiúchán filíochta, Ag Marú Maicréal, i 2019. Foilsíodh a leabhar Beyond the Breakwater: Memories of Home i 2018. Foilsíodh bailiúchán dá cholún raidió agus nuachtán, dár teideal Cuisle an Chósta in Aibreán 2020 ina dtugann sí léargas ar shaol laethúil phobail cheantar na Rinne, agus ar chultúr agus oidhreacht na háite: bhuaigh an bailiúchán seo céad duais ag Comórtais Liteartha an Oireachtais 2016. Tá duaiseanna scríbhneoireachta buaite aici ag an Oireachtas, ina measc bhuaigh sí an chéad duais i 2003, dá saothair do dhaoine fásta, An Cailín Rua. Tá láithreoireacht agus léiritheoireacht raidió agus teilifíse déanta aici, an sraith teilifíse Pobal ag Guí ar TG4 ina measc. Is craoltóir raidió, iar-léachtóir san iriseoireacht ag Coláiste na hOllscoile, Corcaigh agus iar-bhall foirne de chuid The Irish Times í.
9.00pm – 10.30pm
Isaac Xubín | Allie Rigby (via zoom) | Jennie Feldman
Photo by Davide Cabaleiro
Born in A Coruña (Galicia, Spain) in 1978 and based in Sheffield (UK), Isaac Xubín adopted as a literary surname the toponym of the small village of Santa María de Oleiros, where he spent childhood summers. His life and creative work has been influenced by relocations and languages. He holds a degree in Galician Philology and an MA in Language Policy and Planning. He has published three collections of poetry, Con gume de folla húmida (Edicións Sotelo Blanco, 2012), A cadencia da fractura (Edicions Xerais, 2017) and Xenealoxía dun intruso (Editorial Galaxia, 2020) and several translations from Basque, Catalan, Spanish, Irish and English.
As a teacher and researcher, he wrote a Galician-Basque dictionary and taught Galician Language and Culture in the Irish Centre for Galician Studies (UCC). He has also been awarded with numerous literary and translation prizes, his first novel, Non hai outro camiño (Edicións Xerais, 2016) was rewarded with the Spanish Critics Prize in the Galician Language.
Allie Rigby is a San Francisco Bay Area poet and creative writing instructor. Her poems explore mental health, connection to place and gender. After six years as an environmental educator, Rigby returned to graduate school to study poetry. In 2022, she received a master’s degree in English: Creative Writing from San Francisco State University. Shortly after, she accepted a Fulbright grant to Romania to teach literature and research the cultural legacy of Nina Cassian.
Moonscape for a Child is her first book of poetry (Bored Wolves, 2023).
Jennie Feldman grew up in London, studied French at Oxford and had a career in radio broadcasting and teaching before becoming a freelance writer and translator. She has published three poetry collections: The Lost Notebook (Anvil/Carcanet, 2005), Swift (Anvil/Carcanet, 2012), and No Cherry Time (Arc, 2022), as well as four works of translated French poetry and prose. These include the anthology Into the Deep Street: Seven Modern French Poets, 1938-2008 (Anvil/Carcanet, 2009), co-edited with Stephen Romer, which was awarded a special commendation by the judges of the 2011 Popescu European Poetry Translation Prize.
Her poems range widely – from Greece and the Levant to France and Ireland – and have appeared in various journals. She is a Hawthornden Fellow and is based in Oxford.
11.00am – 12.00pm
(A single screening of 16 films)
Selected from Ó Bhéal’s 10th International Poetry-Film Competition entries
Many of these sixteen, specially selected Irish-made poetry-films could easily have made the (highly competitive) competition shortlist. Nonetheless they are worthy compositions which we are delighted to present.
This screening will be viewed by a live audience at Nano Nagle Place, Cork & streamed via our website festival stage and Facebook & YouTube channels.
You can view the selection at this link. The films were chosen from 173 submissions received from 100 filmmakers in 33 countries. For this year’s competition shortlist please follow this link.
12.30pm – 2.00pm
Eleanor Rees (via zoom) | Matthew Geden
Greg Quiery (via zoom) | Mary Noonan
Poems from Port Cities
Ports as Portals, Liminal Encounters, and Infrastructure Space
chaired by Cornelia Gräbner
Port Cities are liminal places of encounter, of fluidity, of transition. Sea and land meet there, as do all the living creatures that cross seas and rivers. Human and non-human life intertwine in port cities as they do in few other places. Ports are also infrastructure spaces, where space is organized to serve the purposes of commerce and of extraction in the spirit of capitalism. Therefore, port cities are also the location of clashes of interests and convictions, of struggles over ethics and politics, over land, water and air.
Four poets join us from the port cities of Liverpool and Cork: Greg Quiery and Eleanor Rees share poems that explore spaces around the Mersey; Matthew Geden and Mary Noonan share poems exploring the ports and shorelines in and around Cork.
The event combines a poetry reading with a reflection and discussion on poems that emerge situated in the ports and shorelines that are portals between different elements, forms of life, and ways of life.
Eleanor Rees is the author of four collections of poetry. Her most recent is The Well at Winter Solstice (Salt, 2019) and her fifth collection is Tam Lin of the Winter Park (Guillemot Press, 2022). Eleanor is working on an academic book on Posthuman Poetic Practice and has worked extensively as a poet in communities. Eleanor is senior lecturer in creative writing at Liverpool Hope University and lives in Liverpool.
Matthew Geden was born and brought up in the English Midlands, moving to Kinsale, Co Cork, in 1990. His poems have featured in numerous magazines, journals and anthologies throughout Ireland and abroad. His full-length collections are Swimming to Albania (Bradshaw Books, 2009), The Place Inside (Dedalus Press, 2012) and most recently The Cloud Architect (Doire Press, 2022).
Other publications include Kinsale Poems, a chapbook of translations of poems by Apollinaire and Fruit (Survision Books, 2020). In November 2019 he was Writer in Residence at Nanjing Literature Centre, China and held the same position for Cork County Library and Arts Service from 2020-2022. He has also read at a number of festivals and events including one at the Sorbonne University in Paris.
Originally from County Down, Ireland, Greg Quiery has lived in Liverpool since the early 1970s. Since retiring from his position as a head teacher, he has written In Hardship And Hope (G and K, 2017) a detailed history of the Liverpool Irish. His poetry book A Stray Dog Following (Stairwell Books) was published in 2020. His recent collection Oglet celebrates the wildlife on the edges of urban Liverpool, and alerts us to the threat to this precious environment. His poems have featured recently in Talk and Tongue on Radio 4, on Radio Merseyside and in the Quality of Mersey anthology.
“The people in his poems breathe on the page as Quiery captures the poetry inherent in our daily lives – of speech, of expression, of place – and makes us take notice. He understands that humour has its place but he doesn’t play to the gallery. There is a musicality in these poems that conjures the poet’s presence; he’s speaking to us, an intimate sharing of words and worlds. Read them and laugh; read them and weep.” – Sarah MacLennan, Head of Creative Writing, Liverpool John Moores University (on reviewing A Stray Dog Following)
Mary Noonan teaches French literature at University College Cork. Her first collection, The Fado House (Dedalus, 2012) was shortlisted for the Seamus Heaney Centre Prize and the Strong/Shine Award. A limited edition pamphlet – Father – was published by Bonnefant Press (NL) in 2015. Mary was poetry editor of the literary journal Southword 2016-2018. She received an Aldeburgh Poetry Residency from the Poetry Trust UK (2014) and a Literature Bursary from the Arts Council of Ireland (2014, 2020). Her second collection, Stone Girl, was published by Dedalus Press in February 2019. It was shortlisted for the Derek Walcott Poetry Prize in 2020.
Cornelia Gräbner holds a PhD in Cultural Analysis from the Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis. She now works as senior lecturer in Hispanic Studies and Comparative Literature at Lancaster University, UK. Cornelia has published on performance poetry, on politically committed writing, and on 20th and 21st century resistance literature in Europe and in the Americas.
She has co-edited a collection of essays on performance poetry, special issues on the poetics of resistance and on poetry in public spaces, and is currently co-editing with Joost de Bloois and Jim Hicks a forthcoming special issue of Critical Comparative Studies (Edinburgh U.P.), on Contrarian Speech. She is a member of the research project Poetry and Politics II which is based at the University of Vigo, Galicia, Spain.
3.00pm – 4.00pm
Ó Bhéal’s annual Closed Mic session showcases ten poets who have contributed to Ó Bhéal’s open-mic sessions on Monday nights, over the past year. This year’s line-up includes Jeff Cottrill, Catherine Badin, S’phongo, Róisín Leggett Bohan, Antonio Di Mare, Máire Stephens, Brendan Duffin, Ségolène, Pam Campbell and Jason J Fisher.
7.00pm – 8.30pm
Fiona Kelleher | Pippa Little
Karla Brundage (via zoom) | Scott McKendry
Fiona Kelleher is a singer and musical artist. She performs and collaborates with artists of all disciplines. Traditional song and Medieval song are areas of special interest and she has recorded work in both genres which has featured in film, theatre and music recordings. She also specialises in music performance and composing for Early Years audiences. Her work in communities includes projects in Early Years settings, schools, Direct Provision Centres, Hospitals and Day Care Centres across Cork City and county. She creates music for theatre, film, dance and live musical performance.
Improvisation and collaboration are key elements of her practice. Creating sound worlds that reference and celebrate the natural world and it’s beauty is an area of special interest. Work includes I am A little Boat for Early Years (performance and recording), Do Chuala Ceol (film with live score for voice and piano) 2020 and Cocoon, an animation released in 2021. Fiona is a member of the Arts Council Peer Panel. She mentors artists and musicians working in Early Years Arts and Arts for Health and Community Arts practice. She is currently writing new music and continues to research, perform and also facilitate for Early Years audiences.
Pippa Little is Scots, born in Tanzania and now settled in the North East of England where she has worked in literacy and education. She has been Royal Literary Fellow at Newcastle University and will teach poetry for the Faber Academy in 2023. Her third collection, Time Begins to Hurt, was published by Arc Publications in July: Twist, from Arc, came out in 2017 and Overwintering from Carcanet in 2012. She also has four pamphlets and work published in print or online including Poetry, Poetry Review, Poetry Ireland, The Moth, Ambit, Rialto, New Writing Scotland and in many anthologies such as Staying Human from Bloodaxe (2019).
Photo by Pata Ali Love Club
Karla Brundage is a Bay Area based poet, activist, and educator. Born in Berkeley, California in the summer of love to a Black mother and white father, Karla spent most of her childhood in Hawaii where she developed a deep love of nature. She is the founder of West Oakland to West Africa Poetry Exchange (WO2WA) and is a board member of the Before Columbus Foundation. She is co-editor of Colossus:Home which features poets from the Bay Area in solidarity with Moms4housing and advocating for housing justice.
Her poetry, short stories and essays have been widely anthologized and can be found in Hip Mama, Literary Kitchen, sPARKLE & bLINK, Lockjaw, Nervous Ghost Press, Bamboo Ridge Press, Vibe and Konch Literary Magazine. She holds an MA in Education from San Francisco State University and an MFA in poetry from Mills College. In 2020, her poem Alabama Dirt was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She is the author of two books: Swallowing Watermelons and Mulatta-Not So Tragic. Her work can be found at westoaklandtowestafrica.com as well as on karlabrundage.com
Scott McKendry was the recipient of the Patrick Kavanagh Poetry Award 2019 and his pamphlet, Curfuffle (The Lifeboat), was Poetry Book Society Autumn Choice 2019. He has published widely in journals on both sides of the Atlantic, including in The North, The Tangerine, Public Illumination Magazine, The Manchester Review, Magma, Cyphers, and Poetry Ireland Review. Sinéad Morrissey and Stephen Connolly included him in The Future Always Makes Me So Thirsty: New Poets from the North of Ireland (Blackstaff, 2016). He is currently working on his first full collection.
9.00pm – 10.30pm
Marcus Mac Conghail | Joelle Taylor (via zoom) | Moyra Donaldson
Marcus Mac Conghail’s most recent poetry collection Spásas was published in 2021 by Coiscéim. His son, Naoise, set some of the poems in this collection to music and two of these tracks (and videos) have been released so far under the collection’s title. In 2020 he was the editor of a collection of 50 essays by emerging and established writers in Irish, Meascra ón Aer. In 2019 he played the part of the poet in Paula Kehoe’s experimental film about the bombing of Hiroshima, Cathair na Mílte Grian.
Between 2014 and 2018 Marcus wrote, recorded, released and performed with three separate bands, Imlé, Bruadar, and Thatchers of the Acropolis. In 2014 he published his first collection of poetry Ceol Baile, which received the Michael Hartnett Poetry Award. He is delighted to be back at the Winter Warmer! Up Cork!
Is é Spásas an bailiúchán dánta is déanaí le
Marcus Mac Conghail agus is iad Coiscéim a d’fhoilsigh in 2021. Dhein a mhac, Naoise, ceol a chur le roinnt des na dánta agus tá dhá rian acu seo, chomh maith le físeáin, eisithe go dtí seo faoi theideal an leabhair. In 2020 chuir sé bailiúchán de chaoga aiste le scríbhneoirí nua agus aitheanta araon in eagar, agus foilsíodh iad faoin teideal, Meascra ón Aer. Is ceoltóir agus cumadóir amhrán é Marcus leis agus tá roinnt mhaith taifeadtaí déanta aige le bannaí éagsúla. Bronnadh Gradam Michael Hartnett ar a chéad bhailiúchán dánta, Ceol Baile, in 2015.Photo by Roman Manfredi
Joelle Taylor is the author of 4 collections of poetry. Her most recent collection C+NTO & Othered Poems (The Westbourne Press, 2021) won the 2021 T.S Eliot Prize and was the subject of a Radio 4 arts documentary Butch. C+NTO was nominated for the Rathbone Folio Prize, longlisted for the Ondaatje Prize, and has been shortlisted for the Polari Book Prize. It was named by The Telegraph, The New Statesman, The White Review & Times Literary Supplement as one of the best poetry books of the year, as well as DIVA magazine’s Book of the Month, and awarded 5 stars by the Morning Star.
She has recently completed a book tour of Australia including Sydney Opera House (March 2022). C+NTO is currently being adapted for theatre with a view to touring. A former UK SLAM Champion she founded the national youth poetry slams SLAMbassadors through the Poetry Society in 2001, remaining its Artistic Director until 2018. She is a co-curator and host of Out-Spoken Live, resident at the Southbank Centre, and an editor at Out-Spoken Press. She is completing her memoirs for publication in 2024, as well as a novel of interconnecting stories The Night Alphabet. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and the 2022 Saboteur Spoken Word Artist of the Year.
Moyra Donaldson is a poet and creative writing facilitator from County Down. She has published nine collections of poetry and has been involved in various collaborations with visual artists, most recently with Wexford artist Paddy Lennon resulting in the limited edition publication of artwork and poems, Blood Horses (Caesura Press, 2018). Her work is widely anthologised and she has read at festivals in Europe, Canada and America and in 2019, Moyra received a Major Artist Award from the Arts Council of Northern Ireland. Her latest collection, Bone House, was published by Doire Press in April 2021.
“There is fire, hail and a streak of white lightning running through these extraordinary poems. Bone House kept me awake at night. One of the finest collections I have read in a long time.”
11.30am – 2.00pm
(Two Screenings: 11.30am-12.30pm and 1.00pm-2.00pm)
Ó Bhéal’s 10th International Poetry-Film Competition
This year’s shortlist of 30 films was chosen from 173 submissions received from 100 filmmakers in 33 countries. The shortlist represents 17 countries: Australia, Belgium, Canada, England, Germany, Ireland, Isle of Man, Northern Ireland, Philippines, Portugal, South Africa, The Netherlands, Ukraine, UK, USA, Wales and Zimbabwe.
This year’s judges Colm Scully and Paul Casey, will select one winner to receive the Ó Bhéal award for best poetry-film, designed by glass artist Michael Ray. The winner will be announced directly after the shortlist screenings.
You can view the complete shortlist via this link. These screenings will be viewed by a live audience at Nano Nagle Place, Cork & streamed via our website festival stage and Facebook & YouTube channels.
3.00pm – 6.00pm
With special guest performance from reigning All-Ireland Slam Champion
Shaunna Lee Lynch
Twelve of the island’s regional slam champions (three from each province) will compete over three rounds to see who will be crowned All-Ireland Champion.
Tickets are on sale HERE at Eventbrite.
General Admission tickets are €10.00.
The event emcee is Stanley Notte
Shaunna Lee Lynch is a writer, performer, director and producer from Cork. As a spoken word artist she has performed at many events around Ireland and abroad, including: Cork Midsummer Festival, First Fortnight, Electric Picnic and Ó Bhéal, among others. She is the current All-Ireland Poetry Slam Champion, having won the national competition in 2019. Shaunna studied Drama in Ireland’s Conservatory of Music and Drama (TU Dublin) and has been involved in many theatre and film projects over the past decade.
She wrote, co-produced and acted in the play Wishful Thinking which ran as part of the Dublin Fringe Festival and the Cork Arts Theatre Emerging Artists Programme 2019. A collection of her poetry was published in the chapbook paper incantations (2019) as part of Ó Bhéal’s spoken worlds series, supported by Cork City Council. In 2022, Shaunna completed a Masters Degree in Screenwriting for Film and Television from IADT, Dún Laoghaire. Her work plays within the realms of satire, fantastical escapism and futurism. Reoccurring themes include; eco-anxiety, gender, mental health, and mysticism.
Marguerite Quinlan placed third in the 2022 Connacht Poetry Slam in Sligo. Marguerite loves words, walks by the sea, through the trees and sounds that resonate, question and quieten. She writes short, usually, and tries to listen long.
Margaret Kilcoyne is a poet, singer, and theatremaker based in Sligo. During the pandemic, she took a keen interest in writing poetry, she was lucky enough to collaborate with Irish film-makers to make a series of film poems. She writes songs and is currently finishing music that thematically links with love, grief, and loss of connection with the land.
Margaret is from Tubbercurry, South Sligo originally where she grew up on a small farm and she often quotes the people, family, and scenery of South Sligo as being her muse. In the past she has acted and sang with numerous companies and groups across Ireland and the UK and was the recipient of the John Hartley award for poetry and prose at East 15 Drama School, London in 2011.
Marian Lovett is the 2022 Connacht Poetry Slam champion. An arts writer and occasional poet who divides her time between Sligo and Dublin, she has worked as an editor, curator, company director, art advisor, project manager and college lecturer. Her poetry often takes a feminist perspective, while family, personal and political themes also feature. She is a recent graduate of Trinity College Dublin.
Helen Hastings has performed publicly at numerous literary events and festivals and has had work published on various platforms including the Bangor Literary Journal and the Community Arts Partnership anthology. Helen took first place in this years Belfast book poetry slam along with David Braziel. Helen is stationed in the wilds of County Down where she drinks wine and talks to plants.
Spider Monkey is a rhyme artist focused on communicating ideas through a consistent and ever evolving flow: “My theatrical background shows in how I embody each poem; and I believe a body is as much an instrument as any voice. I use words to discuss themes central to my personal experience i.e my optimistic love for living, spiritual philosophy, addiction and the power of dancing! In performing, I aim to impress audiences with a smooth, extremely energetic delivery that asks onlookers not just to consider but also resonate with the themes I present.”
Claire Cormican is the 2022 Ulster Poetry Slam champion. Hailing from beautiful West Cork, sporadic poetry has taken her all the way to Fermanagh’s lovely lakes. Claire likes oversharing, flinging herself into the sea, things that rhyme and writing bios.
Cormac Fitzgerald is a writer, spoken word artist and theatre performer from Dublin. He has devised and performed in a number of his own productions, most recently 1992, an electronic music / spoken word collaboration that deals with themes of memory and the commodification of nostalgia. He has been long listed for the Fish Poetry Prize and has performed at festivals, events and pubs across the country.
Clondalkin based Barry Currivan is always a spoken word artist and, despite his best efforts, occasionally a Poet. Although this is his first time to enter a slam competition, he would be a well know and welcomed face and voice at many of the established Open Mic events around Dublin. He has been writing for himself for decades but he would admit that it was only in the last few years, since he started attending The Circle Sessions in Dublin’s International Bar, that he really learned to perform.
Leon Dunne is a Dublin-based poet. His work focuses primarily on giving a voice to topics outside the mainstream conversation. Coming from a working-class background, his poetry focuses primarily on social issues, tackling topics such as masculinity and homophobia, as well as engaging with language and rhythm with high energy to draw the listeners in. He studied English and Film at UCD, and has already made his mark on the spoken word scene in Dublin by performing in various venues such as The Jar with Smithfield creatives, and Sin É with Dublin’s Finest.
He is the current Leinster Poetry Slam champion. As Leon puts it, “I write poems and stories for people that may feel left behind by the mainstream culture”.
Ciarán MacArtain is a poet, theatre and performance artist from Glasheen in Cork City. He is Artistic Director of Strive Theatre, creator and manager of The Crossover, a member of The Choke Collective and a board member of Ó Bhéal. He has written poetry prolifically since 2011 and has performed his work extensively both nationally and internationally. His work has been published in a variety of journals, zines and anthologies. He loves going on creative journeys with other artists to explore what unique and interesting things can be made in collaboration. He is in the process of publishing work for his first collection of poetry.
Lauren McNamara is a poet and playwright from Limerick. She is a former Munster Slam Champion and has won a number of awards for her poetry and plays such as the Limerick Fringe Spirit of the Fringe award and the Galway Fringe Spoken word award. She has written and performed two spoken word plays; Quarter Life Crises (2018) and Hello My Name is Single (2019). She has performed at festivals such as Glastonbury and Indiependence. Her work has been published widely and has been seen on national TV and radio.
Jim Crickard is a poet from North Kerry living in Cork City. His poetry is camp, entertaining work exploring culture, sexuality and identity. In 2022 he performed alongside other artists in the Abbey Theatre, Dublin. In 2022, an installation of his poem ‘Sex in the Housing Crisis’ was displayed by Cork City Library in Tramore Valley Park, Cork City.
In 2020 his work was broadcasted on RTÉ Arena, he performed at the First Fortnight Festival, and represented Cork in the Cork-Coventry Twin Cities Exchange, for which he released a chapbook, southern syllables, co-authored by Molly Twomey. In 2019 Poetry Ireland selected him for Versify and he performed at Dublin Fringe. He placed second in the 2019 All Ireland Poetry Slam Final (and is working through his feelings about it with his therapist). His work is published in Automatic Pilot, A New Ulster and Contemporary Poetry.
The Arts Council of Ireland, Cork City Council, Foras na Gaeilge,
Poetry and Politics II @ University of Vigo, Dunnes Stores, Forum
Publications, Colmcille, Arc Publications, Cork City Libraries, Poetry Ireland,
Paradiso, The Long Valley and the UCC School of English and Digital Humanities.
