My article 'Why Uncomplicated Recovery isn't Enough: Rhoda Coghill, her Letters, and the Fired! Movement' in The Honest Ulsterman journal (see below posts) is now also available at the RASCAL archive of Fired! - along with an absolute treasure trove of material on forgotten women in Irish poetry. This is an archive of inestimable importance for everyone seeking to address inequalities and imbalances in the canon of Irish literature.
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In this interview from June 2020 I explore many of my ideas around 'Cell', #wakeupirishpoetry, and the ongoing work of challenging inadequate standards and protections for workers in the arts in Ireland.
The open letter calling for acceptable standards of ethics and governance in the Irish arts sector is still available at wakeupirishpoetry.ie - please visit the site and add your name. We have so much work still to do. Watch 'Cell' at the Half Moon Festival here - and see below for details about this online, collaborative multimedia project.
I have a new piece in the Honest Ulsterman journal from today, discussing the ongoing issue of inequalities and power imbalances in Irish poetry publishing - as well as looking at some of the letters of the beautiful, forgotten Irish poet and composer Rhoda Coghill, who seemed to know during her lifetime that she would be erased from the history of Irish literature. Writing this was painful but necessary. Read it online here.   At the end of last year I received my doctorate in Creative Writing in UCC - thanks to the generous support of the Irish Research Council :)
My thesis takes the form of a long experimental sequence reimagining Irish mythohistory with the silenced and erased voices of women to the fore at last. 'Cell,' a kind of climax within the piece, will be presented as a new multimedia piece in collaboration with visual artist Emer Kiely and musician and sound producer Gadget and the Cloud. Please take a look and a listen from June 27th at the link below, and check out the rest of this great new festival! Festival website: https://www.halfmoonfest.com/ Cell event: https://www.halfmoonfest.com/events/cell Facebook event: https://www.facebook.com/events/653893295163783/  Sagarmatha at L’Atitude 51°, 1 Union Quay, Cork 7pm on 6th 7th and 8th June 2017. Sagarmatha, also known as 'Mount Everest'. The Everest mountain range used to be an ocean bed/ coastline, elevated by the collision of tectonic plates of the Indian continent and Asia, closing the Tethys Ocean, which no longer exists apart from sedimentary rocks. Harry Moore and Kathy D’Arcy spent some time walking in the Himalayas shortly before the earthquakes in 2015. 'Sagarmatha' a performed narrative, fuses their separate experiences into an immersive multimedia performance, celebrating the dangerous beauty of the highest place in the world, its people and its sometimes unprepared visitors . . . Tickets €5 at the door Please note no late admissions.  My poem 'Probably Misuse of Shamanism' is in this anthology, which will be launched at 7pm in the Teacher's Club, 36 Parnell St West, Dublin, on February 22nd:
EDITED by Eugene O’Connell and Pat Boran FOREWORD by Bernard O’Donoghue In The Deep Heart’s Core some 100 Irish poets accept the invitation to revisit a favourite, key or touchstone poem of their own, and offer a short commentary on same — as they might at a live event. The result is both an ideal introduction to contemporary Irish poetry for the general reader and a handbook for the aspiring practitioner or student. More info at https://dedaluspress.com/product/the-deep-hearts-core/ *Ages ago*
ME: Hi, can I make an appointment to meet *TD's name* please? THEM: Oh, the minister is very busy at the moment. ME: That's okay. When might I be able to make an appointment? THEM: *names date* ME: Thanks! THEM: Erm, what's it in connection with? ME: Erm, women's health? THEM: Okaaaaay. *Day before appointment* THEM: Hi, is that Kathy? ME: Yes. THEM: I'm afraid I'm going to have to postpone your appointment, the minister is very busy. ME: That's okay. When can I reschedule for? THEM: *names date the following week* ME: Thanks! THEM: Erm, what's it in connection with? ME: Erm, women's health? THEM: Okaaaaaaaaaaaay. *Several hours before appointment* THEM: Hi, is that Kathy? ME: Yes. THEM: I'm afraid I'm going to have to postpone your appointment, the minister is very busy. ME: That's okay. When can I reschedule? THEM: *names date the following week* ME: Thanks! THEM: Erm, what's it in connection with? ME: Erm, women's health? THEM: Okaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay. *Day before appointment* THEM: Hi, is that Kathy? ME: Yes. THEM: I'm afraid I'm going to have to postpone your appointment, the minister is very busy. ME: *sigh* That's okay. When can I reschedule for? THEM: *names date at end of same week* ME: Thanks! THEM: Erm, what's it in connection with? ME: Erm, women's health? THEM: Okaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay. *Day and time of appointment* ME: Hi, I'm here to meet *TD's name*. THEM: I'm afraid the minister is absent at present. Would you like to speak to me? ME: Okay. Will he be long? THEM: Oh he won't be in today. ME: What?? THEM: He won't be in today. Would you like to speak to me and I can pass it on? ME: No! I had an appointment with *TD's name*! Why didn't you call me? I have a job I've taken time out of! THEM: I tried to call you... ME *makes a show of taking out phone, checking for missed calls* Did you try to call me? THEM: Erm let me check... *fiddles with computer, reads list of missed appointments to self* okay sorry about that. ME: So can you tell me why you didn't call me? THEM: Sorry about that. ME: Can I reschedule? THEM: Well the minister is actually away next week, and then it's the summer break, so it'll be at the end of the summer. ME: That's unacceptable. That's really disrespectful behaviour. We're constituents. THEM: Sorry about that.  Maria Lappin and I will perform this piece again:
at Clonakilty Community Arts Centre on Friday Aug 19th from 7.30; in the Franciscan Well, Cork city, on Monday Sep 5th from 7.30pm. Both performances will follow launch readings of Tina Pisco's new book 'Sunrise Sunset.' Come along and spread the word! ABOUT THIS IS MY CONSTITUTION: A few years ago while researching in the National Archives I came across a file in the archive of the Department of the President. The file contained De Valera's draft constitution, and all of the letters written to him and to the Irish Press by excellent Irish women from all walks of life, begging the then Taoiseach to remove the sexist wording which threatened women's ability to work and even to full citizenship. The file contained not a single written reply from De Valera, and the worst of the wording is still in our constitution to this day. The file also contained defamatory editorials from the Irish Press seeking (no doubt at the then government's behest) to undermine the women, as well as arse-licking and downright frightening letters in support of 'sending women back to the home where they belong.' The final document was a Department of Finance memorandum from the period listing the civil service jobs which women couldn't do: this one really has to be heard to be believed! I made a short play from the documents so that I could let the women's voices be heard again and until their demands are finally met. Also, because I don't think we should ever forget exactly how much our government has hated women and continues to enact and support woman-hating legislation. The last time the piece was performed was at a parliamentary briefing for TDs and senators in Dáil Eireann during the Constitutional Convention. If you are interested in hearing these women speak again, come to Ma Murphy's pub in Bantry on Thursday July 21st at 7pm: FREE EVENT. And please spread the word! The more of us who listen to women like these, the better for everyone. The event will be followed by music and a book launch by Tina Pisco. What exactly is my practice? Where do I envisage it ending?
I often find that, within academia and even within the arts, a project is only allowed to be interdisciplinary up to a certain point: then it’s joking aside, and what are you doing, really? Do I plan to publish the piece I’m working on as an ordinary book, on ordinary paper, where one page follows the next? If it’s academic in nature or even presenting itself as a knowledge text, will it have a straightforward bibliography and super-linear index section? If not, how will I respect my many source materials? How do I preserve the in-between nature of my work (something I feel is inherently important to its aims), and still make a piece of work which can be disseminated and received openly? (Note: Wordworth’s Prelude is full of lines stolen from Milton and the ancients, which didn’t seem to cause anyone any problems…) My aim is not to demonstrate that I am so clever that I can write something no-one can understand, that wilful obscurity Joyce mocked in his construction of Ulysses. I’m trying to knock down the walls between ways of knowing things because these were built by patriarchal cultures. I’m trying to make my work EASIER to understand. Many of the presentations at Bodystories/Perforum played with the divides between disciplines and practice methodologies. Gerry Kearns led a walk to explain his Foucauldian/Benjaminian deconstruction of the geography of the history of Irish Catholic institutions (so, as he described it, we looked over his shoulder at the turrets of the women’s prison rising above the trees). Jacqui O’ Riordan’s presentation on memory and personhood was based exclusively on photographs of her own mother. Performance artist LaBeti recited Lorca’s poetry during a burlesque striptease, and spoke later about her discovery that stripping was the missing part of her ability to engage with the texts she had researched academically. While LaBeti performed, an installation by Laura Pauwels set up in another corner of the theatre space invited participants to post messages of hope for victims of sex trafficking into a little blue box. In a way, attending Bodystories/Perforum has been traumatic, because I have realised how much farther I want to go. It’s scary to cut ties with a set of practices where you feel safe, and where people know what to expect from you and seem to tolerate you. I feel now that I have been struggling to keep the work safe enough that it can still be published as poetry, that I can still call myself a poet and leave it at that, but that isn’t the case. I’m not sure what to call myself. |
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