This new series, organised by excellent poets Mary Noonan and Martin Veiga, will be taking place on occasional Thursday and Friday evenings during Autumn. It involves readings with translation as well as seminars on the much-discussed art of translating poetry. Sounds fantastic. See https://thisdustofwords.wordpress.com for details.
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Two of my most dedicated students, Maura Treacy and Anne Griffin, will be reading their work at an event during the Trevor Bowen Literary Festival in Mitchelstown: see the festival programme here. Their event will be on Sept 18th at 3pm in the Kingston Chapel in the town. Both of these talented women have made me laugh and cry on many occasions with their brilliantly-crafted stories so check them out!
The Arts Office, Waterford City & County Council is pleased to offer a six week writing course with the poet Kathy D’Arcy.
Crafting Poetry This course will run on Tuesday evenings in the Round Tower Hotel, Ardmore, Co. Waterford from 6pm to 8pm. 15th /22nd /29th September 13th & 20th October and will conclude on 3rd November 2015. This course with award-winning poet and writing teacher Kathy D'Arcy will work through various elements of theme, form, structure and technique in poetry, using examples from well-known poets and exciting, generative assignments. Work developed during the course will be discussed and constructively critiqued within the group, and we will also look at the process of sending pieces away for publication. This course is aimed at those who have already begun crafting poems and hope to develop their drafting, editing and critiquing skills in a supportive environment. Therefore a level of writing experience is necessary and it is unsuitable for beginners. The Arts Office, Waterford City & County Council is highly subsidising this course and places are limited. The cost for the six sessions is a subsided rate of €50 payable on you getting confirmation that you have secured a place on the course. Places will be allocated on a first come first served basis but please note that we may request samples of your work to ensure that you will be comfortable working in this group. Please email your interest in attending to morgan@waterfordcouncil.ie on or before 4pm on 11th September 2015. If places are filled in advance of this date you may be placed on a waiting list. Your Course Tutor Kathy D'Arcy is a young Cork poet whose collections Encounter (Lapwing), and The Wild Pupil (Bradshaw) were published in 2010 and 2012 respectively. In 2013 she was awarded an Arts Council Literature Bursary, and in 2014 she received an Irish Research Council Award to undertake a PhD in Creative Writing in University College Cork, where she also teaches with the Creative Writing and Women's Studies programmes. D'Arcy originally qualified and worked as a doctor, and now runs creative writing groups for adults and young people. She is also a playwright, and her play 'This is my Constitution' was staged in Dáil Éireann in 2013 at an Irish parliamentary briefing on constitutional change. She has worked with Waterford’s Arts Office on various school and adult literature projects. 'among the best poems I have read in years' - Thomas McCarthy www.kathydarcy.com And then,
the walking, the way... Thanks to an Arts Council bursary a few years ago I was able to write the long poem Camino, and this Friday at 6pm I will perform the first of what I hope to be an ongoing series of shows based on it and on the technique I've been developing of using heteroglossia in long poetic pieces. The show is free, lasts half an hour and will be followed by a Q&A. All are welcome! Dear all,
I need to complain about the 'No campaign' marriage equality referendum posters publicly displayed all over Cork city and, I assume, the rest of the country. Apart from their extreme offensiveness, I believe that they contravene this country's equality legislation on grounds of gender and sexual orientation: by implying that gay parents are unable to raise a child properly, that a child 'needs' straight parents (one of each gender, to be precise) and that the presence of gay people within the institution of marriage somehow devalues that institution. There are countless other examples. Substitute race for sexual orientation as the focus for this campaign, and you have apartheid. Substitute religion, and you have penal laws and Naziism. Please tell me you will not stand by and let our nation's children witness yet another abuse of one population by another on grounds we have already defined in our laws as being protected from such action. When I called the Referendum Commission to complain about these posters, they told me it was a Garda matter. At Anglesea Street Garda Station they told me it wasn't a criminal matter (though I stressed that I thought a law was bring broken) and directed me to yourselves and to the city council. The council said it was a matter for the Office of the Taoiseach, who told me it was a Department of the Environment matter, and that department transferred my call to an unnamed man who said he would call me back. He hasn't. I know it's easy to let this stuff slide and see if you get re-elected, but discrimination on this level will haunt us through history if we don't speak up about it and stop it. Having exhausted every other avenue for doing this, I now appeal to you. I'll keep this letter to show future generations that I didn't stay quiet and allow this to happen. Best, Kathy D'Arcy Here's something free and fun for the day that'll be in it:
Public talk on equality campaigner Elizabeth Cady Stanton City Library, Grand Parade this Saturday, 7th March at 2.30pm along with Songs of the Suffragettes performed by Kate Kirwan. Just some events I'm reading at soon - click on the boldface to follow the link, it's a smorgasbord!
With with William Wall and Sarah Clancy on the writers' panel of the Northern/Irish Feminist Judgements Project (a great project re-examining landmark judgements from a feminist perspective) Workshop in UCC Law School on Feb 5th: it's invitation only, but recordings will be available from irishfeministjudge@gmail.com; At the Farm Gate Cafe on Wed Feb 11th at 4pm as part of the Cork Spring Poetry Festival's 'Examiner Poets' Reading - free event, all welcome; As part of the Over The Edge Reading Series in The Kitchen @ The Museum, Galway, on Saturday March 14th at 8pm - free event, all welcome. My Ardmore project is also back, funded for a third year by the fantastic Waterford Council Arts Office: Ill be conducting a series of adult writing workshops, school workshops and the Writing Walking Workshop which has been so rewarding for participants since it began. Details to follow on the 'Ardmore Project' page - watch this space! I'm about to add a new blog to my website: called 'blogpoem' it will document my participation in the UCC Creative Writing MA 'Writing and Experiment' module as part of my IRC-funded PhD in creative writing, which I've begun this year. I'm not sure what it will evolve into, but I'm interested in the idea of a continuous blogged poem as an experiment...all feedback welcome! My UCC writing course 'Finding Your Voice' will return in September, and my Ardmore writing project will run for the third year in a row this May - contact me if you'd like to be involved in either! I'm currently in Ardmore beginning the second year of my Ardmore Project (click here for details) and finishing the long piece, 'Camino' that I was able to write here last year thanks to the Arts Council. Being by the sea and specifically being here seems to be right for creative work, and I'm hoping that the free writing workshops I'll be running in the community will be as inspiring and successful as they were last year. |
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