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Reimagining Literature in a Digital Space: an Arts Council of Ireland study

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The Arts Council of Ireland recently published a profile on my work as a poet operating in a post-digital landscape, specifically in relation to  sorry that you were not moved , my digital project in collaboration with Kimberly Campanello that was released by Fallow Media in February 2022. This study of my work and our project is one of five such profile pieces commissioned by The Arts Council. It was produced in the context of  its new drive to support the Digital Arts in Ireland  and in connection with the recent launch of its  Digital Arts Policy . Titled 'Reimagining literature in a digital space' , the study was authored by Denise McDonagh of Culture Works , with an accompanying video element created by Kate Costello of Narrator & Co . It was composed following a transcribed informal conversation and interview with me - as director and lead artist on  sorry that you were not moved  - about the aims, development and impact of the project, as well as the conditions of m

'Is this a poem?' at Museum of Literature Ireland (MoLI)

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I'm very excited to announce my most ambitious curatorial project to date, which opens to the public today, Saturday 24 February 2024, at Museum of Literature Ireland (MoLI) in Dublin, and which will run until 21 July: Is this a Poem? is a mixed-media exhibition and event programme that collects works of poetry whose common characteristic is having been specifically conceived to operate beyond the page, sometimes in non-verbal modes. Accompanied by the tagline 'Adventures on the edge of an artform', Is this a poem? is an exhibition about poetry’s furthest frontiers. "Explore the entire museum to discover works of poetry that exist beyond the page: poems that are sound, sculpture, image, film, performances, software, and objects you can touch. The poems collected in this exhibition were mostly made in Ireland over the last decade, but are sometimes seen as a footnote to Irish poetry. Is this a poem? celebrates their playful capacity to surprise, challenge and inform

On the making of It Reeks of Radio in Poetry Ireland Review 141

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My essay on the making of the long poem that constitutes my most recent book  It Reeks of Radio  (BLR Editions, 2023) appears in the latest issue No. 141 of Poetry Ireland Review . Commissioned by the issue's guest editor,  Nidhi Zak/Aria Eipe , my essay broadly considers the background interests that led to my decision to work with radio archives - and specifically with the archived correspondence around historical broadcasts on RTÉ Radio rather than the radio scripts themselves - my practical and compositional working process, and the considerations that led to the poem embedding a visual dimension and the result taking the form of a book. The concluding paragraph offers brief commentary on the tensions in the relationship between poetry - an artform that at its keenest exists in the hyper-present - and archival documents, and consequently on the concept of commemoration through poetry, as well as the democratising potential of public media, while inviting each reader to contr

The Stony Thursday Book No. 19 (Winter 2023)

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In March 2023 I accepted an invitation to edit the 45th edition (No. 19 in the new series) of The Stony Thursday Book , an annual anthology of contemporary poetry published by Limerick Arts Office and one of Ireland's longest running literary journals. A call for submissions  went out in April - and I'm now happy to report that the issue in question was published in November 2023. Its publication was marked by an event on 21 November at Belltable in Limerick City Centre, where the book was launched by the Mayor of the City and County of Limerick, followed by readings from poets featured in the issue. The Stony Thursday Book was founded in 1975 by poets John Liddy and Jim Burke. The new series is administered by Limerick Arts Office and benefits from the practice of a rotating editorship. Previous issues were edited by Annemarie Ní Churreáin, Martin Dyar, Nessa O'Mahony and Peter Sirr among others, with the compilation of the book relying exclusively on open submissions. I

Poetry Wales 59.2 (Winter 2023)

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I'm very happy that two poems from my book Contemporaneous Brand Strategy Document appear in the Winter 2023 issue of Poetry Wales . And I'm particularly pleased that an abridged version of a new essay of mine with title 'Just Your Imagination: The Case of the Absent Elusive Irish Avant-Garde' is also published in the issue. Founded in 1965 and currently edited by Zoë Brigley , Poetry Wales  is the national poetry magazine of Wales. It publishes contemporary poetry, features and reviews in its triannual print and digital magazine, and maintains an interest in translation and in local and national identities in a global context. Poetry Wales is open to tradition and experiment, publishing poetry from a wide range of approaches. My poems 'the stooges' and 'ruthlessly', taken from Contemporaneous Brand Strategy Document (Veer, 2023) , are among new poetry by over 40 poets from across the world printed in the issue. And among its features  Poetry Wales

Contemporaneous Brand Strategy Document: A Choral Reading at Dublin Art Book Fair 2023

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Join me on Saturday 9 December at Temple Bar Gallery + Studios in Dublin for a participatory choral reading of poems from my book Contemporaneous Brand Strategy Document . The reading will be followed by an informal discussion with event host Wendy Erskine on polyphony in my work, the fragmentation of the lyric in contemporary poetry, and its implication on the dynamic between poet and audience. This event is part of the programme for Dublin Art Book Fair 2023 (7-17 December). The theme this year is 'Polyphonic' , with the associated programme of talks, readings, workshops, and participatory events curated by Wendy Erskine . Dublin Art Book Fair is Ireland’s leading art book fair and centre for artist books, and this year marks its 13th edition. Taking place in Temple Bar Gallery + Studios , it champions small, creative and independent publishers, and both Irish and international artist books. Within this mix, over 500 newly published and unusual publications on art, design, v

It Reeks of Radio: the launch / the exhibition / early responses / a reading for Joseph M Hassett

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The Old Physics Theatre at Museum of Literature Ireland (MoLI) was nicely full for the launch of my fifth book of poetry  It Reeks of Radio  (BLR Editions)  on 26 September 2023, where I was in public conversation with this year's UCD / Arts Council of Ireland Writer in Residence, Victoria Kennefick. It was lovely to see many old and new friends and colleagues attend what was a lunchtime event on a weekday. Victoria's astute reading of the book, her skillful hosting of the conversation and her probing questions facilitated a dive into several of the strands explored in the book. I was happy to read excerpts and respond to questions from the audience. photo: Nessa O'Mahony The following day, a 14-panel exhibition that visually contextualises the book and overall project was installed on the walls of Newman Building (Arts Building) at University College Dublin. The exhibition was proposed and managed by Emer Beesley, Marketing And Communications Manager at UCD College of Arts

Reviews Roundup (July-October 2023): Contemporaneous Brand Strategy Document

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I'm grateful for the attention that my fourth book Contemporaneous Brand Strategy Document , published earlier this year, continues to receive, manifested through print and online reviews as well as new invitations to present the work in various settings. This is a roundup of some reviews that have appeared between its first by Jessica Traynor in The Irish Times  on 24 June, and the end of October 2023. On 3 July 2023, Enzo Minarelli, an Italian poet active in international avant-garde circles since the 1970s and preoccupied with performance and the audiovisual dimensions of poetry, published a review of the book in his personal blog , in Italian. With the help of Minarelli's own translation into English and that of Italian-speaking friends, I was able to deduce that this is an overwhelmingly positive review engaging deeply with the material, its processes and antecedents. "... here the poet undoubtedly has in mind the scene, the sequence or the action or the thought to be

It Reeks of Radio (BLR Editions, 2023)

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I'm excited to announce that my fifth full-length book of poetry It Reeks of Radio , a hybrid poem incorporating documentary text and visuals composed through my commissioned engagement with RTÉ Radio archives held at University College Dublin (UCD), will be published on 26 September 2023. Especially exciting is the fact that It Reeks of Radio is the inaugural title from BLR Editions, a new imprint connected to the annual journal Belfield Literary Review  - a joint UCD / Museum of Literature Ireland (MoLI) publication venture. And I'm very pleased that the book will be launched during WORDFFEVER , a UCD one day creative writing conference taking place at MoLI on 26 September, as part of which I will be in conversation about the book with this year's UCD / Arts Council of Ireland Writer in Residence, Victoria Kennefick . Further details below: About the Book: It Reeks of Radio is a book-length poem composed entirely from fragments of communication around historical (pre-19

'Bandsalat' for Mirror Lamp Press at The Complex

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Such a pleasure to take part in the first live event organised by Mirror Lamp Press last Friday evening at The Complex Arts Centre in north inner city Dublin, where I performed a set constructed around my poem 'Bandsalat (Verse Chorus Verse)' - a poem specially commissioned for the journal's inaugural issue in April 2021. Mirror Lamp Press is an online journal exploring the intersection of art and literature. Edited by Gwen Burlington and Eoghan McIntyre, it has already amassed an impressive list of contributors across artforms. As well as celebrating publication of its eighth issue which went live earlier that day, the event sought to showcase writing from previous issues and presented screenings of four commissioned audiovisual essays. My poem 'Bandsalat (Verse Chorus Verse)' was composed in response to the editors' brief of writing on an object of my choice that brought some kind of relief or happiness during a time of prolonged home confinement and force