Christodoulos Makris

Sabotage Reviews is a wonderful online magazine that publishes reviews of "those ephemeral works that are often created on a small budget and distributed to a limited amount of people". Apart from the obvious targets that are chapbooks, pamphlets and little magazines, its remit also includes other rarely-reviewed items such as poetry installations and performance poetry events. I'm delighted that Sabotage  recently published a positive review of Muses Walk . Written by Rishi Dastidar, it offers an intelligent reading of the book with an appreciation of its process and overall purpose.

Sabne Raznik, a poet, book reviewer and freelance writer based in Kentucky in the US, has posted a review of my three books on Yahoo! Voices under the heading 'The Work of Christodoulos Makris' . It's a generally positive response to them, particularly to  Muses Walk ("With it, one begins to see that Makris is an important poet, not just for sleepy Ireland, but perhaps for the world," she writes) but not without expressing some reservations along the way. I must note a couple of factual inaccuracies: the project for which Muses Walk was originally conceived and made is an international one, called 'An Inventory of Al-Mutanabbi Street'; and,   much as I wish it were true, there has been no recent trip to Greece .

The festival village - an information hub, meeting place, refuelling stop and chillout space for all poets and everyone else who took part in Poetry Parnassus - was the venue for a modest welcoming party thrown on Monday evening 25 June for those of us who had arrived by then, prior to the festival proper beginning the next morning. There we had a chance to meet the team that put this mammoth undertaking together and made sure it didn't collapse under its own highly-ambitious weight. Massive kudos and thanks to all for their enterprise and energy - though I must especially mention Jana Stefanovska and festival organiser, Anna Selby. So, to my own contributions: Tuesday morning's 'Tradition vs Innovation' panel discussion for the World Poetry Summit was well attended, and immaculately chaired by Steven Fowler. Starting from my take on Gysin's quote, we discussed several interconnected issues including the collaborative possibilities of poetry, the effects of the...

Published by Bloodaxe, The World Record is an anthology featuring one poem by each of the poets who were selected to participate in Poetry Parnassus. Entries are arranged alphabetically by country; the  biographical notes following the main body of the book are also arranged by country, while  an index allows the reader to search by poet (sur)name. There's also an introductory note by Simon Armitage, and a preface by anthology co-editor and festival organiser Anna Selby. Apart from its obvious function as a reference publication, the book also serves as a valuable memento for those who have attended what has been a unique and vibrant gathering of poets. My contribution to The World Record is 'The Impressionists'. I t's taken from the-now-totally-sold-out  Round the Clock , and was first published in Succour 's issue 6 (The Future) . An interactive map through which you can 'visit' each country and read its representative's featured poem is availab...

As part of the Poetry Parnassus UK Tour , which sees some of the poets who participated in Poetry Parnassus take part in events at different locations around the UK, I'll be at the Derry-Londonderry Clipper Festival this coming Thursday and Friday (5-6 July). Yachts and crew competing in the Clipper 11-12 International Yacht Race started arriving in Derry-Londonderry on 29 June at the end of the transatlantic leg of the race, and the city welcomes them with a 10-day festival . Part of the festival programme is the 'Songs of the Sea' event, hosted by the Verbal Arts Centre, which features sessions with thirteen Poetry Parnassus poets (Imruh Bakari, Maureen Roberts, Andra Simons, Dhabiya Khamis, Selina Marsh, Saradha Soobrayen, Kate Kilalea, Gerður Kristny, Soleiman Adel Guemar, Zahir Al-Ghafri, Adbullahi Botan Hassan, Rocío Cerón and myself) who represent nations with close links to the sea. For this I'll be doing a 1-hour workshop on 5 July, right beside where the ...