Spring Poetry Rain

For this event taking place in Nicosia this coming Saturday 26 May, large balloons filled with hundreds of copies of poems by 307 poets from 55 countries - including two of mine - will be placed along Ledra Street and Arasta Sokak to create a 'chain of connection' over the dividing line. The balloons are set to be burst at intervals, releasing the poems to fall 'like rain' on the public.

Devised by two cultural organisations operating on either side of the divide, Ideogramma and Sidestreets, and supported by the European Parliament office in Cyprus, Spring Poetry Rain will be broadcast live on the organisers' websites. It starts at 6pm local time (4pm British / Irish time).

Features in Φιλελεύθερος and Cyprus Mail newspapers

A double-spread feature on my work by arts writer Elena Parpa appeared in the culture supplement of Sunday's (20 May) edition of Φιλελεύθερος - in terms of circulation Cyprus' largest broadsheet newspaper. With a title loosely translated as 'The Audacity of Poetry' and gleaned in the main out of a long conversation Elena and I had last week, it's a considered and well-researched piece, taking in my writing origins and concerns, my activities and inclinations, and much else, without falling back on cliché or easy conclusions. Our conversation took place in English, but she rendered what we talked about expertly in Greek. It can be viewed online in two separate parts (pages 24 and 25).

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Also, last Tuesday 15 May - on the morning of my reading at the Home for Cooperation in Nicosia - the Cyprus Mail, the island's main English-language daily paper, published a piece on my work and upcoming participation in Poetry Parnassus. Though welcome, this is (in contrast) a heavily edited transcription of responses I gave to a series of questions they submitted - omitting most of the juicier stuff and inevitably distorting emphasis and meaning.

Interview on CyBC's 'Εντέχνως'

Wednesday's (16 May) edition of Εντέχνως, an arts magazine programme broadcast each weekday evening on CyBC TV, featured an interview with me (conducted entirely in Greek, and beginning at around the 7:40 mark) about my work and activities. Remarkably, I didn't slip back into English too often...

 

Reading in Nicosia (and related activities)

Following the announcement of the line up of the poets that will take part in Poetry Parnassus, the British Council in Cyprus, in association with the University of Cyprus, has invited me to visit the island for a reading in Nicosia and some related activities.

It will be a short visit, lasting barely more than 48 hours. The reading will take place at 7.30pm on Tuesday 15 May. The venue is the Home of Cooperation, a "shared space for intercommunal cooperation and dialogue" situated in Nicosia's UN buffer zone. My reading will be preceded by a screening of the short film Poets in No Man's Land, produced by Stephanos Stephanides of the University of Cyprus and the filmmaker Stephen Nugent, which documents a week-long poetry and translation workshop in Nicosia's 'no man's land'.

A whole host of media activities has also been arranged for me, including TV, radio and press interviews, in English and in Greek, as well as possibly a visit north of the divide for a press event there.

It all seems a bit much, but I'm going with it... I'll be posting links to most of this, where possible, in due course. It all starts with a live interview on CyBC Radio 2 tomorrow Friday 11 May at around 18.30 local time (16.30 British/Irish time), during the English language programme Round and About. You can listen to CyBC Radio 2 here.

Below is the invitation to Tuesday's reading.

British Council Cyprus and the Department of English Studies, the University of Cyprus

cordially invite you to a poetry evening on Tuesday 15 May at 7:30 pm at the Home for Cooperation, Buffer Zone, Nicosia (opposite Ledra Palace) focussing on readings by Christodoulos Makris, the poet who will represent Cyprus at London Southbank’s ambitious project ‘Poetry Parnassus’, a festival gathering of 204 poets, one from each Olympic nation, as part of London’s Cultural Olympiad and the London 2012 celebrations.  The readings will be in English.

There will also be a screening of a 20-minute documentary film Poets in No Man’s Land produced by Prof Stephanos Stephanides, University of Cyprus (starting at 7:00 pm).

wurm decamps

Wurm im Apfel is taking a sabbatical from infecting the Dublin poetry scene with exciting activities. It will be missed. Though I hope its absence here will indeed be temporary, it has issued a threat to turn up somewhere else... Plus there will be new material from Wurm Press in the autumn, while its poezine cancan will continue to emerge "irregularly but regularly". Keep watching that space.