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Great Poets Steal

Great Poets Steal: a collaborative writing workshop with Christodoulos Makris
Blanchardstown Library, Dublin 15
2pm, Saturday 20 April 2013

"The act of choosing and reframing tells us as much about ourselves as a story about our mother’s cancer operation" - Kenneth Goldsmith, 'Uncreative Writing'


Its concept stolen from Steven Fowler's Patchwork Renga workshop conducted at the Poetry Library in London last June, and its title from the famous (mis)quote attributed to TS Eliot, this collaborative writing workshop aims to exercise the faculties of selecting and connecting text.

My intention is to encourage a lively environment in which participants will work together towards composing a series of poems out of material 'borrowed' from the shelves of Blanchardstown Library.

(In the first part all participants will go hunting among the library shelves and steal lines of their choice out of books of their choice from predetermined sections of the library. When we reconvene we'll stitch these borrowed lines together by subject of their origin. We'll end by reading out the resulting poems by the library's entrance. The purpose of the workshop is manifold: to exercise the faculties of selecting and juxtaposing text; to encourage a distancing from writing in a confessional or sentimental way; to experiment with process and the fragmentation of voice; to awaken the collaborative spirit; to enable possible entry points to further writing; to have fun.)

The event is part of the Heart in Mouth arts participation programme curated by Colm Keegan and Dave Lordan and supported by Fingal County Council libraries department. It is suitable for all, regardless of writing experience or greatness.

Participation is free, and places can be booked at lilian.whelan@fingalcoco.ie.

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