Christodoulos Makris

On Culture Night 2018 (Friday 21 September) I will read a new piece commissioned by the Irish Writers Centre in Dublin as part of its 'Writers Soapbox' session. Now in its 13th year, Culture Night is a one-night, all-Ireland celebration of the arts, heritage and culture, where venues and public spaces across the island open their doors to host a programme of free entertainment. Responding to the theme "I go from room to room / around the house / looking for something, / and, to be honest, I won’t know / what it is / till I find it" (taken from a Macdara Woods poem, and set by the centre's Kate Cunningham) I composed a new poem out of the subject titles of IMDb user reviews of the 2001 Richard Linklater film Tape  - selected, rearranged and lightly-edited to effect a fitful shifting of opinion from one extreme to another. The poem relates to current global political personalities and conditions. Also delivering a Soapbox reading on Friday will be Yemi Azam

'Space, Place, Obligation' is a one-day interdisciplinary conference organised by Niamh Campbell , hosted by the Department of English at Maynooth University, and supported & funded by the Irish Research Council, featuring presentations and conversations about art and Irishness with a number of writers, artists, academics, and cultural producers working in Ireland today. As part of 'Space, Place, Obligation' I will be in conversation with Niamh Campbell on themes around my essay 'Shedding Poetry's National Baggage' and my writing practice. Saturday 15 September 2018 9am to 6pm Iontas Building, Maynooth University Speakers: Plenaries: Dr Garrett Carr, Queen's University Belfast; Dr Catherine Morris, NUI Galway. Dr Julie Bates, Kevin Breathneach, Sean Borodale, Seán Ó Dálaigh, Nathan O'Donnell, Paul Gaffney, Laura Fitzgerald, Katie Watchorn, Rouzbeh Rashidi, Mollie King, Kerry Guinan, Kate Heffernan, Selina Guinness, and Christodoulos M

I'm very excited and proud to announce the release of  gorse No. 10. Curated and edited by myself, this special issue of gorse is a limited edition, mixed-media book-in-a-box featuring specially-commissioned contemporary responses to 'the readymade' in literature from writers, poets, artists and translators based across Europe and North America. Published on the centenary + 1 of Marcel Duchamp's 'Fountain' (though recent research supports the likelihood that the creator of the original artwork was Baroness Elsa Von Freytag-Loringhoven) the issue stands as an exploration of Duchamp's artistic gesture as it pertains to the social/political/technological conditions, writing processes and publishing practices prevailing in the early 21st century. There are 13 separate contributions presented in a range of media: 'Greenwash' by Rachael Allen Six business cards with short poems made using text taken from the 'environmental policy' s