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Irish Poetry Reading Archive

A while ago I recorded six poems from my 2015 book The Architecture of Chance for the Irish Poetry Reading Archive, an initiative of University College Dublin (UCD) Library Special Collections, with footage now uploaded to the Special Collections YouTube channel. These recordings, along with handwritten manuscripts of some of these poems that I made specially for the reading, will form part of the collection's digital archive.



The Irish Poetry Reading Archive is a central repository that holds recordings of Irish poets and writers reading their work and giving a brief overview of the context and circumstances that influenced the writing of the poems. The collection aims to capture and preserve the contemporary poetry landscape in Ireland, and includes established and emerging poets, performance and avant-garde poets, English and Irish language poets, and diaspora poets. Recordings began in April 2014, and the archive was launched in December 2015 by the Minister of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht. The collection is an ongoing project.



Poetry recordings are hosted initially on the UCD Special Collections YouTube Channel; then twice a year, along with handwritten manuscripts, they are batch uploaded onto the UCD Digital Library Irish Poetry Reading Collection, where preservation and free access are assured. An A-Z list of poets recorded to date and other news are available on the Irish Poetry Reading Archive Online Guide.



My thanks to Lucy Collins at UCD School of English, Drama and Film, and Ursula Byrne at UCD Library, for inviting me to contribute to the archive.

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