On the making of It Reeks of Radio in Poetry Ireland Review 141

My essay on the making of the long poem that constitutes my most recent book It Reeks of Radio (BLR Editions, 2023) appears in the latest issue No. 141 of Poetry Ireland Review.

Commissioned by the issue's guest editor, Nidhi Zak/Aria Eipe, my essay broadly considers the background interests that led to my decision to work with radio archives - and specifically with the archived correspondence around historical broadcasts on RTÉ Radio rather than the radio scripts themselves - my practical and compositional working process, and the considerations that led to the poem embedding a visual dimension and the result taking the form of a book. The concluding paragraph offers brief commentary on the tensions in the relationship between poetry - an artform that at its keenest exists in the hyper-present - and archival documents, and consequently on the concept of commemoration through poetry, as well as the democratising potential of public media, while inviting each reader to contribute their own meanings to the poem.

I'm pleased that my essay is part of this issue, which as Nidhi writes in her editorial introduction gives space to poets "at the frontier of writing. In their hands and mouths, language surges forward: returned, reclaimed, revisioned." Other highlights in Poetry Ireland Review 141 include Kit Fryatt's essay on the work of the late Maurice Scully; Bebe Ashley writing 'On Aphantasia'; Julie Morrissy reviewing books by Susannah Dickey and Nerys Williams ("That shift from the solitary I to a shared possibility"); and new poetry from Éireann Lorsung.

 

It Reeks of Radio is available to order from Museum of Literature Ireland (MoLI), and other outlets. Poetry Ireland Review 141 is available to purchase directly from Poetry Ireland or from bookshops. Many thanks to Nidhi Zak/Aria Eipe for the invitation to contribute to the issue, and as ever to Paul Lenehan, publications manager at Poetry Ireland, for his care and professionalism.