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It Reeks of Radio: video interview and reading for the Irish Poetry Reading Archive

A couple of months ago I was interviewed on film by Dr Lucy Collins, associate professor at University College Dublin (UCD) School of English, Drama and Film, about my book It Reeks of Radio (BLR Editions, 2023). In the same session I also read some excerpts from the book.

These videos have now been released by UCD Special Collections as part of the Irish Poetry Reading Archive. They can be viewed on YouTube (interview | reading), on the Archive playlist, or below.



The Irish Poetry Reading Archive is "Ireland's only curated digital collection, where the voices of Irish poets, both North and South, doing readings, scholarly masterclasses, and in conversation, along with digital copies of poetry related materials (anthologies, programmes, posters) are preserved for future generations. Recordings are also made freely available in the UCD Digital Library."

This is my second contribution to the Archive, following a bundle of poems from my second book The Architecture of Chance (Wurm Press, 2015) being added in 2018. I was recently surprised to discover that 'xxxxx', one of the poems from that session, is the most viewed on the Archive, with currently over 18,000 views.

My thanks to Evelyn Flanagan, Head of Special Collections at UCD Library, and to filmmaker Jenny Brady for shooting and editing the videos. Thanks especially to Lucy Collins for the incisive questions.

It Reeks of Radio is available from Museum of Literature Ireland, The Library Project, and elsewhere.

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