About Christodoulos Makris:
"one of Ireland's leading contemporary explorers of experimental poetics" - The RTÉ Poetry Programme
"a straw in the wind, a forerunner, in Irish poetry and Irish poetry publishing" - Harry Clifton, The Irish Times
"one of the finest poets, innovators and organisers in Europe" - SJ Fowler, European Poetry Festival director
"In work that is at times radically experimental, and always alert to the capacity of language to remake the world, Christodoulos Makris seeks ways to break open the lyric space of the poem to alter the ways in which language operates in the public realm" - Lucy Collins, Irish University Review
His books are: Spitting Out the Mother Tongue (Dublin: Wurm Press, 2011); The Architecture of Chance (Dublin: Wurm Press, 2015) - selected as a poetry book of the year by 3:AM Magazine and RTÉ Arena; this is no longer entertainment (Manchester: Dostoyevsky Wannabe, 2019); Contemporaneous Brand Strategy Document (London: Veer Books, 2023); and It Reeks of Radio (Dublin: BLR Editions, 2023).
He is co-author of the digital poetry publication sorry that you were not moved in collaboration with Kimberly Campanello (Dublin: Fallow Media, 2022) - which was in receipt of an Arts Council of Ireland Literature Project Award.
He is also the author of the chapbook Round the Clock (Dublin: Wurm Press, 2009); the limited edition artist’s book Muses Walk (2012); the limited edition pamphlet if we keep drawing cartoons (Edinburgh: If A Leaf Falls Press, 2016); the poetry postcard set Browsing History (Manchester: zimZalla avant objects, 2018); the limited edition chapbook Transcription Factor - in collaboration with Gregory Betts, Chiamaka Enyi-Amadi, and Julie Morrissy (Banff: NO Press, 2019); the limited edition pamphlet yes to the above (Belfast: The Lifeboat Press, 2019); and the limited edition publication Is this a poem?: Adventures on the edge of an artform (Dublin, MoLI Editions, 2024).
His poetry and other writings have appeared widely in international journals and anthologies, print and online, including 3:AM Magazine, Belfield Literary Review, gorse, Granta, The Guardian, The Irish Times, Irish University Review, Jacket2, Magma, Poetry Ireland Review, Poetry Wales, The Stinging Fly, and The Tangerine among many.
In 2016 he was named one of Poetry Ireland's 'Rising Generation' poets. He was Digital Poet in Residence at the 2017 edition of StAnza International Poetry Festival in Scotland, and in the same year received a project commission from the Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA). He was appointed Writer-in-Residence at National University of Ireland Maynooth for the academic year 2018-19. During 2020 he received awards from the Arts Council of Ireland and Fingal County Council. In 2021 he was awarded one of the inaugural Platform 31 bursaries, a scheme established by the 31 Local Authority Arts Offices in collaboration with the Arts Council of Ireland. He also received the inaugural Joseph M. Hassett Creativity Bursary (Poetry) 2021-22 at University College Dublin (UCD), and one of the inaugural Listowel - New York international residencies (2024-25) administered by St John's Theatre & Arts Centre, Listowel, and Irish Arts Center, New York City.
His work has been included in the ambitious UCD Special Collections video project ‘Irish Poetry Reading Archive’, where it has one of the highest viewing figures. It has been translated into Croatian, Czech, Greek, Russian, Spanish and Turkish, broadcast on RTÉ Radio and CyBC TV among others, and exhibited in venues such as The Poets House in New York, The British Library in London, and The Nicosia Municipal Arts Centre. He has also made a number of digital, audio and film works through commissions and awards from organisations such as Speaking Volumes Live Literature Productions, Critical Bastards magazine, The Arts Council of Ireland, and Fingal Libraries.
With support from Culture Ireland and other national and international bodies he represented Ireland at The Guadalajara International Book Fair 2014 (Mexico), the Prague Microfestival 2015, European Literature Festival 2016 (Edinburgh & London), Tropez project (Berlin) 2018 and European Poetry Festival 2019 (London & Manchester). He also represented Cyprus at Poetry Parnassus, part of the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad, and European Literature Night 2015 (The British Library, London).
He has appeared in many other festivals and events including Belfast Book Festival, Book Week Scotland, Dublin Book Festival, International Literature Festival Dublin, ISLA Festival, Listowel Writers’ Week, London Literature Festival (The Southbank Centre), Mountains to Sea (Dun Laoghaire), European Poetry Festival (Norway), Poets Live (Paris), Pafos2017 European Capital of Culture, and Red Line Book Festival (South Dublin).
He is the poetry editor at gorse journal, “the most vital & outward-looking of Irish literary journals”, and associated imprint Gorse Editions. He commissioned and edited in full the special issue 10 of gorse, a mixed-media, book-in-a-box issue in response to 'the readymade' in literature, with contributions from poets, writers and artists from across Europe and North America. In 2023 he guest-edited the 45th edition of the annual Stony Thursday Poetry Book, published by the Limerick County Council Arts Office. He also co-edited the bilingual, translation-exchange anthology Centrifugal: Contemporary Poetry of Guadalajara and Dublin, published in 2014 by Mexico City’s EBL-Cielo Abierto with support from Conaculta - Mexico’s National Council for Culture and the Arts. Between 2008 and 2010 he was the Dublin regional editor of Succour magazine.
In September 2014 he produced and co-curated the transnational project and 10-day tour Yes But Are We Enemies, which was in receipt of a Touring Award from the Arts Council of Ireland, and which focused on poetry in collaboration and involved more than 40 contemporary poets from Ireland and England. In January 2016 he co-founded Phonica, a multidisciplinary performance series with an emphasis on 'word' and 'sound' which he co-directs, and which has been in receipt of financial and operational support from the Arts Council of Ireland, Dublin City Council, Poetry Ireland, Smock Alley Theatre, The Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media, and The Complex (Smithfield), as well as a range of international partners including Arts Council England and Miðstöð íslenskra bókmennta (Icelandic Literature Centre). In 2019 he co-curated the hybrid digital/physical exhibition 'Form Ever Follows Function' at Illuminations Gallery (Maynooth University). He also produced and programmed the closing event of the 2019 edition of European Poetry Festival at Riverbank Arts Centre, Newbridge, Co Kildare, and then again post-pandemic in the summer of 2022, and again in 2024.
He is the curator of Is this a poem? an exhibition and event programme surveying contemporary poetry conceived to operate beyond the page and/or verbal expression, running at Museum of Literature Ireland (MoLI) in Dublin between 23 February and 22 September 2024.
He has been commissioned by, given talks and workshops, facilitated courses or provided mentorship for, or worked in programming partnership with, a range of other bodies and institutions including Arts and Disability Ireland, Arvon Foundation, The British Council, Carlow County Council, Crescent Arts Centre Belfast, English PEN, The European Commission, Fingal Libraries, Imperial College London, Instituto Cervantes, International Literature Festival Dublin, Irish Writers Centre, Kildare Arts Office, Poetry Ireland, Poetry International (Rotterdam), Project Arts Centre (Dublin), Seamus Heaney Centre at Queen's University Belfast, University College Dublin, University of Manchester, University of Porto, Words Ireland, York St John University, and others.
Christodoulos Makris was born in Nicosia in 1971, and since 1991 he has lived and worked in Manchester, London and, from 2001, in Dublin.