Christodoulos Makris

In Focus is "a quarterly magazine on literature, culture and the arts in Cyprus" and is published in Nicosia by The Cyprus PEN Centre and Armida Publications. Its current issue reproduces the feature on my work originally published in January for 3:AM Magazine 's 'Maintenant' series: an interview conducted by Steven Fowler, accompanied by five poems . In Focus features fiction, poetry, artwork, essays, reviews, interviews and non-fiction pieces. Some of the material is very good - an interview with a maker of theatre masks from a few issues ago springs to mind. But it is of a conservative bent, and with a tone that can appear overly formal, or sentimental. Editor Panos Ioannides has published work of mine before, and I'm grateful that he has sought our permission to bring the feature to the attention of the magazine's readers. But it's impossible to ignore that a lot of what it publishes is at odds with the gist of what I say in the very intervi...

It was amusing to read the comments that predictably flooded in from indignant folk, mainly out of or related to Ireland, following Carol Rumens' deconstruction of Michael D Higgins' poem 'When Will My Time Come?'. "Mean-spirited", "churlish", "nasty" and "mad woman" were some of the epithets used with reference to the article or its author, both in the chain of comments below the piece and on other forums. The first I knew of Rumens' piece on The Guardian website (which I often read) was from a parochial defence of Higgins in the following Saturday's Irish Times (which I often don't). For what it's worth, I feel there's an issue with Rumens' article in that its title (possibly not her own choice) and first paragraph question the very claim that Higgins is a poet, rather than what he writes or his approach. (Interestingly, on her own website Rumens begins her welcome note with "I hate attaching ...

Thomas Brezing 's exhibition The Art of Failure isn't hard to Master opens on Saturday 12 November 2011 at the Highlanes Gallery in Drogheda, Co Louth, and runs until 11 January 2012. Brezing's painting 'Skylloura', which provides the cover for my book Spitting Out the Mother Tongue , will be on show. There's a full programme of public events planned around the exhibition, two of which include my participation: On Saturday 26 November, at 3pm, I will be taking part in a panel discussion with title 'the influence of literature on art and art on literature'. Artist David Newton will be contributing chair, with the panel also including Thomas Brezing and artist Mary Kelly. (A full colour catalogue accompanying the exhibition, with essay by Cliodhna Shaffrey, will be launched at this event.) And on Saturday 10 December I will be present in the gallery from 11am until 2pm, in the Artist's Shack, for an intervention, where I intend to engage t...

On Wednesday 9 November I will be reading from Spitting Out the Mother Tongue in the public library in Balbriggan, Co Dublin. Start time is 7pm.

" Translation is not just important: I would go so far as to say that without translation we wouldn’t have literature, not as we know it. I think a good form of torture for any serious writer would be to deny them reading anything other then works produced in their own language or country. For eternity. Translation is the lifeblood that sustains the conversations crucial not only to literary creation, but cultural understanding and development. " - John Holten, interviewed by Karl Whitney for 3:AM Magazine . Holten's first novel is The Readymades (Broken Dimanche Press, 2011) , with artwork by Darko Dragičević .

Karl Parkinson and I are the featured poets in November's edition of the Seven Towers lunchtime reading series, which takes place on the first Wednesday of each month at the Twisted Pepper café (54 Middle Abbey St, Dublin 1). Wednesday 2 November 2011, 1.15pm, free admission.

London Student , 'Europe's largest independent student newspaper', has published a feature on Wurm im Apfel, where Kit Fryatt talks about Wurm's origins as a reading series and small independent press, about its publications and its plans - as well as the state of non-mainstream poetry in Ireland. "Yes, there is more to Irish poetry than Heaney and bogs and grandmothers' nails," the feature's author comments. It also includes a short write-up on Spitting Out the Mother Tongue , a sort of first mini-review, in which it is described as "a fantastic book of poetry, with poems about Danielle Steel and Mötley Crüe..." Kit then briefly discusses the collection.   London Student is published fortnightly and is available free on all college campuses of the University of London.

For this year's Writing 3.0 festival I will again be hosting an event with readings by guest poets followed by an open-mic session. The aim of the event is to showcase poetry written wide of the mainstream and to celebrate the work of new writers by inviting a participant in the previous year's open-mic session to feature. The featured poets this year are Catherine Walsh and Sarah Maria Griffin.   Catherine Walsh is the author of eight books, most recently Optic Verve: A Commentary (Shearsman, 2009), and her work has been included in a number of anthologies. She also co-runs the small press hardPressed Poetry . Sarah Maria Griffin 's first collection Follies was published by Lapwing earlier this year. In April she represented contemporary performance poetry from Ireland in New York City.   The venue is Gibney's Pub in Malahide, and the date is Thursday 20 October . We start at 7.30pm and attendance is free (no pre-booking required) with registration for ...

To mark the close of the poster project and to raise funds for future projects, UpStart - the group that put art and poetry on the streets of Dublin during the Irish General Election campaign of February 2011 - is throwing a poster giveaway party on Friday 14 October at Block T, Smithfield, Dublin 7. It'll feature bands, DJs, performances, speakers, screenings and a poster exhibition. And everyone attending will receive a wrapped poster - their own piece of UpStart history to keep. Somewhere among it all I'll be reading from new work. The entrance fee is 7 Euro (though it's free for contributors to the original project) and like all UpStart events it's BYOB. 7pm till midnight.

Wurm Press invites you to the launch of Spitting Out the Mother Tongue   poems by Christodoulos Makris The Loft Bookshop   54 Middle Abbey St   (upstairs in the Twisted Pepper)   Dublin 1   Tuesday 11th October 2011, 8pm   Guest Speaker: Harry Clifton, Ireland Professor of Poetry