Christodoulos Makris

In March 2023 I accepted an invitation to edit the 45th edition (No. 19 in the new series) of The Stony Thursday Book , an annual anthology of contemporary poetry published by Limerick Arts Office and one of Ireland's longest running literary journals. A call for submissions  went out in April - and I'm now happy to report that the issue in question was published in November 2023. Its publication was marked by an event on 21 November at Belltable in Limerick City Centre, where the book was launched by the Mayor of the City and County of Limerick, followed by readings from poets featured in the issue. The Stony Thursday Book was founded in 1975 by poets John Liddy and Jim Burke. The new series is administered by Limerick Arts Office and benefits from the practice of a rotating editorship. Previous issues were edited by Annemarie Ní Churreáin, Martin Dyar, Nessa O'Mahony and Peter Sirr among others, with the compilation of the book relying exclusively on open submissions. I...

I'm very happy that two poems from my book Contemporaneous Brand Strategy Document appear in the Winter 2023 issue of Poetry Wales . And I'm particularly pleased that an abridged version of a new essay of mine with title 'Just Your Imagination: The Case of the Absent Elusive Irish Avant-Garde' is also published in the issue. Founded in 1965 and currently edited by Zoë Brigley , Poetry Wales  is the national poetry magazine of Wales. It publishes contemporary poetry, features and reviews in its triannual print and digital magazine, and maintains an interest in translation and in local and national identities in a global context. Poetry Wales is open to tradition and experiment, publishing poetry from a wide range of approaches. My poems 'the stooges' and 'ruthlessly', taken from Contemporaneous Brand Strategy Document (Veer, 2023) , are among new poetry by over 40 poets from across the world printed in the issue. And among its features  Poetry Wales ...

Join me on Saturday 9 December at Temple Bar Gallery + Studios in Dublin for a participatory choral reading of poems from my book Contemporaneous Brand Strategy Document . The reading will be followed by an informal discussion with event host Wendy Erskine on polyphony in my work, the fragmentation of the lyric in contemporary poetry, and its implication on the dynamic between poet and audience. This event is part of the programme for Dublin Art Book Fair 2023 (7-17 December). The theme this year is 'Polyphonic' , with the associated programme of talks, readings, workshops, and participatory events curated by Wendy Erskine . Dublin Art Book Fair is Ireland’s leading art book fair and centre for artist books, and this year marks its 13th edition. Taking place in Temple Bar Gallery + Studios , it champions small, creative and independent publishers, and both Irish and international artist books. Within this mix, over 500 newly published and unusual publications on art, design, v...

The Old Physics Theatre at Museum of Literature Ireland (MoLI) was nicely full for the launch of my fifth book of poetry  It Reeks of Radio  (BLR Editions)  on 26 September 2023, where I was in public conversation with this year's UCD / Arts Council of Ireland Writer in Residence, Victoria Kennefick. It was lovely to see many old and new friends and colleagues attend what was a lunchtime event on a weekday. Victoria's astute reading of the book, her skillful hosting of the conversation and her probing questions facilitated a dive into several of the strands explored in the book. I was happy to read excerpts and respond to questions from the audience. photo: Nessa O'Mahony The following day, a 14-panel exhibition that visually contextualises the book and overall project was installed on the walls of Newman Building (Arts Building) at University College Dublin. The exhibition was proposed and managed by Emer Beesley, Marketing And Communications Manager at UCD College ...

I'm grateful for the attention that my fourth book Contemporaneous Brand Strategy Document , published earlier this year, continues to receive, manifested through print and online reviews as well as new invitations to present the work in various settings. This is a roundup of some reviews that have appeared between its first by Jessica Traynor in The Irish Times  on 24 June, and the end of October 2023. On 3 July 2023, Enzo Minarelli, an Italian poet active in international avant-garde circles since the 1970s and preoccupied with performance and the audiovisual dimensions of poetry, published a review of the book in his personal blog , in Italian. With the help of Minarelli's own translation into English and that of Italian-speaking friends, I was able to deduce that this is an overwhelmingly positive review engaging deeply with the material, its processes and antecedents. "... here the poet undoubtedly has in mind the scene, the sequence or the action or the thought to b...

I'm excited to announce that my fifth full-length book of poetry It Reeks of Radio , a hybrid poem incorporating documentary text and visuals composed through my commissioned engagement with RTÉ Radio archives held at University College Dublin (UCD), will be published on 26 September 2023. Especially exciting is the fact that It Reeks of Radio is the inaugural title from BLR Editions, a new imprint connected to the annual journal Belfield Literary Review  - a joint UCD / Museum of Literature Ireland (MoLI) publication venture. And I'm very pleased that the book will be launched during WORDFFEVER , a UCD one day creative writing conference taking place at MoLI on 26 September, as part of which I will be in conversation about the book with this year's UCD / Arts Council of Ireland Writer in Residence, Victoria Kennefick . Further details below: About the Book: It Reeks of Radio is a book-length poem composed entirely from fragments of communication around historical (pre-19...

Such a pleasure to take part in the first live event organised by Mirror Lamp Press last Friday evening at The Complex Arts Centre in north inner city Dublin, where I performed a set constructed around my poem 'Bandsalat (Verse Chorus Verse)' - a poem specially commissioned for the journal's inaugural issue in April 2021. Mirror Lamp Press is an online journal exploring the intersection of art and literature. Edited by Gwen Burlington and Eoghan McIntyre, it has already amassed an impressive list of contributors across artforms. As well as celebrating publication of its eighth issue which went live earlier that day, the event sought to showcase writing from previous issues and presented screenings of four commissioned audiovisual essays. My poem 'Bandsalat (Verse Chorus Verse)' was composed in response to the editors' brief of writing on an object of my choice that brought some kind of relief or happiness during a time of prolonged home confinement and force...

Last Saturday's edition of The Irish Times (24 June 2023) carries Jessica Traynor's review of my recent book Contemporaneous Brand Strategy Document . The review begins with Traynor stating that "the fourth full-length collection by [...] one of Ireland's foremost avant-garde poets, submerges the reader in the arch - and sometimes frighteningly sentient - language of the internet." Its subject, she continues, is "the self as seen through many online filters" with the poems within it "concerned with the commodification of language, and how it can serve as a cunning apparatus to conceal our baser intentions." While excerpting from the poems 'cubist debrief', 'everybody knows but you', and 'Paul Scholes' foot' to elaborate on her reading of the work, Traynor remains attuned to the whole book as the prevailing unit of composition. "These are tightly sprung poems capable of startling juxtapositions," she writes...

I was pleased to accept an invitation from Limerick City and County Council Arts Office to edit this year's 45th issue of Stony Thursday Book . The Stony Thursday Poetry Book is one of Ireland's longest running literary journals, with its policy of a rotating editorship ensuring freshness and diversity in editorial focus, approach and content across the years. For this year's edition, expected to be published in the autumn of 2023, I will consider submissions of poetry running to between 3 and 6 pages, and particularly welcome work in experimental, unconventional or pioneering forms. Limerick Arts Office issued an open call for submissions and announced my editorship  on this year's Poetry Day Ireland. The full details of the submission call can be found at this link , and are also reproduced below. Guidelines are also available at the portal where submissions can be made . Deadline is  5pm, Wednesday 31 May 2023 . I look forward to reading your work. --- The Stony Thur...

My poem 'insert name here' was published in the online edition of  Granta  magazine last week. "like us or not don’t be afraid toss us a follow it counts":  Read 'insert name here' . Granta  is  a quarterly magazine of new writing. It was founded in 1889 by students at Cambridge University as  The Granta , and in 1979, Bill Buford and Pete de Bolla transformed it from a student publication to the literary quarterly it remains today. Granta Books came ten years later, and now publishes around thirty new titles a year.  Granta  is most celebrated for its ‘Best of Young’ issues, which introduce the most important voices of each generation - in Britain, America, Brazil and Spain - defining the contours of the literary landscape. It has published twenty-seven Nobel Prize laureates. My thanks to Granta poetry editor  Rachael Allen , online editor  Josie Mitchell , and editorial assistant  Brodie Crellin . 'insert name here' is...