Diachronic Bonhomie: a Cúirt International Festival of Literature poetry commission
I was very happy to accept an exciting invitation by Cúirt International Festival of Literature director Manuela Moser to produce a brand new poem + poetry intervention in response to the festival's archives, to mark 40 years of Cúirt.
My contribution, titled 'Diachronic Bonhomie', will be installed across the sites of the festival around Galway city over the duration of its 40th edition (8-13 April 2025) in a combination of print, visual and audio forms. And I will be speaking about the commission and related aspects of my practice in a festival event at The Mick Lally Theatre on Friday 11 April.
Cúirt is a world class literature festival - one of Europe's oldest, and widely regarded as one of Ireland's finest. Among the writers programmed to participate this year are Sally Rooney, Paul Muldoon, Kayo Chingonyi, Roddy Doyle, Kevin Barry, Eimear McBride, Anne Enright, and Stuart Murdoch of Belle and Sebastian. Check out the full 2025 programme here.
About 'Diachronic Bonhomie'
'Diachronic Bonhomie' is a poem in seven sections I composed by employing verbatim samples from the archives variously: comprising full segments, fragmented and embedded in other texts, or as starting points for new writing. My intention in making the poem and conceiving the form of its presentation was to capture and interweave a range of aspects associated with the the festival across its 40 years in a way that sits slightly to the side or beyond the facts present in the archives, while also commenting on the nature of the archives themselves.
'Diachronic Bonhomie' is a public intervention within the spaces of the festival's 40th edition. It comprises seven posters presenting one section of the poem each, scattered across seven sites/venues around Galway city where festival events are taking place this year, with copies in broadsheet form available to take away. Postcards outlining the locations where each of the seven sections can be found so that the full poem may be pieced together will also be available at the installation sites.
The poem is further fragmented by existing partly as typed text (with visual backgrounds composed of selected historical or contemporary maps of the region), and partly as audio files, accessed through QR Codes, in which I speak a segment from each section. The spoken segments are omitted from the printed text and are replaced by the QR Codes. For an illustration see an advanced working draft of section 1: [media] below. The spoken segments were recorded at various public sites around Galway city on 25 March 2025.
I will be discussing the compositional and conceptual process behind the poem, the form in which it is presented, and the nature of the installation as a poetry-and-archives project within my overall practice with poet Padraig Regan at 4.30pm on Friday 11 April 2025 at The Mick Lally Theatre in the heart of Galway. Read more below for details and booking.
A special 40th anniversary poetry intervention spanning time, place, mood and media.
Responding to 40 years of Cúirt through the Festival’s archival repositories, Christodoulos Makris has produced an original poem in seven sections, installed across the sites of the festival. Visit all seven of the festival venues to piece together the text of the full poem, presented as visual broadsheets and audio contributions.
Join Christodoulos in conversation with Padraig Regan where he will discuss the process and thinking behind his poem, and more broadly the practice of making poetry through historical and contemporary archives, often employing text and other documentary elements directly and working beyond the page across physical and digital media.
Friday, 11 April 2025, 4:30pm
The Mick Lally Theatre / €12.00 | €10.00
Many thanks to Manuela for trusting me with this commission, and for the openness, generosity and courtesy with which she and her team have accommodated me and my work.
Thanks are also due to the following:
Fernanda Ortega: Research + Technical Support
Rita McMahon: Administrative Support
Barry Houlihan: Historical Map Research
Heather Hinchon-Quinn: Audio Recording + Editing
Stephen Connolly: Poster, Broadsheet + Postcard Design
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