Christodoulos Makris

My essay encompassing a discussion of the cross-stream: ways of writing project within a larger discussion of my curatorial activities and compositional interests appears in the latest issue of Trumpet , Poetry Ireland's quarterly pamphlet of poetry, reviews and essays. Future issues of Trumpet will include articles by poets who participated in cross-stream based on their presentations for the project. My thanks to Poetry Ireland's Paul Lenehan for his interest. Issue 4 of Trumpet also features reviews of new books by Dylan Brennan, Angela Carr and Victoria Kennefick among others, as well as poems by Kim Moore, Ailbhe Ní Ghearbhuigh and more. Trumpet  costs €2.00 per issue and is available individually from bookshops  or directly from Poetry Ireland through subscription .

Cave Writings in partnership with The Bohemyth and Belleville Park Pages  are hosting an event they call "possibly the most impressive celebration of contemporary writing in Ireland this year". Taking place at The Ink Factory in Dublin (15 Wellington Quay, D2) on Tuesday 9 June, 'Caves, Bears and Pages' will feature readings from 12 writers selected between the three hosts. I'm very happy to have been invited by The Pages to take part, and I look forward to reading alongside some exciting people like Ronan Murphy and Dimitra Xidous. This is a free event, with a start time of 8.30pm. BYOB.

Remaking it New: a discussion in association with gorse literary journal part of Listowel Writers' Week 2015 gorse identifies with the 'golden age' of literary Irish publishing, but the journal is not nostalgic for the past. Rather it is excited by what's happening in the here, the now and the future of writing. Inspiration comes from multifarious sources - the internet, Twitter, translation, the self - and this event, an inclusive and lively discussion interspersed with readings and with scope for audience participation, will showcase some of these ideas through writers associated with gorse and whose work blurs the lines between genres. Featuring essayist and novelist Rob Doyle ( Here Are the Young Men ), writer and illustrator Joanna Walsh (Dalkey Archive's Best European Fiction , #ReadWomen2014), poet and gorse poetry editor Christodoulos Makris (Yes But Are We Enemies, The Architecture of Chance ). Presented and moderated by gorse founder and ed...

I'm excited to be taking part in this year's (7th) edition of the Prague Microfestival , an international festival of innovative, intermedia and translocal poetry, taking place 18-20 May 2015: "PMF’s aim is twofold: to invigorate the Czech literary scene with up-to-date creative impulses from abroad (so far, those have been linguistically experimental poetry, intermedia writing, conceptual poetry, poetry performance and poetry collective) and to put Prague back on the map of global avant-garde capitals." Read more about the festival, including its history, here . I'll be taking part in two events, both on Tuesday 19 May: 1/ Being Translocal: Writing In-Between Spaces  (tranzitdisplay, entry free / vstupné zdarma, language / jazyk: ENG): The writers Louis Armand (Prague), Christodoulos Makris (Dublin), Philip Hammial (Sydney) and Donna Stonecipher (Berlin) discuss writing in-between the national literatures, i.e. writing as a translocal writer. Moderated by D...

In a post entitled 'Architectonics', writer and poet Máighréad Medbh considers  The Architecture of Chance from multiple perspectives, discussing it against writers as disparate as Italo Calvino, Anaïs Nin, Clive James, Steven Pinker, Deleuze & Guattari and others. The review includes several quotable extracts: " The Architecture of Chance is a cultural panorama;" or "... glows with a clear, intense, subtly reliable light;" or even "Whenever I hear or read Christodoulos Makris, I'm struck by the absence of the kind of emotional hooks that are so often demanded by an audience." But to appreciate the depth of its engagement with the book it needs to be read in its entirety. I'm grateful to Máighréad Medbh for her interest in my work, for her attention and close reading of the book .

In advance of my participation in Prague Microfestival 2015 later this month (details soon)  I was interviewed by Martin Šinal for The Literateur . The Literateur is "an online literary magazine featuring interviews with luminaries of the literary world, articles, reviews and exciting new creative works." Previous interview subjects include Eimear McBride & Lee Rourke, Rachel Kushner, Deborah Levy, Keston Sutherland and Zadie Smith among others. Martin's well-researched and probing questions allowed me to expand on many aspects of my practice, and elicited my thoughts on various subjects including conceptualism, intermedia and translocal writing, and the function of contemporary poetry.

I'll be reading at this event, part of the London edition of European Literature Night 2015 , taking place in the British Library on Wednesday 13 May. With thanks to all organising partners, especially Speaking Volumes Live Literature Productions and the Cyprus High Commission in London. European Literature Night 2015: In Spoken Word Hosted by Ava Vidal with Baloji, Xavier Baumaxa,  Christodoulos Makris,  Joelle Taylor  and  Kārlis Vērdiņš In the British Library, Entrance Hall On Wednesday 13 May 2015 from 19.00-20.30 Telling the stories of the continent through the universal rhythm of poetry, a host of Europe’s most vibrant poets and spoken word artists gather together for one night only to share their work. Wide-ranging in theme and style, criss-crossing the local and the global, the personal and the public, there is something for everyone to enjoy, as well as the underlying music of the words which connects us all. 13 May 2015, 19:00 - 20:...

Wurm Press is delighted to mark the publication of The Architecture of Chance by Christodoulos Makris with a launch party on Wednesday 8th April 2015 at The Black Sheep (downstairs function room) 61 Capel St, Dublin 1 from 6.30pm launch speech by Maurice Scully music from i am niamh poetry happenings discounted books nibbles ALL WELCOME

Issue 3 of gorse , edited by Susan Tomaselli [ my editorial contribution begins from No. 4, due out in September] and with cover art once again by Niall McCormack, is now out. Copies can be ordered directly , while the journal is also available through selected bookshops . The issue will be launched on Wednesday 15 April at The Workman's Club ( The Vintage Room ), 18 Wellington Quay, Dublin 2, with readings from Cal Doyle, Darragh McCausland, Paula McGrath and Michael Naghten Shanks. Below is the full list of contents - with links to selected previews: [Editorial] Whale in the Moon When It’s Clear [Interview] ‘At Home in the Unheimlich,’ Deborah Levy by Andrew Gallix [Essays] ‘Initiations: On Grisey’s Music’ by Liam Cagney ‘A Writer’s Guide to the Dialectical Landscapes of Dublin’ by Therese Cox ‘Four Bridges/Four Exercises in Re-Construction’ by Adrian Duncan ‘A Fine House, The Irish Their Bungalows’ by Oliver Farry ‘Stasis’ by Ian Maleney ‘The Cardina...

My new book  The Architecture of Chance is now out  from Wurm Press : Christodoulos Makris’ second full collection, blends painstaking poetic craft with the accidental hazards of found text and overheard sample. As challenging as it is accessible, these poems comment wittily yet unsparingly on the cultural, economic and political textures of twenty-first century life. "A forerunner, in Irish poetry and Irish poetry publishing." - Harry Clifton, The Irish Times "We can distinguish two types of cityscape: those which are formed deliberately, and others which develop unintentionally. The former derive from the artistic will that is realised in squares, vistas, arrangements of buildings, and effects of perspective which Baedeker generally illuminates with a star. The latter on the other hand come into being without having been planned in advance. They are not compositions like Pariser Platz or La Concorde which owe their existence to a single architectural ...