Thursday, February 11, 2010

Rupert and Eithne Strong Award shortlist

Two of the four poets on the shortlist for the Rupert and Eithne Strong Award for a first poetry collection at this year's Poetry Now festival in Dún Laoghaire are published by The Dedalus Press.

Tolstoy in Love is the first full-length collection of poems by Tyrone-born Ray Givans. Daring and risk-taking, the first section begins in the voice of Anna Akhmatova, with what John Wakeman (founder and co-editor of THE SHOp), calls “a triumphant, lyrical celebration of her son's release after years in Stalin's prisons”. Notions of voice, and influence, are further explored in poems that are both inner portraits of and meditations on a gallery of writers, including Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Solzhenitsyn, Emily Dickinson, John Berryman and Simone Weil… “The second section... is largely autobiographical—reminiscences of a Protestant boyhood in Northern Ireland, evocations of a divided Belfast… The poems here are humane, sometimes touching, sometimes ironic, sometimes playful. Here are two books for the price of one, both worth having.”

“These extraordinary poem-portraits—studious, emotionally commanding and engaging—are a true poetic achievement. Verity, felicity, scrupulous beauty—Tolstoy in Love is a work of great human value.”—Ian Sansom. BBC Writer in Residence, Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry

Best known as one of Ireland’s most popular cartoonists, Tom Mathews has for many years contributed poems to a number of small magazines and journals. The Owl and the Pussycat is his much anticipated debut collection and contains—as the title suggests—a variety of parodies, homages, versions and subversions, as well as poems which, with a light touch and steady gaze, look into the darker quarters of the human soul.

“Tom Mathews has been an institution in Dublin for 30 years" — The Irish Times

The other two shortlisted poets are Maggie O’Dwyer, for Laughter Heard from the Road (Templar Poetry) and Peadar Ó hUallaigh for Tír Tairngire (Coiscéim).

The shortlisted poets read, and the result will be announced, at Poetry Now 2010, Pavilion Theatre, Sunday 28th March at 12 noon.

Friday, February 05, 2010

Landing Places: Immigrant Poets in Ireland




March 06, 2010 sees the launch of Landing Places: Immigrant Poets in Ireland. The launch takes place in City Hall, Dublin, as part of the annual Dublin Book Festival.

Landing Places is a timely and ground-breaking poetry anthology, edited by Eva Bourke and Borbála Faragó, and features 66 poets (recent arrivals and first generation immigrants) who between them contribute to, enlarge and challenge the definition of what constitutes 'writing from Ireland'.

Featuring both poets who are already well-known and others publishing their first poems in English, the full list of contributors is as follows:

Chris Agee, Peter Oliver Arnds, Celeste Augé, Denise Blake, Megan Buckley, Sandra Bunting, Kristina Camilleri, Anamaria Crowe Serrano, Kinga Elwira Cybulska, Kathryn Daily, Carla De Tona, Annie Deppe, Theodore Deppe, Gabriel Ezutah, Lisa Frank, Matthew Geden, John Givens, Paul Gratten, Shane Guthrie, Mirela Nicoleta Hincianu, Joseph Horgan, Oritsegbemi Emmanuel Jakpa, Paul Jeffcutt, Enrique Juncosa, Matt Kirkham, Chuck Kruger, Anatoly Kurdyavitsky, Slavek Kwi, Paul Maddern, Nyaradzo Masunda , Jennifer Matthews, Clare McDonnell, Irma Mento, Susan Millar Dumars, Judith Mok, Panchali Mukherji, Mary Mullen, Pete Mullineaux, Tom Myp, Chris Nikkel, Daniel O’Donoghue, Kinga Olszewska, Julia Piera, Hajo Quade, Ursula Rani Sarma, Mark Roper, Judy Russell, Eckhardt Schmidt, Jo Slade, Tiziana Soverino, Raphael Josef Stachniss, Lisa Steppe, Richard Tillinghast, Eriko Tsugawa-Madden, Rose Tuelo Brock, Andreas Vogel, Maria Wallace, Cliff Wedgebury, Grace Wells, Sally Wheeler, Sabine Wichert, Landa Wo, Rachel Audrey Wyatt, Adam Wyeth, Alex Wylie and Ann Zell.

Following the Dublin Book Fair launch (City Hall, Sat 06 March 2010, at 4.30 pm -- all are invited to attend) Hugo Hamilton will chair a panel discussion with the editors and invite questions and discussion from the floor.

Further launch events will take place over the following weeks in Cork, Galway and Belfast, details of which will in due course be posted here and elsewhere.

Further information on Landing Places may be found on the Dedalus Press website here.