Stone and Sea - Pafos2017 European Capital of Culture

On Monday 9 October I'll be reading at the opening of the poetry & photography exhibition Stone and Sea in Pafos Municipal Gallery.

Part of the Pafos2017 European Capital of Culture programme, Stone and Sea is "a poetic meeting and a photographic exhibition by Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot photographers, that have the stone and the sea as their points of reference; elements that are inextricably linked with the fate of Cypriot people and of crucial importance for the shaping of their temperament. The project combines a walk through rocks deeply rooted in the soil, statues and pebbles of the coastline, with the reflective gazing of the sea, which is anticipated as an uncorrupted cultural value, a place of eutopia open to diversity."

Readings by several invited poets with links to Cyprus will be accompanied by a trilingual presentation of the poems - in Greek, Turkish and English. I'm delighted that as part of this my poem 'Full Circle' from The Architecture of Chance has been translated into Greek by Despina Pyrketti and into Turkish by Aydin Mehmet Ali.

Start time is 7pm and admission is free. The exhibition runs until 23 October. My thanks to Nadia Stylianou and the Cultural Services of the Ministry of Education and Culture in Cyprus for their invitation and sponsorship.

Language and Migration symposium at NUI Galway & Fingal Libraries' Write Time festival

On Friday 29 September I will give a talk & performance at 'My Story: My Words' - a symposium on Language and Migration at NUI Galway.

Developed under the Irish Research Council's 'New Foundations' scheme in partnership with the Immigrant Council of Ireland, and organised by Anne O'Connor and Andrea Ciribuco of The School of Languages, Literatures and Cultures at NUI Galway, the symposium brings together scholars and practitioners in the fields of translation, new media, visual art, film, theatre and poetry, and will run for the full day in the Hardiman Research Building.

The title of my talk is 'Travelling Light: Shedding Poetry's National Baggage', and will consist of fragments from an essay I've been re-working which considers poetry from the position of the trans- or post-national mind, interspersed with my own poetry.

In the run up to the symposium I was interviewed by Andrea Ciribuco on my writing and its relation to themes that will be examined during the symposium. This interview is not intended to be published in full, but it will be used together with responses from other artists and writers within a research report to institutions.

Full symposium programme:

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A few days before that, on Saturday 23 September, I will give a workshop on Found Poetry in Malahide Library as part of Fingal Libraries' Write Time festival. Attendance is free, but spaces are limited and registration is essential. At the time of writing there are a couple of slots left. Contact Malahide Library (01-8704430 / malahidelibrary@fingal.ie) if interested.

Phonica: Six

Phonica: Six

Monday 17 July 2017
7.30pm 
Boys School, Smock Alley Theatre
Admission: €7.00 / €5.00

with
Lina Andonovska
Jessica Foley
IRIDE PROJECT
Claire Potter
Billy Ramsell
Nazgul Shukaeva



 


Phonica: Six will feature performances from a host of trailblazing and award-winning Irish and international writers, musicians and artists working in the realms of new and electroacoustic music, contemporary poetry, installation and audio-visual composition, improvisational writing, telecommunications research, ethno-jazz, and more.

Phonica is a primarily poetry and music series with an emphasis on multiformity and the experimental. Conceived, programmed and hosted since early 2016 by Christodoulos Makris and Olesya Zdorovetska, Phonica aims to explore compositional and performative ideas and to encourage a melting pot of audiences and artists from across artforms.

Featured Artists:

Quickly gaining recognition internationally as a fearless and versatile artist, flautist Lina Andonovska has collaborated and performed with Crash Ensemble (Ireland), Australian Chamber Orchestra, Shara Worden (My Brightest Diamond), s t a r g a z e, Southern Cross Soloists (Aus) and eighth blackbird (USA). Critically acclaimed for her interpretation of new music, Rolling Stone Magazine hailed her performance at Bang on a Can Summer Festival as “superbly played”. As an orchestral player, Lina has performed with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, was co-principal flute of the Southbank Sinfonia (UK) and has appeared with Australia’s major symphony orchestras. At the age of 21, Lina held a fellowship with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra where she recorded and performed all of Prokofiev’s orchestral works as guest Principal Piccolo under the baton of Vladimir Ashkenazy. As soloist she has performed concerti with the Southbank Sinfonia, Orchestra Victoria and the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra. She was awarded the prestigious Freedman Fellowship in 2013 and recently completed an Asialink residency where she used her skills as a classical musician to help initiate Timor-Leste’s first locally run classical music school. She has been three times artist-in- residence at the Banff Centre and Crash Ensemble’s musician-in- residence in 2015. Recent performance credits include the Tokyo Experimental Festival, Bang on a Can Festival, Edinburgh International Festival, Sacrum Profanum, Dublin Theatre Festival, BBC Proms, Metropolis New Music Festival, City of London Festival and GAIDA New Music Festival. Upcoming performances include the premiere of Donnacha Dennehy’s new opera The Second Violinist to be premiered at the Galway International Arts Festival.

Jessica Foley works as a writer, dramaturge and audio-visual artist. Her work is often generated collaboratively and performed through improvisation, choreography and audio-visual compositions and staging. Since 2010 she has worked in the academic context of telecommunications research at Trinity College Dublin. She is writer-in-residence with CONNECT, the Science Foundation Ireland centre for future networks and communications, where she co-devises approaches to research storytelling through improvisational writing, conversation and audio-casting. Jessica is currently working on an experimental non-fiction collection based upon field-notes generated during her Ph.D. research with the Centre for Telecommunications Value-Chain Research (CTVR).

The IRIDE PROJECT investigate nondeterministic electroacoustic music and soundemphasis poetry making use of conventional and unconventional instruments, piezoelectric transducers, field recordings, electronics, spoken word, and a Doepfer A100 modular analogue synthesizer. Massimo Daví is a pianist, composer, sound artist and holds a Master's Degree in Music. Monica Miuccio is a Poet and Performer. Her literary works were awarded and featured in prestigious publications. Their works were performed in Ireland, Italy, Portugal, Finland, Germany, Mexico, Macedonia, UK, Czech Republic and Spain and featured on RTÉ Lyric FM program Nova curated by Bernard Clarke. The Duo participated at international festivals and convocations such as Irish Sound, Science and Technology Convocations and “Prague Quadrennial Of Sound Design and Space” in Czech Republic.

Claire Potter, an artist writer from Merseyside, works with live, published and recorded text, installation and performance. Claire’s work addresses modes of speaking and reading to bring considerations of narratology, affect and methods of articulation to the attention of audiences. Claire organises Shady Dealings With Language, an interdisciplinary event series for art and performance writing in the UK. Recent works include CHAVSCUMBOSS, performance, Colour Out Of Space, UK, 2016; Touching, performance, Lydgalleriet, NOR, 2016; Lads of Aran, visual essay in Bodies that Remain (Punctum, 2017); Lads Rites, visual essay in Sites of Research (OAR Platform, 2017).

Billy Ramsell was born in Cork in 1977 and educated at the North Monastery and UCC. He has published two collections with Dedalus Press, Complicated Pleasures in 2007 and The Architect’s Dream of Winter in 2013, which was shortlisted for the Irish Times Poetry Now Award. He was awarded the Chair of Ireland Bursary for 2013 and the Poetry Ireland Residency Bursary for 2015. He has been invited to read his work at many festivals and literary events around the world. He lives in Cork where he co-runs an educational publishing company.

Nazgul Shukaeva was born in Kazakhstan, and is a vocalist and performer of contemporary classical, jazz and improvised music, combining the ancient technique of throat singing "kai" with modern elements, creating something previously inaudible and invisible. She studied piano and choral conducting in Alma-Ata music college and received a degree in vocal studies at Gnessin Music Academy in Moscow in the class of Professor Afanasiev. From 1985 to 1991 Nazgul participated in vocal competitions throughout the former USSR winning various awards. She has been studying the properties and characteristics of sound and voice for over 30 years and for the past 10 years the various quantum processes of sound healing. Since 2006 she has been based in Kyiv, Ukraine. Her own projects include ethno-jazz ensemble "Asia Tengri" focused on the new interpretation of traditional Kazakh music and “Lord’s Prayer” reimagining gospel sounds in the context of modern world. As a soloist of Kiev Chamber Orchestra she performed music by leading Ukrainian contemporary composers among which Svyatoslav Luniev and Victoria Poleva, giving the world premiere of mono-opera "Alice in Wonderland" in 2013. Other collaborative projects are Elena Leonova’s “That Crazed Girl” based on W.B.Yeats poetry, Andrew Arnautov’s «Triangular matrix» and Olesia Zdorovetska’s “ERA”.


BOOK TICKETS NOW

Phonica acknowledges generous funding support from The Arts Council of Ireland under its Festivals and Events Scheme.

January - April 2017: a recap

The year has started pretty full on, and this is far from a complaint. Taking advantage of a couple of hours of lull, I've put together this recap with some thoughts on a selection of my recent activities on various fronts (news on publications will follow on separate posts):

I'm proud and excited to be working with Ailbhe Darcy and SJ Fowler to bring their collaborative book of poetry Subcritical Tests, the first title in our emerging gorse editions, to print. Quite apt since the book has its roots in the collaborative poetry tour Yes But Are We Enemies from 2014 - the extension of Steven's Enemies Project into Ireland which I produced and co-curated, and for which Ailbhe was one of the core poets. Cover and internal artwork is by the ever-brilliant Niall McCormack; there's also a short trailer film made by Conor Friel inspired by the material in the book. Preorders and launch details soon.

Issue 10 of gorse will be a special collectors', commission-only issue which I’m editing in full, with the interlinked and ongoing commissioning, editorial & curatorial process underway. All contributions to gorse no. 10, which will be published in a form that slightly deviates from that of the 'regular' issues, respond to a specific subject... More to be revealed over the coming months (the issue is due out in September) but I wanted to note how excited I am to be working with some amazing writers and artists from across Europe and the Americas towards it. gorse no. 9 will precede that, of course, to be published in July, and I’m currently in the process of editing the poetry section out of open submissions and invited contributions.

Phonica: Five took place on Monday 24 April, "a triumph" according to an email I received a couple of days later. From the vantage point of co-curating and hosting the event, all performances in their full range and impact were greatly enjoyable. Making use of the facilities afforded to us by our new partner venue, the stunning Boys School space at Smock Alley Theatre, enables us to showcase the work of our guests in more complexity that we could before. The professionalism of the technical staff at the venue in responding to our guests' vision ensured that the cross-pollinating, multidisciplinary aspect which is at the core of Phonica came through. I'm convinced the material on offer both delighted and challenged our audience, even if, inevitably, to varying degrees for different people. And that's a strength of Phonica, I believe. Thanks to my co-programmer Olesya Zdorovetska for wonderfully orchestrating the technical requirements and for documenting the event. Thanks also to Bernard Clarke at Nova on Lyric FM and Therese Kelly from RTÉ Arena for requesting and broadcasting work from some of our guest artists in advance of the show. I look forward to Phonica: Six (Monday 17 July) already!

My long weekend in St Andrews as StAnza Festival's Digital Poet in Residence for 2017 was an early year highlight. Aside from catching up, briefly or at length, with some old friends in poetry and otherwise, and meeting some great new poets & people, I enjoyed presenting my work to an attentive audience that made the effort to come along early on a Saturday morning to listen to me speak about my approach to poetry. What was billed and began as a talk by me morphed, as was in fact my intention and hope, into a multi-pronged discussion with most people in the audience contributing something valuable to the conversation. Thanks to Andy Jackson for his introduction and management of the event. In my capacity as 'in residence' I remained active for the entirety of the weekend, and therefore found it an intense experience - a challenge I quite enjoyed meeting, especially as I watched each piece I produced over the five days of the festival departing my laptop and being installed, both physically and digitally, in various positions and locations in The Byre Theatre. Special thanks must go to the indefatigable Annie Rutherford for all her work in making all of this come together.

A couple of weeks prior to St Andrews I was in Nicosia, and very happy to read at the Neoterismoi Toumazou space in the old town as a guest of the Neo Toum collective in partnership with Moufflon Bookshop - an established hub of literature and art not only in the island but also the Middle East and beyond. Reading from recent work to a mixed art & literature audience, as well as an Irish contingent that included the Irish Ambassador to Cyprus, I was pleased to receive some enthusiastic responses to the work. One of these led to an impromptu improvised collaboration with sound artist Pan Mina, to be released eventually in some form... Maria Toumazou, Orestis Lazouras and Marina Xenofontos, collectively Neoterismoi Toumazou, have made a mark on a vibrant art scene in the island in a short space of time with their blend of fashion, art, design, poetry, publishing and performance, and it was great to learn while I was there that they would be special guests at the Cyprus Pavilion during this year's Venice Biennale.

A pleasure also to be involved in Poetry Now 2017 as part of the Mountains to Sea festival in Dun Laoghaire. Poetry Now curator Alice Lyons’ intention when she sought to involve gorse in the festival was to present a multidisciplinary event with an innovative/experimental edge as exemplified by the material we publish – and I thought that through the performances of Aodán McCardle and Suzanne Walsh, as well as the presentation of my own work from if we keep drawing cartoons, we went some way towards achieving that. The event ended with a reception launching gorse no. 8, with Dimitra Xidous reading from her excellent essay ‘We Cannot Be Trusted With Chairs’ that opens the issue.

Two more readings in April bring us (more or less) up to date. On Saturday 15th I was the 'literary' representative at the long-running, primarily music series Listen At, which currently takes place upstairs at Arthurs Pub on Thomas Street. It was an eclectic affair, and I was particularly struck by the collaboration between experimental composer and pianist Martin O'Leary & uillean piper Mick O'Brien, which though on the surface appeared slightly counterintuitive I thought worked brilliantly. I felt my reading divided the audience: some wondering what the hell I was reading and whether this was poetry, and some responsive to and expressing keen interest in my approach.

And on Sunday 30 April I read upstairs in another Dublin pub, this time Devitts on Camden Street, as part of an event called Cross-Atlantic Readings which was organised by Julie Morrissy in conjunction with the Canada 150 Conference at UCD. Three Dublin writers (Julie, Sue Rainsford, and myself) 'opened' for four writers from Canada presenting varying approaches to writing. An excellent evening of readings through which I was particularly interested to encounter the work of Gregory Betts.

Phonica: Five

Phonica returns with an exciting new partner venue and expanded international dimension! Full details below:


Phonica: Five

Monday 24 April 2017
7.30pm 
Boys School, Smock Alley Theatre
Admission: €6.00 / €4.00

with
Estevo Creus & Keith Payne
Kate Ellis
Laura Hyland
Anthony Kelly & David Stalling
Robert Herbert McClean
Ásta Fanney Sigurðardóttir


 

Phonica: Five features six exciting acts from Ireland, Spain and Iceland presenting a blend of songwriting and sound improvisation; poetry incorporating architecture and design; ‘musique concrète’; translation; poetry and audiovisual art; cello and electronics; and subversions of the expectations around spoken word performance.

Phonica is a primarily poetry and music series with an emphasis on multiformity and the experimental. Conceived, programmed and hosted since early 2016 by Christodoulos Makris and Olesya Zdorovetska, Phonica aims to explore compositional and performative ideas and to encourage a melting pot of audiences and artists from across artforms.

Estevo Creus was a founding member of the poetry publishing house Letras de Cal and of the theatre group Talía. His collections include: Poemas da cidade oculta (Edicións Xerais, 1996), Areados (Miguel González Garcés Prize, Deputación de A Coruña 1996), Teoría do Lugar (Eusebio Lorenzo Baleirón Prize, Edicións de O Castro, 1999), Decrúa (Fiz Vergara Vilariño Prize, Espiral Mayor, 2003), Facer merzbau non ou posible? (Non Ou Edicións, 2007). O libro dos cans (Franouren Ediciones, 2010), Balea2 (Edicións Positivas, 2011). Creus is a member of the group Non Ou Edicións and of the multidisciplinary company Traspediante. He is currently collaborating with the pianist Pablo Seoane in No Lugar do Lugar, an improv. poetry and music show. "He is indebted to the European avant-garde, in particular to Dadaist rebelliousness, radical dislocation, and deep distrust of language".

Keith Payne is the Ireland Chair of Poetry Bursary Award winner for 2015-2016. His debut collection Broken Hill (Lapwing Publications, 2015) was followed by Six Galician Poets (Arc Publications, 2016). He is founder and co-director of POEMARIA Festival of Poetry, Vigo and The La Malinche Readings. He lives in Vigo, Galicia with his partner the musician Su Garrido Pombo, where he translates both from Galego and Spanish.

Robert Herbert McClean is an experimental writer and audio-visual artist. His work has appeared in The White Review, gorse, The Irish Times, and Poetry Ireland Review. His debut book Pangs! (2015) is available from Test Centre, and his debut album, ∞ - aka Infinity (2016) was released by Blank Editions.

Ásta Fanney Sigurðardóttir is a multidisciplinary artist, poet and musician. Her work often involves the structure of invisible things and she is known for her unusual poetic bridge between artistic mediums.

Laura Hyland is an artist and composer from Wexford. She performs solo, and with her group Clang Sayne which she initiated in 2008 to combine her interests in songwriting and sound improvisation, and with whom she will release her 2nd album, The Round Soul of the World later this month. Her music has been described as "exhilarating in its refusal to conform" (The Wire magazine, UK), and "showing an uncategorisable approach to songcraft" (Tokafi magazine DE). Her current solo performance incorporates poetry, traditional and contemporary folk song, voice and guitar improvisation, spoken word and storytelling.

Anthony Kelly & David Stalling have been collaborating on a series of sound and visual works since 2003. Together they make sound and video installations. Their work encompasses a shared practice of recycling ‘objets trouveés’ of sound, visual and text material in their ongoing collaborative sessions. The juxtaposition of contrasting material results in a series of audio/ visual ‘musique concrète’ pieces. Kelly and Stalling also perform live improvisations, as a duo as well as with others, including Strange Attractor, The Quiet Club, Robert Curgenven and Jennifer Walshe. Some of their recent performances include listen | compose | perform, Henrietta Street, Dublin, In-stream, Ulster University, Belfast; Just Listening, LSAD Limerick; the i-and-e festival, Dublin; They founded the sound art label Farpoint Recordings in 2005, publishing projects by artists such as Quiet Music Ensemble, Karen Power, Stephen Vitiello, Fergus Kelly and Linda O’Keeffe, and many others alongside their own work.

Kate Ellis is a versatile musician dedicated to the performance of New and World Music. As Cellist and artistic director of Crash Ensemble, Ireland’s leading new music group, Kate has performed and broadcast throughout Ireland, Europe, Australia and the US. She is a member of Ergodos Musicians, Tarab and Yurodny, three ensembles exploring the interpretation of traditional and contemporary music, and has performed with Bobby McFerrin, Tom Jones, Martin Hayes, Iarla O Lionaird, Gavin Friday and Karan Casey amongst others. Kate released a CD of new works for Cello and Electronics on the Diatribe label in 2014. “Kate Ellis has an admirable reputation as an instinctive and technically brilliant musician” - The Irish Examiner.


TICKETS AVAILABLE HERE

Phonica acknowledges generous funding support from The Arts Council of Ireland under its Festivals and Events Scheme.

gorse reading at Mountains to Sea Book Festival

On Friday 24 March I'll be reading with Aodán McCardle and Suzanne Walsh as part of a gorse showcase reading at Mountains to Sea Book Festival in Dun Laoghaire.

The event is part of the Poetry Now strand of the festival programme, and it is billed as "a sampling of poets working at the boundaries of performance, visual art and poetry whose work has appeared in gorse, the Dublin-based journal that has quickly established itself as an exciting presence on the European literary scene". It takes place at dlr LexIcon, The Studio with a start time of 8.30pm. Tickets are €10 / €8 conc.

The reading will be followed by a reception marking the publication of gorse No. 8.

Thanks to Alice Lyons, Poetry Now curator at Mountains to Sea, for inviting gorse to be involved in this year's edition. PN2017 boasts an exciting lineup also including readings from Vona Groarke, Paula Meehan, Mairéad Byrne, Matthew Welton, Sarah Howe, Nick Laird, Michael Longley, Fanny Howe, Harry Clifton, Katie Donovan, Vahni Capildeo and Stephen Sexton.

Digital Poet in Residence at StAnza International Poetry Festival 2017

I'm excited to be participating in StAnza 2017 as Digital Poet in Residence.

StAnza is Scotland's International Poetry Festival taking place in St Andrews, Fife, each spring. Recognised as one of the leading poetry festivals in Europe, over the years it has featured a strong list of contemporary poets from around the world. This year sees the 20th annual edition, which will run from 1st to 5th March and will feature an international lineup of over 60 poets, artists and musicians taking part in around 100 events. The main theme of StAnza 2017 is On The Road, with the festival examining all kinds of travel and journeys.

For my residency at StAnza 2017 I have devised a project with title Browsing History for which I will use simple text and image editing tools to make poetry out of my personal Internet browsing, in real time. The resulting pieces will be erected as physical and subsequently as digital installations, and will cumulatively provide an oblique record of this year's festival and its setting in time and place, filtered through my online reading habits over the five days of the festival. Further to algorithmic influence, clickbait, and what I get regularly drawn to, I'm particularly keen to have my browsing contaminated by suggested reads; I am therefore inviting anyone interested to send me, over the period 1-5 March, links to news stories, articles or other current material they find interesting. Get in touch via Twitter (@c_makris #StAnza17).

Underpinning this performative residency are my work and interest in the concept of 'reading as writing' and our 'toggling' between physical and digital communication and personas. I will talk about the mechanics and ideas behind the residency and read from recent work during a 'meet the artist' event at the Byre Theatre on Saturday 4 March (11am start, free). In addition to this formal event, I will perform two half hour 'live sessions' over the weekend during which my computer will be connected to a large screen in the theatre foyer and therefore make my compositional process visible.

Follow StAnza's social media accounts and/or my twitter feed for updates.

My thanks to Eleanor Livingstone, Festival Director, and Annie Rutherford, Programme Co-ordinator, for their invitation to participate in StAnza 2017, and their cooperation towards delivering this project.

Here are two poems I made earlier this year using the process I will employ during the residency.

Reading at Neoterismoi Toumazou, Nicosia

On Thursday 16 February I'll be reading in Nicosia for only the second time, and for the first since 2012. I'm especially happy that the event is co-organised by two of my favourite organisations/spaces in the town: Moufflon Bookshop & Neoterismoi Toumazou Art Space.

"Neoterismoi Toumazou and Moufflon Bookshop are excited to host Christodoulos Makris for a reading in Cyprus. The poet will present mostly unpublished material from his current work-in-progress. The content of this work is based on anonymous or pseudonymous writing found on the 'bottom half' of the Internet."

Details here. Thanks to Ruth Keshishian and Maria Toumazou for making it happen.

Critical Bastards issue 13

My performance piece 'Work Sharing' appears in the all-audio issue 13 of Critical Bastards magazine.



Critical Bastards is a creative art criticism magazine that engages with contemporary visual art, publishes writing by artists, and is committed to creating conversations between all parts of the island of Ireland. Past contributors include Dennis McNulty, Rebecca O'Dwyer, Jan Carson, Sarah Pierce, Maria Fusco and Adrian Duncan among many others.

Commissioned by Critical Bastards co-editor Jennie Taylor, and performed and recorded in the morning of 5 October 2016, 'Work Sharing' is one of nine creative responses to the word 'Work' featured in issue 13. The other contributors are Sue Rainsford, Michelle Hall, Fiona Gannon, Renèe Helèna Browne, Jonathan Mayhew, RchlTrsRs: Re: Fwd: Re: Work, Rebecca Dunne & Eoghan McIntyre, and James Merrigan.

My thanks to editors Lily Cahill, Deborah Madden, Jennie Taylor and Suzanne Walsh. The issue was launched on Wednesday 23 November 2016 in Studio 6, Temple Bar Gallery + Studios, with performances from Sue Rainsford and myself.

'The Rising Generation' at Dublin Book Festival 2016

On Saturday 12 November I'll be reading along with Jane Clarke, Julie Morrissy and Ciaran O'Rourke in the Boys' School, Smock Alley Theatre, as part of Poetry Ireland's 'The Rising Generation' event at Dublin Book Festival 2016. DBF is this year celebrating its 10th anniversary.

"Since its release in April 2016, writers featured in the critically acclaimed ‘The Rising Generation’ issue of Poetry Ireland Review have been invited to read at international festivals and book fairs in Dublin, London and Edinburgh. Now four more of the 36 new-generation poets featured in the Review – Jane Clarke, Christodoulos Makris, Julie Morrissy and Ciaran O’Rourke – will read their work at Dublin Book Festival at a relaxed Saturday event with music from Sive."

Saturday 12 November
3.30pm - 5.00pm
Boys' School, Smock Alley Theatre
Free Entry - Booking Required


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Also as part of Dublin Book Festival, on Sunday 13 November Susan Tomaselli will represent gorse at the event 'Magazines and their Makers' (1.30pm, €7 / €5 concessions) in Smock Alley's Main Theatre. This will be followed by 'The Magazine Social' (3pm, free entry) in The Workman's Club, with readings from contributors to the participating journals.

Phonica: Four

The fourth edition of Phonica takes place on Wednesday 19 October, and we're excited to be joined by Martín Bakero, Susan Connolly, John Kearns, Neil Ó Lochlainn, Elizabeth Hilliard and David Lacey for a set of performances and presentations traversing the realms of sound poetry, electronic music, visual poetry, improvisation, and more.

about Phonica


Phonica: Four
Wednesday 19 October 2016
Jack Nealons, 165 Capel Street, Dublin 1
8pm start
admission free

Martín Bakero has presented performances, lectures, films, expositions, installations and radio programs in many locations throughout Europe and North, Central and South America. He has experimented with combinatorial, permutation, genetic, astrobiology, quantum mechanics, sound, vision and psychics arts. He studied electroacoustic composition at the conservatory of Paris and has taught in the Universities of Paris, México and Chile specialising in severe personality disorders and sound poetry. He created the pneumatic and electropneumatic poetry, he’s working now in “Acousemantic” poetry. Recently he made creative sound residences and performances in Avatar (Québec), National center for arts (México) and Proposta (Barcelona). He’s member of LaBoRaToiRe , Motor Nightingale, Buzos Tácticos, M’Other, Futures Primitives, Mutiques and pnEUmAtIkOs, where he works with other artistes, scientists, mystics in different rehearsals about the bounds between poetry, music, vision and reality. He created the festival Festina Lente and the Laboratory of electropneumatic poetry (Laboratoire d’electropoésie acousmantique) in Paris. All these fields that he explores allow him to give birth to transversal and unprecedented performances. In his shows, he drives a trance where the breath becomes alive. He uses especially poems moving, projected on his body, on his collaborators and screens. He also specializes his voice in multiphony, modified in live by acousmantic filters. He explores the boundaries between sound, sense, senses, nonsense, smell, vision, action, hallucination, gesture in poetry, always seeking the opening of the limits of poetry and news realities.

Susan Connolly lives in Drogheda, Co. Louth. Her first full-length collection For the Stranger was published by Dedalus Press in 1993. She was awarded the Patrick and Katherine Kavanagh Fellowship in Poetry in 2001. In the same year she received a Publications Grant from the Heritage Council of Ireland for A Salmon in the Pool, a literary and place-names map of the river Boyne from source to sea. Collaborations with writer and photographer Anne-Marie Moroney include Stone and Tree Sheltering Water (1998), Race to the Sea (1999), Ogham: Ancestors Remembered in Stone (2000) and Winterlight (2002). Her poems have been published in journals and magazines throughout Ireland and the U.K, are included in the Field Day Anthology Vol IV, Voices and Poetry of Ireland and Windharp: Poems of Ireland since 1916, and have been broadcast on The RTÉ Poetry Programme. Her second collection Forest Music was published by Shearsman Books in 2009. Shearsman also published her chapbook The Sun-Artist: a book of pattern poems in 2013, and her third book Bridge of the Ford, a collection of visual poetry, in June 2016.

John Kearns has published poetry in a variety of publications and his long poem 'begs dull' was selected for inclusion in the recent Irish edition of Viersomes (Veer Press, London). He is currently working on a volume loosely addressing hoarding. He has worked extensively as a translator from Polish and edited the journal Translation Ireland for 10 years. He also edited the collection Translator and Interpreter Training: Issues, Methods, Debates (London, Continuum: 2008). He holds a PhD from DCU and worked for several years in academia. He is particularly interested in issues relating to mental health and is currently training as a psychotherapist.

Neil Ó Lochlainn is a double bassist, traditional flute player and composer from Ireland. He has studied at the Cork School of Music, the Banff Centre, the S.I.M (school for improvisational music) workshop, New York and the Brhaddhvani Institute, Chennai. He is a founding member of Ensemble Ériu (TG4 Gradam Ceoil recipients 2015) and in 2015 he formed Cuar, a group which combines improvisation, chamber music and irish traditional music. From 2012-2015 he perfomed regularly with the late jazz guitar master Louis Stewart.

Elizabeth Hilliard is a soprano from Dublin. She sings a wide range of repertoire, bringing a dramatic quality and emotional intensity to her performances. She combines pinpoint accuracy and razorsharp musicianship with her passion and relish for performing music by living composers. Elizabeth is a co-director (with David Bremner) of Béal, a production company committed to exploring the relationship between sung and spoken word.  The pair have brought international figures such as Robert Ashley, Tom Johnson, Jennifer Walshe and Christopher Fox to Dublin. In October 2016, Divine Arts Record are releasing ‘Sea to the West’ Elizabeth’s debut disc, featuring works for soprano plus electronics by Mulvey, Bremner, Fox and Buckley. She also features on Mulvey’s CD Akanos released on the Navona Records Label.  From December 2015 to March 2016 she was musician in residence at dlrLexIcon supported by Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council. Current projects include: Don’t Walk - a 45-minute piece from video-artist Mihai Cucu and composer Gráinne Mulvey, for guitar, cello, soprano, electronics and video; Béal 2016: Inappropriate Moments - directing ensembÉal in performances of vocal ensemble music by Jennifer Walshe; Logical Fallacies - a 45 minute work for viola and soprano by David Bremner, performed with Andreea Banciu.

David Lacey is a musician from Dublin, working at the intersection between improvisation and composition. He uses percussion, objects, cassettes and crude electronics, as well as making studio constructions. He has been featured on releases from labels such as Another Timbre, Confront, Copy for your Records, Fort Evil Fruit & Room Temperature. Alongside composers Rob Casey and Conal Ryan, he co-curates the concert series ‘Reception’.

Art & Writing | #1: IMPRINT

Art & Writing, organised by Paper Visual Art and gorse journals, is a series of conversations between practitioners who work at the intersection of writing and the visual arts.

This autumn, three events will take place in Dublin, bringing together artists and writers to present and discuss their work, and exploring the overlaps.

I'll be taking part in the first event - details below. My thanks to Paper Visual Art for the invitation.


#1: IMPRINT

Thursday 29 September 2016
Studio 6, Temple Bar Gallery + Studios
Dublin 2
6.30 p.m.

Participants: Christodoulos Makris, Dennis McNulty, and Nick Thurston
Moderator: Jessica Foley

All welcome. No booking required.

Phonica: Three

For the third edition of Phonica we will be joined by Michelle Hall, Keith Lindsay, Aodán McCardle, Michael Naghten Shanks, Dylan Tighe and Suzanne Walsh for a blend of sound, word, image and performance rooted in multidisciplinary practice and innovation.

Phonica is a Dublin-based poetry and music venture with an emphasis on multiformity and the experimental. Curated and hosted by Christodoulos Makris and Olesya Zdorovetska, Phonica aims to provide an outlet for the exploration and presentation of new ideas, a space where practitioners from different artforms can converse, and an environment conducive to collaborative enterprise and improvisation.

Phonica: Three
8pm, Wednesday 15 June 2016
Jack Nealons, 165 Capel Street, Dublin 1
Admission Free

Michelle Hall is a visual artist who works with a variety of materials and processes and her work often takes the form of video with scripted voiceover. Throughout her practice she uses objects, images, details and textures as catalysts for narratives that fall somewhere between fact, fiction and myth. She recently graduated from the MA Art in the Contemporary World programme at NCAD with a first class honours and received the Artist’s Support Scheme Bursary from Fingal Arts Office in 2014 and 2015. She also collaborates with other practitioners and has shown collaborative projects at IMMA, Triskel and Pallas Projects. She has exhibited work in group shows at Block T, MART, Draíocht, The LAB and Catalyst Arts as well as other venues across Ireland, France and the UK. She presented her first solo exhibition ‘The Lament of the Jade Phoenix’ at Steambox Gallery in January of this year.

Keith Lindsay is a Dublin based sound artist who works with a wide range of media including music, sound, projection, film, sculpture, and electronics. His recent projects include a solo exhibition "Soundscapes" at the Pallas Project Studios and a new sound works for the Nag Gallery Dublin. He is a member of the experimental arts collective 'The Water Project' which he has performed with in Paris, London, Kiev, Cork & Dublin. His work as a sound designer has been featured in TV documentaries, feature films, short films and interactive media.

Aodán McCardle is a painter, a poet, gardener, tattooist, designer, maker, father, he has delivered babies warm in the dark and wrapped the dead in white hospital cotton. He is a co-editor at Veer Books. His PhD is on Action as Articulation of the Contemporary Poem though physicality and doubt are the site of meaning and the stance respectively where the action operates. His way into collaboration was as part of London Under Construction LUC. His current practice is improvised performance/writing/drawing as a finding out. He grew up in the mountains, moved to the city, lives by the sea.

Michael Naghten Shanks lives in Dublin and is editor of The Bohemyth. Recent publications include the special 'Rising Generation' issue of Poetry Ireland Review and The Best New British And Irish Poets 2016 anthology from Eyewear Publishing. In 2015 he was shortlisted for the Melita Hume Poetry Prize and selected for the Poetry Ireland Introductions Series. He has read his work at numerous events, most recently during the International Literature Festival Dublin. Year of the Ingénue (Eyewear Publishing, 2015) is his debut poetry pamphlet. He tweets @MichaelNShanks.

Dylan Tighe is a musician, actor and theatre-maker. His second album Wabi-Sabi Soul - a one-track gapless song-cycle was released in April. It was hailed by The Irish Times as "framing reflective music with remarkable eloquence". His radio drama for RTÉ Record, based around his debut album of the same name, was nominated for the Prix Europa Radio Prize.

Suzanne Walsh is an audio/visual artist and writer from Wexford based currently in Dublin. She uses performative lectures, fiction and voice to explore  various themes, sometimes around the relationships between animal/humans as well as querying the borders of the self. She also collaborates with film-makers, musicians and other artists frequently. She is part of the Hissen sound group performing in IMMA in June, and is taking part in an upcoming show in The Lab Gallery in November called 'A Different Republic'. She is an editor of Critical Bastards magazine and is published recently in gorse journal.

European Literature Night 2016 - Edinburgh & London

I look forward to taking part in European Literature Night for the second year running, expanded and rebranded as European Literature Festival, this time representing Ireland at events in Edinburgh and London over 13-14 May 2016.

I'm especially excited to be contributing to these showcases of the diversity of writing and compositional approaches that currently exists in the continent, and to highlight and celebrate the inclusive, cross-border and unhierarchical nature of these events.

My participation is possible thanks to generous funding support from Culture Ireland.

Edinburgh, Friday 13 May
The Edinburgh edition, curated by Colin Herd, Theodora Danek and SJ Fowler, and presented by The Enemies Project on behalf of UNESCO Edinburgh City of Literature, will comprise two events:

Part 1: 5pm – 6.30pm at North Edinburgh Arts Centre, 15a Pennywell Road, Edinburgh, EH4 4TZ: Performances from selected poets involved in European Literature Night.

Part 2: 8pm - 10.30pm at Summerhall, Summerhall Place, Edinburgh, EH9 1PL – Red Lecture Theatre: Performances from European and local to Edinburgh poets followed by a specially commissioned collective performance.

Both events are free, but booking (through the links above) is recommended.

Featuring:
Ásta Fanney Sigurðardóttir, Nurduran Duman, Billy Ramsell, Alessandro Burbank, Alexander Filyuta, Christodoulos Makris, Efe Duyan, Martin Bakero & Tomica Bajsic. With supporting readings by Edinburgh-based poets Heather O’Donnell, Dominic Hale, Colin Herd and Graeme Smith.

Be a part of #EuroPoem: #EuroPoem is a collaborative international poetry initiative which responds to a need to explore what Europe is, means, and can be ahead of the UK’s referendum on EU membership. European writers are invited to submit two lines of poetry to the collective poem; contributions are of equal value, with no one poet setting the agenda of the poem. Curated by Colin Herd and Theodora Danek, #EuroPoem is an exciting cross-European poetry event. Following its launch in Edinburgh at Summerhall, the poem will continue to emerge and evolve online through the Twitter hashtag #EuroPoem. No two versions of the poem need be the same, as it will constantly re-emerge as poets from across Europe continue to add to this collaborative work. We would like you to be part of this first iteration of #EuroPoem and become part of European Literature Festival. Please tweet your two lines of poetry to @edincityoflit using the hashtag #EuroPoem as part of European Literature Festival on 13th May, or email Colin Herd on europoem2016@gmail.com with your contribution.


London, Saturday 14 May
With my fellow participants in Edinburgh I will then travel to London for the following evening's first ever European Poetry Night. Curated by SJ Fowler, it will feature brand new collaborations across languages, styles and nations written specifically for the occasion - including my collaboration with France-based poet, musician and psychotherapist Martín Bakero.

Rich Mix Arts Centre, 35-47 Bethnal Green Road, London E1 6LA
7.00pm, Free Entry

Featuring:
Vanni Bianconi (Switzerland) & Billy Ramsell (Ireland)
Alessandro Burbank (Italy) & Alexander Filyuta (Russia / Germany)
Ásta Fanney Sigurðardóttir (Iceland) & SJ Fowler (UK)
Ulrike Ulrich (Switzerland) & Jen Calleja (UK / Malta)
Nurduran Duman (Turkey) & Jonathan Morley (UK)
Christodoulos Makris (Ireland / Cyprus) & Martin Bakero (France)
Tomica Bajsic (Croatia) & Colin Herd (Scotland)
Ghareeb Iskander (UK) & Ahsan Akbar (UK)
Ariadne Radi Cor (Italy) & Iris Colomb (France)
Ana Seferovic (Serbia) & Agnieszka Studzinka (Poland)
Rufo Quintavalle (UK / France) & Ian Monk (UK / France)
Niillas Holmberg (Sami) & Peter Sulej (Slovakia)
Efe Duyan (Turkey) & Livia Franchini (Italy)

Compass Lines #2

We're in Belfast for Compass Lines #2, where I'll be in conversation with Miriam Gamble and Nerys Williams, and where the poets will present their collaboration City of Two Suns, specially commissioned for the event and published that day by the Irish Writers Centre. In addition, earlier in the day they will deliver a joint writing workshop in the Ulster Museum to a group composed of participants in various existing writing classes in Belfast.

Compass Lines is a writers’ exchange project aiming to establish links between writers and communities in the North and South of Ireland, while additionally examining relationships between the East and West of these islands, through workshops, public discussions, and the commissioning of new collaborative writing.

Developed by poet, editor and curator Christodoulos Makris in collaboration with the Irish Writers Centre as producing organisation, and with the participation of the Crescent Arts Centre as partner venue.


Compass Lines #2
Miriam Gamble & Nerys Williams
Wednesday 11 May 2016, Crescent Arts Centre, Belfast
7.30pm, entry via Eventbrite €8/€6 or on the door €10/€8

Miriam Gamble is from Belfast, but now lives in Edinburgh. She is a graduate of both Oxford and Queens University Belfast and in 2007 she won an Eric Gregory Award for her pamphlet with Tall-lighthouse entitled This Man’s Town. Her first full-length collection, The Squirrels are Dead (2010) won a Somerset Maugham Award in 2011, and Pirate Music followed in 2014, both of which are published by Bloodaxe.

Originally from West Wales, Nerys Williams lectures in American Literature at University College, Dublin and is a Fulbright Alumnus of UC Berkeley. She has published poems and essays widely and is the author of A Guide to Contemporary Poetry (Edinburgh UP, 2011) and a study of contemporary American poetics, Reading Error (Peter Lang, 2007). Nerys’s first volume, Sound Archive (Seren, 2011), was shortlisted for the Felix Denis (Forward) prize and won the Rupert and Eithne Strong first volume prize in 2012. She is the current holder of the Poetry Ireland Ted McNulty Poetry Prize.

Phonica: Two

Phonica is a Dublin-based poetry and music venture with an emphasis on multiformity and the experimental. Conceived, curated and hosted by Christodoulos Makris and Olesya Zdorovetska, it aims to provide an outlet for the exploration and presentation of new ideas, a space where practitioners from different artforms can converse, and an environment conducive to collaborative enterprise and improvisation.

Media:
Phonica: One compilation video | Phonica feature in the current issue of Totally Dublin (April 2016)


For Phonica: Two, the curators will be joined by Fergus Kelly, James King, Paul Roe and Catherine Walsh to explore spaces between sound poetry, performance, new music, experimental poetics, invented instruments and collaboration.

Wednesday 13 April, 8pm
Jack Nealons, 165 Capel Street, Dublin 1
Admission Free

Fergus Kelly is a sound artist from Dublin working with field recording, soundscape composition, invented instruments and improvisation. He has shown nationally and internationally and received many Arts Council awards. In 2005 he established a CDR label and website, Room Temperature, as an outlet for his solo and collaborative work, producing the CDs Unmoor (2005), Material Evidence (2006), Bevel (2006) (with David Lacey), A Host Of Particulars (2007), Strange Weather (2007), Leaching The Pith (2008), Swarf (2009), Fugitive Pitch (2009), Long Range (2010), Unnatural Actuality (2014) and Quiet Forage (2015) (with David Lacey). Albums on other labels: A Congregation Of Vapours, (Farpoint Recordings 2012), Neural

James King grew up in Larne, Co. Antrim and has lived in Derry for twenty-five years. Since retiring from his post as Course Director for Community Drama at the University of Ulster in 2004, he has developed his career as performance artist and sound poet while maintaining his interest in creative activities with vulnerable groups in the community. His publications include Moving Pitches (yes Publications, 2008) and Furrowed Lives (self-published, 2012).

Paul Roe (Clarinets) creatively combines three of his most passionate interests-performance, teaching & presence-based coaching, in a richly rewarding artistic life. As a collaborative artist he particularly is engaged by the intellectual and conceptual discourse of interdisciplinary practice.

Catherine Walsh is from Dublin and currently lives in Limerick. She is the author of nine books, and her work is featured in a number of anthologies, including the Anthology of Twentieth-Century British & Irish Poetry (Oxford University Press, New York and Oxford, 2001) and Centrifugal: Contemporary Poetry of Guadalajara and Dublin (EBL-Cielo Abierto / Conaculta, Mexico City, 2014). She co-edits the ‘resting’ Journal and hardPressed Poetry with Billy Mills, and she was Holloway Lecturer on the Practice of Poetry at University of California, Berkeley for 2012/13.

Christodoulos Makris' latest book The Architecture of Chance (Wurm Press, 2015) was chosen as a poetry book of the year by RTÉ Arena and 3:AM Magazine. He is featured in Poetry Ireland Review's special issue 'The Rising Generation' (April 2016).

Olesya Zdorovetska is a Dublin-based performer and composer originally from Kyiv, Ukraine. Her solo projects include ‘Subconscious Songs from Ukraine’, exploring traditional music, ‘Before Speech’ songs without words in search of a musical proto-language, ‘Undefined Pleasure’, ‘Poesias Espanolas’, an investigation of Spanish poetry, ‘The Docks’ a sonic response to social and political life and ‘Sounds of Telling’, based on Ukrainian contemporary poetry. Throughout a wide range of other collaborations she frequently performs contemporary classical, jazz, salsa and improvised music. Her current artistic practice also includes scores and sound design for film, theatre and contemporary dance.

gorse showcase at Poems Upstairs

I'm pleased to be programming and introducing a gorse poetry showcase for the April edition of Poems Upstairs, featuring readings by Colin Herd, Robert Herbert McClean and Doireann Ní Ghríofa.

Produced in association with Poetry Ireland.

Wednesday 6 April 2016, 7.00pm
Books Upstairs, 17 D'Olier Street, Dublin 1
Tickets €6 (includes a glass of wine)



Colin Herd (gorse No. 1) is a poet and Lecturer in Creative Writing at The University of Glasgow. His books include too ok (BlazeVOX, 2011), Glovebox (Knives, Forks and Spoons, 2014) and Oberwildling – with SJ Fowler (Austrian Cultural Forum, 2015). Collaborative artist books with the artists Cat Outram (The Open Wound in My Living Room) and Susan Wilson (blots) have been shown at the Royal Scottish Academy and Edinburgh Printmakers. He is co-director of The Sutton Gallery and regularly hosts poetry events there.

Robert Herbert McClean (gorse No. 4) is an experimental writer and audio-visual artist. His work has appeared in The White Review, The Irish Times, and is forthcoming in Poetry Ireland Review. His artist statement can be viewed on his website, and his debut book Pangs! is available from Test Centre.

Doireann Ní Ghríofa (gorse No. 5) is a bilingual writer whose work has appeared in The Irish Times, The Stinging Fly, Poetry, and elsewhere. Among her awards are the Ireland Chair of Poetry bursary. Her most recent book is Clasp (Dedalus Press, 2015), shortlisted for the Irish Times Poetry Award. She writes "with tenderness and unflinching curiosity” (Poetry Magazine, Chicago).

Guest Speaker at York St John University

On Monday 14 March I'll be giving a talk at York St John University as part of the Faculty of Arts visiting speaker programme, for which "artists and curators come to YSJ to give one-off artist talks, lead focussed tutorial and critique sessions or work alongside a full-time academic member of staff to design and deliver a project or module." My thanks to Lucy O'Donnell for the invitation.

I'll be speaking on the interconnected strands of my practice - compositional, editorial & curatorial - with various visual aids and material as suggested further reading. With that in mind (and also looking ahead to a forthcoming event next month) here's James King & Ellen Factor performing at the Verbal Arts Centre in Derry in 2014 as part of Yes But Are We Enemies:

 

some mark made

some mark made is a new limited edition publication that considers hybrid, material and intellectually rigorous literary practices. Edited by Sue Rainsford, it features "experimental and speculative writing in the veins of poetry, prose and criticism from Claire Farley, Shauna Barbosa, Caroline Doolin, Michael Naghten Shanks, Michelle Hall, Jonelle Mannion, Christodoulos Makris, Julie Morrissy and Sue Rainsford."

Rainsford writes in her editorial: "Often, when literary activity foregrounds its visual or tactile elements, when it embraces process or takes place away from the immediate terrain of the page, it’s ascribed titles such as ‘hybrid’, ‘performative’ or ‘experimental’. These terms seem to soften boundary lines so that bodies of writing can be intuitive rather than narrative, sensory rather than descriptive. It is worth remembering, however, that literature is by nature expansive, tactile and interrogative."

My contribution to some mark made bears the title 'people power and dance culture...' and is taken from a new work in progress that investigates among other things decentralised modes of communication, the fluidity of identity in online environments, and spaces between web-based and physical writing. This from Rainsford's editorial:

"Christodoulos Makris’ poem also draws on the fecundity of linguistic forms. Alternating between anecdotal and lyrical, Makris offers us a rumination that is implicitly interrogative, employing words as dynamic units and agrammatical fragments. While the poem compels us to read it aloud, speech is conjured even by the most cursory glance at the page, and the reader apprehends the subject of the poem as well as the textural power of syntax. It calls to mind Derrida’s pneumatological writing, in that the poem sees words brought close again to voice and breath."

some mark made will be launched on Friday 4 March at The Winding Stair bookshop in Dublin, with readings from Shauna Barbosa, Julie Morrissy and myself. Start time is 6pm and admission is free.

Compass Lines #1

Compass Lines is a writers’ exchange project aiming to establish links between writers and communities in the North and South of Ireland, while additionally examining relationships between the East and West of these islands, through workshops, public discussions, and the commissioning of new collaborative writing.

Compass Lines aims to encourage artistic fusion and integrate a sometimes fragmented audience, geographically and otherwise, through the strategy of combining writers with various concerns and backgrounds. Eschewing their comfort zones and usual patterns of working presents a diversion and a challenge to the writers, and a way of instigating discussions about ideas of process and place that reside in contemporary writing and which are often ignored through traditional views of literature.

Developed by poet, editor and curator Christodoulos Makris in collaboration with the Irish Writers Centre as producing organisation, and with the participation of the Crescent Arts Centre as partner venue, Compass Lines will comprise a series of enterprises, alternately in Dublin and in Belfast, each with the participation of two writers – one with connections to the north of Ireland and one to the south.

Each enterprise consists of three strands:

1/ Community Connection: the writers visit an organisation or group in the hosting city to conduct workshops. By prior arrangement.

2/ Discussion: a moderated public event during which the writers will discuss their practice, focusing on process, craft, dissemination etc. The event will include readings and scope for Q & A sessions. Public, details below.

3/ New Writing: specially-commissioned collaborative writing to be published as an individual limited edition pamphlet. Available exclusively with entry to the public discussion.


Compass Lines #1
Karl Whitney & Philip Terry
Wednesday 2 March 2016, 7.30pm, Irish Writers Centre, Dublin
Tickets via Eventbrite: €8/6 | on the door: €10/8

Karl Whitney is a writer of non-fiction whose first book, Hidden City: Adventures and Explorations in Dublin was published by Penguin in 2014. In 2013 he received the John Heygate award for travel writing. He has a BA in English and History from University College Dublin, an MA in Modernism from University of East Anglia, and a PhD in History from University College Dublin. He is a Research Associate at the UCD Humanities Institute.

Philip Terry is currently Director of the Centre for Creative Writing at the University of Essex. Among his books are the lipogrammatic novel The Book of Bachelors, the edited story collection Ovid Metamorphosed, a translation of Raymond Queneau’s last book of poems Elementary Morality, and the poetry volumes Oulipoems, Oulipoems 2, Shakespeare’s Sonnets, and Advanced Immorality. His novel tapestry was shortlisted for the 2013 Goldsmith’s Prize. Dante’s Inferno, which relocates Dante’s action to current day Essex, was published in 2014, as well as a translation of Georges Perec’s I Remember.

• Days, by Philip Terry & Karl Whitney, a specially commissioned pamphlet published by the Irish Writers Centre, will be available exclusively with entry to the public discussion.

• On the evening of Tuesday 1 March, Karl Whitney will visit Malahide public library to lead a writing workshop with title 'Writing About Place', co-organised with Fingal Libraries (places limited - to book please contact Malahide library); and Philip Terry will deliver a workshop on 'Poetry and Oulipo' for students at the Irish Centre for Poetry Studies, Mater Dei Institute.