Public Displays of Affection: Poetry Ireland Introductions 2020

Public

Displays of Affection: Poetry Ireland Introductions 2020 is an anthology of

poetry from Poetry Ireland, the national poetry organisation. This anthology

features the very best of Ireland's emerging poets for 2020, as chosen by

Vona Groarke, award-winning poet, editor and essayist. Along with a pair of

superb poems, each poet provides an insightful prose piece on a favourite –

favourite poet, musician, literary character – or writes a 'pandemic

postcard' about the creative life in lockdown. Featuring Lani O'Hanlon, Eoin

Hegarty, Kate Quigley, Nancy Graham, Nidhi Zak / Aria Eipe, Lianne O'Hara,

Mícheál McCann, Charis McRoberts, Eva Griffin, Jake Hawkey, Mark Ward, Sinéad

Nolan, and Tory Campbell, along with superb photographs from Samantha Obman. Quality

poems and quality prose from Poetry Ireland: connecting poetry and people.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Poetry Ireland
• Release date: Oct 12, 2020
• ISBN: 9781902121833

Book preview

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Poetry Ireland Introductions aims to encourage excellence in the craft of poetry by raising the profile of talented, emerging poets. The series offers poets in the early stages of their careers, writing in Irish or English, the opportunity to showcase their work through workshops and performance. The poets selected for the Introductions series participate in a workshop focused on poetic form and craft, as well as a masterclass on the art of reading and performing poetry in public, and a presentation on marketing and self-promotion for poets.

These workshops culminate in a series of public readings in partnership with International Literature Festival Dublin.

www.poetryireland.ie/writers/introductions-series

This sampler of work from the poets who read for the Poetry Ireland Introductions series in 2020 is published by Poetry Ireland CLG / Éigse Éireann CTR, with the assistance of The Arts Council of Ireland / An Chomhairle Ealaíon and The Arts Council of Northern Ireland.

Introductions Readings Co-ordinator: Elizabeth Mohen

Publication Co-ordinators: Paul Lenehan and Eoin Rogers

Images courtesy of Samantha Obman (www.samanthaobman.com); with special thanks to Curator Rachel Botha.

ISBN: 978-1-902121-83-3

Contents

Introduction

‘Everything is blooming most recklessly’

– Rilke

It was not quite spring when the poems landed, nearly two thousand three hundred of them, a bumper crop. Still the usual winter, all cold-eyed nonchalance, it had yet to set about the business of colouring in a summer with its dizzy plans.

Little did we know.

That the poems were written and read pre-Covid shouldn’t make a difference, and yet I doubt any of us look back on what we wrote before without a certain tenderness (as we might on the best of our childhoods), before we knew what we’ve had to learn about getting on without each other, and getting on with ourselves.

The idea of Poetry Ireland Introductions is to provide a nurturing space, a community, for a small group of committed, early-stage poets. That’s a space, I’ll wager, that this year might just matter more than ever it did before.

The volume of submissions this year is testament to the enduring success of the Introductions Series. Poems arrived from every corner of the land, on every conceivable topic, by poets of every age and background, some of whom were showing their work to a stranger for the first time.

I very much regret that of the two hundred and twenty-seven applicants this year, two hundred and fourteen poets had to be disappointed. I wish it were otherwise because I found in so many of the submissions the kind of pulse and energy one longs for in a poem. To any