Cuisle 2009 Brochure - Cuisle Poetry Festival

For further information on any
of the events contact:
The Arts Service,
Limerick City Council
Tel: 061 407421 or
www.limerickcity.ie
To book tickets:
Belltable 061 319866
Admission: €3 Lunchtime Reading €5 Evening Reading
Limerick City International
POETRY FESTIVAL
14-17 Oct 2009

Mayors Address 1
Festival Guide 2
CUISLE Poets- biographies and reading times 4
Vivienne McKechnie 6
Paul Muldoon 7
John O’Donoghue 8
Lidija Dimkovska 9
Maurice Riordan 10
Paul Sweeney 11
Ulick O’Connor 12
Taja Kramberger 13
Catherine Smith 14
Clairr O’Connor 15
Robert Hass 16
Donald Hall 17
Penelope Shuttle 18
Aonghas MacNeacail 19
Patrick Moran 20
Fleur Adcock 21
CUISLE Events 22
CUISLE Education Programme 24
Young Poet of the Year Competition 25
Programme for Schools 26
Programme for Schools : Poets 28
CUISLE Events 30
Discussion 31
The Stony Thursday Book Launch 32
Life Monitor - Ciaran O’Driscoll : Booklaunch 33
White House Events 34
Fringe Event : Speakeasy Jazz 34
Map of locations in Limerick 35
Grant Aided/Sponsors/Committee 36
Cuisle Limerick City International Poetry Festival was inaugurated by Limerick poet Noel
Bourke, in 1990. In 1992 Limerick poets Mark Whelan and Paul Sweeny took up the baton
and inaugurated Cuisle Limerick City International Poetry Festival as a bi-annual Festival
with the support of The Arts Office in Limerick City Council. The festival grew slowly but
steadily. In 2000 it was decided to make Cuisle Limerick City International Poetry
Festival a yearly event.
2009 sees Cuisle Limerick City International Poetry Festival celebrating its fourteenth
season with a line up which can only be described as its most prestigious to date.
In keeping with its goal to establish Limerick City as a centre of excellence for poetry
locally, nationally, and internationally, this year Cuisle hosts some of the most important
and influential figures from the world of contemporary poetry, including two former
American Poet Laureates, Donald Hall and Robert Hass; Pulitzer Prize Winners Paul
Muldoon (Ireland) and Robert Hass (America), and New Zealand and U.K. and OBE
recipient Fleur Adcock, to name but a few of the prominent award-winning poets
attending this year’s festival.
This year the Cuisle Programme for schools includes readings, workshops and masterclasses
for second level schools. Booking is essential for these events and can be made
through the Belltable Arts Centre on 061 310633.
Limerick’s long association with poetry makes this festival the perfect place to enjoy
convivial discussion, lunchtime readings, book launches, readings and workshops with the
leading contemporary poets of our time. We hope you enjoy your time at this important
Poetry Festival in Limerick.
Cllr Kevin Kiely
Mayor of Limerick
1

Wed 14th
Thurs 15th
Friday 16th
Saturday 17th
Lunchtime reading
Official opening
Evening reading
Lunchtime reading
Discussion
Book launch
Evening reading
Open Mic
Speakeasy Jazz
Lunchtime reading
Book launch & reading
Evening reading
Open Mic
Awards Ceremony
Evening reading
Poetry Grand Slam
1.15pm
7pm
8pm
9.30pm
1.15pm
2.30pm
7pm
8pm
9.30pm
11.30pm
1.15pm
7pm
8pm
9.30pm
12 noon
8pm
9.30pm
To book, or for further information on all our events during the
Cuisle Poetry Festival, contact 061-319866 or call into
Belltable Arts Centre or Limerick Tourist Office for a Festival brochure.
Vivienne McKechnie
Official Opening by Paul Muldoon &
Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill
Paul Muldoon, John O’Donoghue,
Lidija Dimkovska
Maurice Riordan
Paul Sweeney
The Crisis in Publishing
The Stony Thursday Book Launch
Ulick O’Connor, Taja Kramberger,
Catherine Smith
Open Mic
Music and poetry, including poets Mark
Whelan, Ciaran O’Driscoll and Peader Clancy
Clairr O’Connor
Ciaran O’Driscoll
Robert Hass, Donald Hall, Penelope Shuttle
Open Mic
Cuisle Young Poet of the Year Award Ceremony
Aonghas MacNeacail, Patrick Moran,
Fleur Adcock
Poetry Grand Slam
Limerick City Gallery of Art
Daghdha Space
Daghdha Space
White House Pub
Limerick City Gallery of Art
Limerick City Gallery of Art
Daghdha Space
Daghdha Space
White House Pub
Shannon Rowing Club
Sarsfield Bridge
Limerick City Gallery of Art
Daghdha Space
Daghdha Space
White House Pub
Daghdha Space
Daghdha Space
White House Pub
2 festival guide
Lunchtime reading
Official opening
Evening reading
Book launch
Open Mic
Symposium
Awards
Ceremony
Speakeasy Jazz
3

Fleur Adcock : Tim Cunningham : John Davies : Lidija Dimkovska : Gabriel Fitzmaurice
Donald Hall : Robert Hass : Taja Kramberger : Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill
Aonghas MacNeacail : Vivienne McKechnie : Patrick Moran : Paul Muldoon
Clairr O’Connor : Ulick O’Connor : Ciaran O’Driscoll : John O’Donoghue : Iztok Ozojnik
Maurice Riordan : Penelope Shuttle : Catherine Smith : Paul Sweeney : Mark Whelan
4
poets
biographies and reading times
5

6
Limerick City International
POETRY FESTIVAL
Vivienne McKechnie
Vivienne McKechnie was born in Dublin and now lives in
Limerick. She is a graduate of Trinity College and is a
teacher of English . She taught in Dublin, Kenya where
she lived for four and a half years - and Limerick.
She has taught courses on The Modern Novel, The Short
Story and on Jennifer Johnston in the University of
Limerick. She also gave a series of lectures on W. B. Yeats
to the Mid Western English Teachers’ Association.
She is a published poet, her work appearing in Stony
Thursday, Revival and the Limerick Leader. She has read
her work on Lyric FM and in The White House. Vivienne is
currently working on a collection of poetry.
Wed 14th Oct
1.15pm
Limerick City Gallery of Art
Wed 14th Oct
8pm
Daghdha Space
Paul Muldoon
Paul Muldoon was born in 1951 in County Armagh, Northern
Ireland, and educated in Armagh and at the Queen's University
of Belfast. From 1973 to 1986 he worked in Belfast as a radio
and television producer for the BBC. Since 1987, he has lived in
the United States, where he is now Howard G. B. Clark '21
Professor at Princeton University and Chair of the Peter B. Lewis
Center for the Arts. In 2007 he was appointed Poetry Editor of
The New Yorker. Between 1999 and 2004 he was Professor of
Poetry at the University of Oxford, where he is an honorary
Fellow of Hertford College.
Paul Muldoon's main collections of poetry are New Weather
(1973), Mules (1977), Why Brownlee Left (1980), Quoof
(1983), Meeting The British (1987), Madoc: A Mystery (1990),
The Annals of Chile (1994), Kerry Slides (1996), Hay (1998),
Poems 1968-1998 (2001) and Moy Sand and Gravel (2002), for
which he won the 2003 Pulitzer Prize. His tenth collection,
Horse Latitudes, appeared in the fall of 2006.
A Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, the American
Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Academy of
Arts and Letters, Paul Muldoon was given an American
Academy of Arts and Letters award in Literature for 1996. Other
recent awards are the 1994 T. S. Eliot Prize, the 1997 Irish
Times Poetry Prize, The Pulitzer Prize 2003, the 2003 Griffin
International Prize for Excellence in Poetry, the 2004 American
Ireland Fund Literary Award, the 2004 Shakespeare Prize, the
2005 Aspen Prize for Poetry, and the 2006 European Prize for
Poetry. He has been described by The Times Literary
Supplement as "the most significant English-language poet
born since the second World War."
WEDNESDAY
7

8
Wed 14th Oct
8pm
Daghdha Space
John O’Donoghue
John O’Donoghue is the author of two
pamphlets, Letter To Lord Rochester (Waterloo
Press 2004) and The Beach Generation
(Pighog Press 2007). Brunch Poems is
published by Waterloo Press in 2008. His
memoir, Sectioned, was published by John
Murray in Spring 2009.
He is an English born poet of irish parents,
living in Brighton.
Wed 14th Oct
8pm
Daghdha Space
Lidija Dimkovska
was born in 1971 in Skopje, Macedonia. She is a poet, essayist,
and translator. She took a Ph.D. degree in Romanian Literature at
the University of Bucharest, and for several years she worked there
as lecturer in Macedonian Language and Literature. Now she lives
in Ljubljana, Slovenia, as a free-lance writer and translator of
Romanian and Slovenian Literature into Macedonian.
Books of poetry: The Offspring of the East (1992, together with
Boris Cavkoski), The Fire of Letters (1994), Bitten Nails (1998),
20.young.m@c.poets.00 (an anthology of young Macedonian
poetry, 2000), Nobel vs. Nobel (2001, available also online, second
issue 2002), Meta-Hanging on Meta-Linden (in Romanian; Vinea,
Bucharest, 2001); Nobel vs. Nobel (Slovenian version by Aleph,
Ljubljana, 2004), Do Not Awaken Them with Hammers (English
translation by Ugly Duckling Press, New York, 2006), Ideal Weight
(selected poetry in Macedonian, 2008) and pH Neutral for Life and
Death, 2009.
She published her first novel Hidden Camera in 2004 and for it she
received the award of the Writers’ Union of Macedonia for the best
novel of the year. It has been translated in Slovenian (Cankarjeva,
Ljubljana, 2006) and Slovakian (Kalligram, Bratislava, 2007) and
will shortly be published in Polish.
Her poems have been translated and published in more than 20
languages all around the world. She has participated at numerous
international literary festivals and residencies.
In 2009 she received the German “Hubert Burda” prize for younger
Eastern European poets.
WEDNESDAY
9

10
Wed 14th Oct
9.30pm
White House Pub
Maurice Riordan
Maurice Riordan received the Michael Hartnett Award in 2007 for The Holy Land (Faber).
Previous collections, A Word from the Loki and Floods, were nominated for the T.S. Eliot
Prize and the Whitbread Book Award. Other publications include A Quark for Mister
Mark:101 Poems About Science and Hart Crane, which has recently appeared in Faber`s
`Poet to Poet` series. Born in Lisgoold, Co Cork, he lives in London and teaches on the
Writing MA at Sheffield Hallam University.
Thurs 15th Oct
1.15pm
Limerick City Gallery of Art
Paul Sweeney
Paul Sweeney was born and educated in Limerick. In
2004 he produced a special limited edition book The
City - Poems in The Note of CP Cavafy, with original
hand made prints by Gavin Hogg, which was launched
at the Belltable Arts Centre.
WEDNESDAY THURSDAY
11

12
Thurs 15th Oct
8pm
Daghdha Space
Ulick O’Connor
Ulick O’Connor is a biographer, poet and playwright.
His biographies include Oliver St John Gogarty,
Brendan Behan and the much praised Celtic Dawn,
a biography of the Irish Literary Renaissance. As a
poet he is best known for his verse-plays in the Noh
form which were first produced in the Abbey
Theatre in 1977 and at the Dublin Theatre Festival in
1979, later going to an off-Broadway production in
1981 at the Theatre of the Open Eye.
Alongside Ulick O'Connor's prodigious literary output
as biographer, playwright, literary historian and
critic, he has been writing and publishing
memorable poetry for more than four decades. His
engagement with his subject matter, his deft use of
form, craft, and above all lyricism, define these
poems and make it a pleasure to rediscover them or
encounter them for the first time.
His first book of poems Life Styles was published by
Hamish Hamilton and Dolmen Press in 1975. He
went on to write five others, among them All Things
Counter (1985), and One is Animate (1990). His
translations of Baudelaire were published by
Wolfhound Press in 1995. The book received an
outstanding reception, and was highly praised by
Michel Déon of Académie Francaise.
Thurs 15th Oct
8pm
Daghdha Space
Taja Kramberger
Taja Kramberger (1970) is a poet, historical anthropologist, essayist and translator. She is
the Editor-in-Chief of the Monitor ZSA – Review of Historical, Social and Other
Anthropologies, published by University of Primorska Koper (Publishing house Annales). She
lives in Koper and is employed at the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Primorska
(Littoral) in Koper. So far she has published seven books of poetry, four of them in
Slovenian: Marcipan (Marzipan, 1997), Spregovori morje (The Sea Says, 1999), Žametni
indigo (Velvet Indigo, 2004), Vsakdanji pogovori (Everyday Talks, 2006), Opus quinque
dierum (2009). A book of her poetry, Gegenströmung/Protitok (Counter–Current, 2002), was
published in a bibliophilic edition by the Austrian publisher Edition Thanhäuser in
Ottensheim. Her fifth collection, a multi-lingual work, Mobilizacije / Mobilizations /
Mobilisations / Mobilitazioni, was published in 2004 by Associations Tropos Ljubljana &
Zrakogled Koper. Her poems have appeared in various literary anthologies and reviews in
Slovenian and other languages. She participated in numerous international literary festivals
around Europe and in Canada. She translates literature (books of Michele Obit, Neringa
Abrutyte and Roberto Juarroz) and scientific texts (De Certeau, Bourdieu, Chartier, Valensi,
Wacquant etc.) into Slovenian, and has published many essays and articles on literature.
THURSDAY
13

14
Thurs 15th Oct
8pm
Daghdha Space
Catherine Smith
Catherine Smith's first short collection, The New Bride (Smith/Doorstop) was
short-listed for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection. Her first full collection,
The Butcher's Hand's (Smith/Doorstop) was a PBS recommendation and shortlisted
for the Aldeburgh/Jerwood Prize. Her latest collection, Lip, was short-listed
for the Forward Prize for Best Collection. In 2004 she was selected as one of the
'Next Generation' poets - the '20 most exhilarating poets to have published a first
collection in the last ten years.'
THURSDAY
Fri 16th Oct
1.15pm
Limerick City Gallery of Art
Clairr O’Connor
Clairr O’Connor was born in Croom ,
Co Limerick and lives in Dublin.
She is a poet, playwright and
novelist. Her first novel, Belonging
(Marino 1991), was nominated for
an Irish Times/Aer Lingus Award,
her second, Love in Another Room
(Attic Press 1995), was shortlisted
for the Listowel Book of the Year
Award. Her poetry collections are
When You Need Them (Salmon
1989), Breast (Astrolabe 2004),
Trick the Lock (Astrolabe 2008).
Her radio plays have been
broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and RTE
Radio 1.
Peter Sirr said of Breast (2004)
“Hard, clear-eyed, these poems
are uncompromising in their
confrontation with physical pain
and their fierce embrace of love
and memory.”
“The transformative power of O’
Connor’s imagination is constantly
at work; even the most
nightmarish of visions has a
terrible beauty.” (Orbis, England).
FRIDAY
15

16
Fri 16th Oct
8pm
Daghdha Space
Robert Hass
Robert Hass was born in San Francisco and lives in Berkeley,
California, where he teaches at the University of California.
A MacArthur Fellow, a two-time winner of the National
Book Critics Circle Award and the winner, in 2008, of the
National Book Award as well as the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry,
he has published poems, literary essays and translations.
He served as Poet Laureate of the United States from 1995
to 1997, during which time he organised a campaign
against illiteracy and founded River of Words, an
organization that promotes environmental and arts
education in affiliation with the Library of Congress Center
for the Book. He believes that poets, especially, need to pay
constant attention to the interaction of mind and
environment.
Robert Hass has published the following collections of
poetry: Field Guide, Praise, Human Wishes, Sun Under
Wood, and Time and Materials, as well as a book of essays
on poetry, Twentieth Century Pleasures. He has translated
many of the works of Nobel Prize-winning Polish poet,
Czeslaw Milosz, and edited Selected Poems 1954-1986 by
Thomas Tranströmer, and The Essential Haiku: Versions of
Basho, Buson, and Issa.
In spring 2010, Ecco Press will publish The Apple Trees at
Olema: Selected Poems & Essays, 1985-2009, and a
collection of selected essays.
Fri 16th Oct
8pm
Daghdha Space
Donald Hall
Donald Hall was born in New Haven, Connecticut, in 1928. He began
writing as an adolescent and had his first work published at the age
of sixteen. He has published numerous books of poetry, most
recently White Apples and the Taste of Stone: Selected Poems
1946-2006 (Houghton Mifflin, 2006); The Painted Bed (2002) and
Without: Poems (1998), which was published on the third
anniversary of his wife and fellow poet Jane Kenyon's death from
leukemia. Other notable collections include The One Day (1988),
which won the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Los Angeles
Times Book Prize, and a Pulitzer Prize nomination; The Happy Man
(1986), which won the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize; and Exiles and
Marriages (1955), which was the Academy's Lamont Poetry
Selection for 1956.
In a review of Hall's recent Selected Poems, Billy Collins wrote in
the Washington Post: “Hall has long been placed in the Frostian
tradition of the plainspoken rural poet... It is a kind of simplicity that
succeeds in engaging the reader in the first few lines.”
Besides poetry, Donald Hall has written books on baseball, the
sculptor Henry Moore, and the poet Marianne Moore. He is also the
author of several children's books and a number of autobiographical
works. He has edited more than two dozen textbooks and
anthologies, and served as poetry editor of The Paris Review from
1953 to 1962.
His honors include the Poetry Society of America's Robert Frost
Silver Medal, a Lifetime Achievement Award from the New
Hampshire Writers and Publisher Project, and the Ruth Lilly Prize for
Poetry. In June 2006, Hall was appointed the Library of Congress's
fourteenth Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry.
In December 1993 he and Jane Kenyon were the subject of an
Emmy Award winning Bill Moyers documentary, "A Life Together."
He lives in Danbury, New Hampshire.
FRIDAY
17

18
Penelope Shuttle
Fri 16th Oct
8pm
Daghdha Space
Penelope Shuttle has published eight collections of poems since 1980,
including a Selected Poems in 1998 (Poetry Book Society
Recommendation). She has also published five novels, and is co-author of
two prose works, The Wise Wound and Alchemy for Women. In 2006
Bloodaxe published Redgrove’s Wife, which was shortlisted for the Forward
Prize and T.S. Eliot Prize. Since 1970 Penelope Shuttle has lived in Falmouth,
Cornwall, and was married to the poet Peter Redgrove, who died in 2003.
Sat 17th Oct
8pm
Daghdha Space
Aonghas MacNeacail
was born in 1942 on the Isle of Skye, and attended
Glasgow University from 1968-1971. He has published
several collections of poems, mostly in Gaelic with
parallel English translations, including An
Seachnadh/The Avoiding (1986) and Oideachadh
Ceart/A Proper Schooling (1996), the latter winning the
1997 Stakis Prize for Scottish Writer of the Year. A
collection of poems in English, Rock and Water,
appeared in 1990. His latest book is a collection of
Gaelic poems, Laoidh an Donais Oig/Hymn to a Young
Demon (2007).
Over a period of 30 years, he has held creative writing
fellowships with various community and educational
bodies, including the Gaelic College in Skye,
Brownsbank (Hugh MacDiarmid's last home), Glasgow
and Strathclyde Universities, and, most recently, in eight
Dumfries and Galloway schools. The latter venture has
resulted in a substantial anthology of pupils' writing.
His work has been widely translated and has appeared
in many magazines and anthologies both in the UK and
abroad. He has written plays and scripts for television
and radio. In 1993 he wrote a four-part documentary
series on Gaelic culture for Scottish Television, and
Driven West, a five-part drama for BBC Radio Scotland,
and has recently worked, as a co-writer, on the feature
film Seachd - The Inaccessible Pinnacle. He has also
collaborated with various musicians, writing libretti and
songs, and has toured all over the world to give recitals
and lectures.
SATURDAY
19

20
Sat 17th Oct
8pm
Daghdha Space
Patrick Moran
was born in Templetuohy, County Tipperary, where
he still lives. He works as a teacher. His poems
have been widely published. A winner of the
Gerad Manley Hopkins Poetry Prize, he has also
been shortlisted for the Hennessy / Sunday
Tribune Poetry Award. His work is featured in
anthologies, including the inaugural Forward
Anthology. His first collection, The Stubble Fields,
was published in 2001.
Green, Patrick Moran's second collection of poetry
(2008), shows a poet trying to reconcile his rural
heritage with an Ireland in the process of
transition. In doing so, these carefully wrought
poems explore the implications of leaving: the
parting from loved ones, and what is left to us. As
he comes to terms with changing landscapes and
thwarted dreams, the poet concludes: ‘It's all in
the harvesting’. In the face of transience, Moran is
ultimately positive.
Patrick Moran's first collection was widely praised.
Southword noted the poet's "fine eye for the
banal, for seemingly subtle shifts that can have
huge implications"; while The Poetry Ireland
Review lauded "a very well-crafted body of work,
poetry that is always lyrical and on occasion truly
startling".
Sat 17th Oct
8pm
Daghdha Space
Fleur Adcock
Fleur Adcock was born in New Zealand. She spent the war years in England,
returning with her family to New Zealand in 1947. She emigrated to Britain
in 1963, working as a librarian in London until 1979. She was Northern Arts
Literary Fellow in 1979-81, living in Newcastle.
She won many awards and honours for her poetry including the
Cholmondeley Award 1976 and the New Zealand National Book Award
1984. She received an OBE in 1996, and the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry
in 2006 for Poems 1960-2000 (Bloodaxe, 2000).
SATURDAY
21

22
CUISLE Education Programme
Young Poet of the Year Competition
Programme for Schools
Readings & Workshops for young people
CUISLE Events
Discussion
The Stony Thursday Book Launch
Ciaran O’Driscoll Booklaunch & Reading
White House Events
events
23

24
education
programme
YOUNG POET
OF THE YEAR
COMPETITION
For further information on any of the events contact:
Arts Service Limerick City Council
Tel: 061 407421 or www.limerickcity.ie
Cuisle Young Poet of the Year Competition invites young people to
write a poem or three poems.
This competition is promoted by Cuisle, Limerick City International
Poetry Festival. Winners will be invited to read during the festival in
October and prizes will be awarded at a special Award Ceremony.
Entries are invited in 3 categories
1 Under 12 years
2 12-15 years
3 16-18 years
The competition will be judged by:
Paddy Bushe
Gabriel Fitzmaurice
Bertha McCullagh
Mark Whelan
YOUNG POET
OF THE YEAR
COMPETITION
25

Sat 17th Fri 16th
Thurs 15th
26
Readings for
Second Level Schools
Workshops,
Readings for Schools
Poetry Master Classes
Second Level
Readings for Second
Level Schools
Workshops,
Readings for Schools
Young Poet
of the Year
POETS
PROGRAMME
FOR SCHOOLS
10am
Paul Muldoon Daghdha Space, John’s Square Morning Reading
Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill : Lidija Dimkovska 11.30am Daghdha Space, John’s Square Mid-morning Reading
John Davies
Gabriel Fitzmaurice : Tim Cunningham
John Davies : Iztok Ozojnik
Award Cermony 11am
Daghdha Space, John’s Square Young Poet of the
Year Award Ceremony
The Cuisle Schools' Programme provides an opportunity for students to hear and meet with poets, who this year include leading Irish Poets, as well as many international poets.
10.30am
9.30am to
3.30pm
City Library, The Granary, Limerick
Dominican Biblical Centre,
Cecil Street
Reading /Workshop
Day-long Masterclasses
Session 1 9:30am
Lunch 12 noon
Session 2 1:00pm
Fleur Adcock : Donald Hall 11.30am Daghdha Space, John’s Square Mid-morning Reading
Lidija Dimkovska 10.30am City Library, The Granary, Limerick Reading /Workshop
27

PROGRAMME FOR SCHOOLS :
Poets
28
Paul Muldoon
Paul Muldoon was born in County Armagh, Northern Ireland, and educated in
Armagh and at the Queen's University of Belfast. Since 1987, he has lived in the
United States, where he is now Howard G. B. Clark '21 Professor at Princeton
University and Chair of the Peter B. Lewis Center for the Arts. In 2003 he won The
Pulitzer Prize and in 2007 he was appointed Poetry Editor of The New Yorker.
Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill
Nuala Ní Dhómhnaill was born in the North of England and raised in Ventry (Dingle
Gaelteacht) Co. Kerry. She is one of Ireland’s best poets. Among her books are An
Dealg Droighin; Féar Suithinseach; (versions in English by Michael Hartnett) and a
full collection Selected Poems/Rogha Dánta. She is a member of Aosdána, and
was editor of the Modern Irish Poetry section of Field Day Anthology of Irish
Writing, Vols. 4 & 5 (2002).
Lidija Dimkovska
was born in Skopje, Macedonia. She is a poet, essayist and translator. She took a
Ph.D. degree in Romanian Literature at the University of Bucharest, and for several
years she worked there as lecturer in Macedonian Language and Literature. Now she
lives in Ljubljana, Slovenia, as a free-lance writer and translator of Romanian and
Slovenian Literature in Macedonian.
John Davies
John Davies is a writer and poet based in Brighton, on England’s south coast. His
first collection The Nutter in the Shrubbery was published by Pighog
(www.pighog.co.uk) in 2002. In the same year he won an award for his first
residency as his alter ego Shedman (www.shedman.net). Shedman has gone on to
feature at numerous festivals and events (including Cuisle in October 2005). His
first full collection Shedman was published in January 2008.
See Festival Guide Page 2-3
Gabriel Fitzmaurice
Gabriel Fitzmaurice was born in Moyvane, Co. Kerry where he still lives. He is
author of more than twenty books, including poetry in English and Irish,
children's verse in English and Irish, translations from the Irish, essays, and
collections of songs and ballads. An award winner at the Gerard Manley
Hopkins Centenary Poetry Competition, he has twice represented Ireland at the
European Festival of Poetry in Louvain, Belgium.
Tim Cunningham
Tim Cunningham was born in Limerick. He was educated at C.B.S., Limerick,
and Birkbeck College, London. His first collection of poetry, Don Marcelino’s
Daughter, was published by Peterloo in 2001. His second collection Unequal
Thirds published by Peterloo, was launched at Cuisle 2006. Tim Cunningham
has said that many of the poems in Unequal Thirds “are rooted in Limerick, the
‘urbs antiqua’ I left at eighteen” and to which he regularly returns.
Iztok Ozojnik
Iztok Osojnik was born in Ljubljana, Slovenia. Poet, fiction writer, essayist,
translator, artist, tour director, mountain climber. His many professions have
taken him all around the world. A former director of the Vilenica International
Literary Festival, and currently together with Ana Jelnikar organizes The Golden
Boat International Poetry Translation Workshop. Editor of Apokalipsa and Tvrđa
magazines as well as of an Internet literary magazine Sidaja.
Donald Hall
Donald Hall was born in New Haven, Connecticut, USA. He began writing as an
adolescent and had his first work published at the age of sixteen. He has published
numerous books of poetry. He was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize with The Happy
Man (1986), which won the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize; and Exiles and
Marriages (1955). He was poet Laurate in 2006.
Fleur Adcock
Fleur Adcock was born in New Zealand. She spent the war years in England,
returning with her family to New Zealand in 1947. She emigrated to Britain in
1963, working as a librarian in London until 1979. She has won many awards and
honours for her poetry including the Cholmondeley Award 1976 and the New
Zealand National Book Award 1984. She received an OBE in 1996, and the
Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry in 2006 for Poems 1960-2000 (Bloodaxe, 2000).
29

30
events
Discussion
The Crisis in Publishing
This year a presentation on publishing in the recession will be
given by Original Writing Limited.
Original Writing is an Irish self publishing company based in
Smithfield, Dublin. Founded in 2006, and have helped over 100
Irish authors successfully publish their books. The presentation
will take aspiring authors through the various steps involved in
self-publishing.
DISCUSSION
Following this presentation, there will be a discussion, the aim
of which will be to fit the issue of self-publishing into the current
culture in the world of books. Related issues are the perceived
‘dumbing down’ of literary quality and reader-appreciation; the
takeover of small presses by large conglomerates; digitilisation,
e-books, the ‘Google Settlement’ and their future consequences;
book piracy on the internet; the author’s necessity of fame, as
epitomised by this quote from novelist Cory Doctorow:
I really feel that my problem isn’t piracy. It’s obscurity.
Thursday 15th October
2.30pm
Limerick City Gallery of Art
31

32
The Stony
Thursday
Book No. 8
(New Series)
Edited by
Ciaran O’Driscoll
Thurs 15th Oct
7pm
Daghdha Space
Founded in 1975 by John Liddy and Jim Burke, The Stony Thursday Book is now
thirty-four years of age. The current issue features work from poets of international
stature and fame, such as Fleur Adcock, Penelope Shuttle, the Scots Gaelic poet
Aonghas MacNeacail, Pulitzer Prizewinners Paul Muldoon and Robert Hass, and
Limerick’s master craftsman, Desmond O’Grady. Many well-known Irish and UK
poets are represented, and there are translations from eminent Central European
poets: Slovenians Iztok Osojnik, Taja Kramberger and Veronika Dintinjana, as well as
Lidija Dimkovska, a Macedonian poet now residing in Ljubljana. A number of the
poets included are participants in this year’s festival.
There is a generous selection of poems from less prominent voices, poets beginning
to come to public notice. Editor Ciaran O’Driscoll writes in his Preface:
“One of the pleasures of editing this issue was to be moved, or amused, or struck
with admiration by, a poem from someone I was not previously aware of, or
whose work I only vaguely knew. I hope that the reader will derive as much
pleasure from browsing, as I did from editing, The Stony Thursday Book, New
Series, No 8.”
Friday 16th Oct
7pm
Daghdha Space
Life Monitor
Published by:
Three Spires Press
Ciaran O’Driscoll Life Monitor Th
Life Monitor
Poems
Ciaran O’Driscoll
Ciaran O’Driscoll
Ciaran O’Driscoll was born in Co Kilkenny in 1943, and lives in Limerick. He has
published eight books of poetry including Moving On, Still There: New and Selected
Poems (Dedalus Press, 2001) and more recently Surreal Man, a chapbook of 21
poems (Pighog, 2006), and Vecchie Donne di Magione, a dual language edition of
poems in an Italian setting (Volumnia Editrice, 2006). In 2001, Liverpool University
Press published his childhood memoir, A Runner Among Falling Leaves. He has won
a number of awards for his work, among them the Patrick and Katherine Kavanagh
Fellowship in Poetry. In 2007, he was elected to Aosdána.
Book Launch Book Launch & Reading
33

34
White House Events
Thurs 15 Oct
9pm
The White House Pub
Book Launch -
Revival 13
Fringe Event
Thurs 15th - Fri 16th
9.30pm
The White House Pub
Open Mic
Sat 17th
9.30pm
The White House Pub
Poetry Grand Slam
Map of Limerick
STEAMBOAT QUAY
DOCK RD
ST ALPHONSUS ST
O’CURRY ST
Venues:
ENNIS RD
SHANNON BRIDGE
WINDMILL ST
O’CALLAGHAN’S STRAND SARSFIELD BRIDGE
BISHOP’S BISHOP’S QUAY QUAY HOWLEYS QY HARVEYS QY
HARTSTONGE ST
NEWENHAM ST
1 Daghdha Space, John’s Square
2 Limerick City Library
3 The White House
7
MALLOW ST
3
HENRY ST
CECIL ST
GLENTWORTH ST
PERY SQUARE
4
O’CONNELL ST
PEOPLE’S
PARK
ARTHUR’S
QUAY
PARK
ROCHES ST
WILLIAM ST
THOMAS ST
ARTHUR’S QUAY
PATRICK ST
4 Limerick City Gallery of Art
5 Dominican Biblical Centre
6 Absolute Hotel
5
DENMARK ST
PARNELL ST
RUTLAND ST
NICHOLAS ST
BRIDGE ST
2
ROBERT ST
GEORGE’S QUAY
CHARLOTTE’S QUAY
UPR WILLIAM ST
UPR GERALD GRIFFIN ST LR GERALD GRIFFIN ST
7 Shannon Rowing Club
ATHLUNKARD ST
N7
BAALS BR
BROAD ST
6
ROXBOROUGH RD
JOHN’S
SQUARE
MULGRAVE ST
GROVE
ISLAND
CLARE ST
1
35

36
Grant aided by:
Supported by:
Committee:
Sheila Deegan : Bertha McCullagh : Ciaran O’Driscoll
Barney Sheehan : Mark Whelan
37