New York's free festival of Irish poetry:Six Irish poets will be in New York next month, at the city's Irish Arts Center, to participate in its second annual free PoetryFest, designed to celebrate contemporary Irish poetry.
The line-up is Paul Durcan, Alan Gillis, Eamon Grennan, Vona Groarke, Sinéad Morrissey and Catriona O’Reilly. Curated by Belinda McKeon and Aengus Woods, and running on November 5th-6th, it also features figures from the arts world – including the New York-based novelist Colum McCann – sharing their favourite Irish poems. The mission of the centre, founded in 1972, is to project a dynamic image of Ireland and Irish America. Fundraising for a new state-of-the-art premises got a boost in July when New York pledged a further $4.5 million to it. The city has now committed more than $12 million; the extra injection followed the Irish Government’s announcement of a grant of $3.5 million last December.
Ted Hughes prize could go to Irish contender
Irish poet Jean O'Brien (above) has been shortlisted for the Arvon International Poetry competition, which receives entries from all over the world. Founded by Ted Hughes, and now in its 30th year, it has a first prize of £7,500 – one of the largest for a single poem. O'Brien's third and latest collection, Lovely Legs, came out from Salmon last year. Her poem Mermanis a modern take on the mythological story of Glaucus, a fisherman who became a merman by eating a magical herb, and who was in love with Scylla – who rejected him. The judges are the British poet laureate, Carol Ann Duffy, Elaine Feinstein and Sundeep Sen. The winner will be announced on November 4th.
Top children’s authors head for the Ark
A roll-call of top Irish children’s authors, including Derek Landy, Roddy Doyle, Philip Ardagh, John Boyne and Mary Arrigan, will take part in a celebration of story in Dublin presented by the Ark cultural centre for children from November 23rd to December 19th. The aim of StorySpark is to fete the power of story in all its forms: spoken, written, read and heard. Each weekend from November 27th the Ark will have story-centred activities for families. On Saturday and Sunday mornings the creative facilities of the Ark’s interactive Story Lab will be open to anyone who wants to write and record their own stories, or enjoy stories left by others. The authors will read from their work in the afternoons. And during the week schools can come in for storytelling events and to visit the Story Lab, which shows how stories never stay still, changing as they pass from person to person.
Meeting of minds: Colm Tóibín and Roy Foster
Colm Tóibín, whose new collection of short stories, The Empty Family, is just out, will be in conversation with the historian Roy Foster at 7.30pm on Wednesday in the Thomas Davis Theatre at Trinity College Dublin. The event, which is organised by Unesco City of Literature in association with the college, is free, but booking is essential. Call 01-6744873 or e-mail dublinpubliclibraries@ dublincity.ie.
Francis MacManus contest gears up
The call is out for entries for the 26th RTÉ Radio 1 Francis MacManus Short Story Competition.The winning author gets €3,000, with €2,000 and €1,000 for second and third places. The closing date is New Year’s Eve. Radio 1 will broadcast each winning story, as well as all the shortlisted entries, next year. rte.ie/radio1/francismacmanus.
