August and September


2nd August

Jerome Kiely

You can listen to Jerome’s reading here

Jerome Kiely was born in Kinsale in 1925. His work has appeared in a number of major Irish anthologies and with Cecil Day Lewis adjudicating, he won the Adam prize for a suite of poems. Kiely studied theology at Maynooth, taught for thirteen years and spent twenty-eight years ministering as a priest in West Cork. Over the years he has travelled throughout much of the world. Aside from his interest in wildlife, literature, history and cats – sports cars and sailing took up a lot of his spare time.

He has written four collections of poetry, The Griffon Sings (Geoffrey Chapman, 1966), Yesterdays of the Heart (Dedalus, 1989), Swallows in December (Trafford Publishing, 2005) and The Moon Canoe (Doghouse, 2010). He is also the author of two books in homage to Inishbofin, Seven Year Island (Chapman, 1969) and Isle of the Blest (Mercier, 1993) and also a novel Heat not a Furnace (Trafford Publishing, 2003).

 



9th August

Kevin Higgins and Susan Millar du Mars

You can listen to Kevin’s reading here

Kevin Higgins is co-organiser of Over The Edge literary events in Galway, Ireland. He facilitates poetry workshops at Galway Arts Centre; teaches creative writing at Galway Technical Institute and on the Brothers of Charity Away With Words programme. He is also Writer-in-Residence at Merlin Park Hospital and the poetry critic of the Galway Advertiser.

Higgins’ first collection of poems The Boy With No Face was published by Salmon in February 2005 and was short-listed for the 2006 Strong Award. His second collection, Time Gentlemen, Please, was published in March 2008 by Salmon, one of the poems of which, My Militant Tendency, features in the Forward Book of Poetry 2009. His work also features in the generation-defining anthology Identity Parade – New British and Irish Poets (Ed Roddy Lumsden, Bloodaxe, 2010). His third collection of poems Frightening New Furniture was published in March by Salmon Poetry.

You can listen to Susan’s reading here

Susan Millar DuMars was born in Philadelphia in 1966 to a Belfast-born mother. She now lives in Galway, where since 2003 along with her husband Kevin Higgins has organised the successful Over the Edge reading series, showcasing new writers. She also teaches creative writing at Galway Technical Institute, Galway Arts Centre, Galway Mayo Institute of Technology and on the Brothers of Charity Away With Words programme.

Susan holds an MA in Writing from the University of San Francisco. Her poems and short stories have been published widely in the US, UK and Ireland. Her stories have been short-listed for many awards, and in 2005 she received an Irish Arts Council Bursary for her fiction. American Girls, a volume of her short stories, was published by Lapwing in 2007. Her first full collection of poetry is Big Pink Umbrella (Salmon Poetry, 2008). One of her poems has been chosen by Mathew Sweeney, for inclusion in Best of Irish Poetry 2010 (Southword Editions) and several of her poems feature in Landing Places: Immigrant Poets in Ireland, edited by Eva Bourke (Dedalus Press, March 2010). Her second collection of poems Dreams for Breakfast has just been published by Salmon.

 



16th August

Caroline Lynch

You can listen to Caroline’s reading here

Caroline Lynch lives in Galway. She grew up in Cork and studied law at UCC. While there, she won the inaugural Sean Dunne Memorial Poetry Competition. She then trained as an actor and acted professionally for a number of years before returning to law and qualifying as a solicitor. Realising the error of her ways, she returned to the arts and obtained an MA in Writing from NUIG. She won the Listowel Writers’ Week poetry collection competition in 2007 and Salmon Poetry published her first collection Lost in the Gaeltacht in 2008. She is the recipient of an Arts Council Literature Bursary and is a founding member of Galway-based Mephisto Theatre Company.

Caroline will also be holding a workshop before the reading entitled By Rote or By Heart? from 7.00pm to 8.30pm at Ó Bhéal. For more details click here.

 



23rd August

Maurice Riordan

You can listen to Maurice’s reading here

Maurice Riordan is a teacher, poet and editor. His most recent collection The Holy Land (Faber and Faber, 2007), received the Michael Hartnett Award. His previous collections are A Word from the Loki (Faber and Faber, 1995) which was a Poetry Book Society Choice and was nominated for the T.S. Eliot Prize, and Floods (Faber & Faber, 2000) which was nominated for the Whitbread Award.

He has also selected for, and been editor of a number of anthologies including Cork’s own Southword in 2006, Hart Crane which appeared in Faber’s Poet to Poet series and A Quark for Mister Mark: 101 Poems about Science edited with science-journalist Jon Turney. He was Poetry Editor of Poetry London from 2005 to 2009.

Born in Lisgoold, Co Cork, Maurice lives in London and teaches at Sheffield Hallam University where he is currently Professor of Poetry.

 



30th August

Marcela Sulak

You can listen to Marcela’s reading here

Marcela Sulak is the author of a collection of poetry, Immigrant (Black Lawrence Press, 2010), the chapbook Of All the Things That Don’t Exist, I Love You Best (Finishing Line Press, 2008) and three book-length translations of poetry, Karel Hynek Macha’s May and Karel Jaromir Erben’s Bouquet from the Czech (2005 & 2011) and Mutombo Nkulu N’Sengha’s Bela-Wenda, from the French (Host Publications, 2011).

Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in such journals as Fence, The Indiana Review, Drunken Boat, River Styx, Poet Lore and The Notre Dame Review. She has lived and worked as a free-lance writer and instructor in Germany, the Czech Republic, Venezuela and Israel. She currently directs the Shaindy Rudoff Graduate Program in Creative Writing at Bar-Ilan University in Israel, where she is a senior lecturer of American Literature.

 



6th September

Áine Moynihan

You can listen to Áine’s reading here

Áine Moynihan was born in Co. Wexford and now lives in Co. Kerry. Her first collection Canals of Memory was published by Doghouse in 2008. It was short-listed for the Strong Award for Best First Collection at the DLR Poetry Now Festival in 2009. Her work was included in Best Irish Poetry in English 2010 ed. by Matthew Sweeney, (Southword Editions).

Áine also trained as a professional actor in the Abbey Theatre in the 1970s, graduated in Arts and Education from UCD and worked as an actor in theatre, television and radio. She lived for nearly ten years on the islands of Inishere and Cape Clear and then moved to Europe’s most westerly edge, Dún Chaoin in the late 1980s, with her husband and two children.

 



13th September

Ó Bhéal in association with Foras na Gaeilge presents a bi-lingual evening with

Celia De Fréine

You can listen to Celia’s reading here

Celia De Fréine is a poet, playwright, screenwriter and librettist who writes in Irish and English. She has published four collections of poetry: Faoi Chabáistí is Ríonacha (Cló Iar-Chonnachta, 2001), Fiacha Fola (Cló Iar-Chonnachta, 2004), Scarecrows at Newtownards (Scotus Press, 2005) and imram : odyssey (Arlen House, 2010). Her poetry has won many awards including the Patrick Kavanagh Award (1994) and Gradam Litríochta Chló Iar-Chonnachta (2004). She lives in Dublin and Connemara.

The short films Lorg, Seal and Cluiche, inspired by her poems, have been shown in festivals in Ireland and the United States. In 2008, in association with Biju Viswanath, she wrote the screenplay for the film Marathon www.marathonthemovie.com, the world premiere of which took place during the New York International Film Festival in 2009, scooping awards for best screenplay and best cinematography.

Also in 2009 Living Opera, in association with Opera Ireland, presented a showcase performance of the opera The Earl of Kildare, composed by Fergus Johnston, for which she wrote the libretto. Arlen House published a collection of her award-winning plays Mná Dána the same year, and the Abbey Theatre presented a rehearsed reading of her short play Casadh which it had commissioned.

For more information visit: www.celiadefreine.com

Is file, drámadóir agus scriptscríbhneoir í Celia de Fréine. Tá ceithre leabhar filíochta i gcló aici: Faoi Chabáistí is Ríonacha (Cló Iar-Chonnachta, 2001), Fiacha Fola (Cló Iar-Chonnachta, 2004), Scarecrows at Newtownards (Scotus Press, 2005) agus imram : odyssey (Arlen House, 2010). I measc na ngradam liteartha atá buaite aici dá cuid filíochta tá Duais Patrick Kavanagh (1994) agus Gradam Litríochta Chló Iar-Chonnachta (2004).

Taispeánadh na gearrscannáin Lorg, Seal agus Cluiche, bunaithe ar dhánta léi, i bhféilte in Éirinn agus i Meiriceá in 2007 agus 2008. In 2008 scríobh sí an scannán Marathon www.marathonthemovie.com i gcomhar le Biju Viswanath.

In 2009 léirigh Living Opera, i gcomhar le Opera Ireland, taispeántas den cheoldráma The Earl of Kildare, cumtha ag Fergus Johnston, ar scríobh sí an libretto dó. Sa bhliaian chéana d’fhoilsigh Arlen House dornán drámaí léi dar teideal Mná Dána.

Tuilleadh eolais: www.celiadefreine.com

 



20th September

Christodoulos Makris

You can listen to Jerome’s reading here

Christodoulos Makris was born in Nicosia in 1971 and is a poet and editor based in Balbriggan, Co Dublin. He studied in Manchester and has lived and worked in Preston, London and Dublin. He now works in the public library service of Fingal County Council.

His poems have appeared in many journals in Ireland and elsewhere, print and online, and his chapbook Round the Clock was published in 2009 by Wurm Press. He is the Dublin regional editor for Succour magazine and co-founder and organiser of the Poetry Upfront series of readings and events in north Co Dublin.

More details at http://yesbutisitpoetry.blogspot.com

 



24th September

Ó Bhéal in association with Cork City Council presents a special Friday edition of Ó Bhéal for

Cork Culture Night 2010

Fergus Costello

You can listen to Fergus’ reading here

Fergus Costello is a poet ,musician, comedian,and storyteller combined. He is known as an outstanding performer of his work, which earned him the title of the Cuisle International Poetry Festival Slam Champion 2009/10 in Limerick City. His latest musical project Fergus Costello and the Pound Street Band played their debut concert in the Limerick University Concert Hall in June,to critical acclaim.

Fergus has worked as a sculptor and painter for over thirty years in the area of Sacred Space and his work is held in high regard, nationally and internationally. Originally from Cork, he now lives in the North Tipperary Silvermines parish.

The evening will follow the usual format with the open-mic being dedicated to:

Cork Poems, or poems by Cork Poets, Past and Present

 



27th September

Patrick Chapman

Patrick Chapman was born in 1968. His latest poetry collection is The Darwin Vampires (September 2010, Salmon Poetry), the title poem of which was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. His earlier collections are Jazztown (1991, Raven Arts Press), The New Pornography (Salmon, 1996), Breaking Hearts and Traffic Lights (Salmon, 2007) and A Shopping Mall on Mars (BlazeVOX Books, NY, 2008).

He has also written a book of stories, The Wow Signal (2007, Bluechrome, UK); Burning the Bed (Ireland, 2003), an award-winning film starring Gina McKee and Aidan Gillen; episodes of the children’s TV series Garth & Bev (2009-2010); and an audio play, Doctor Who: Fear of the Daleks (2007, Big Finish, UK). He lives in Dublin.