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This episode aired on 29th April 2021, Poetry Day Ireland and I was joined by poets Gaynor Kane, Kevin Higgins, Susan Millar DuMars, Kevin Bateman, Anne Walsh Donnelly, Paul McCarrick, Annraoi de Paor, Eilín de Paor, Eleanor Hooker, Theresa Donnelly, Catherine Ann Cullen, Aisling Keogh, Marty McKenna, Cathy Carson and Ruairí de Barra. The links to their websites, blogs or Twitter pages are all listed below…
Gaynor Kane is a Northern Irish poet from Belfast. She has two poetry pamphlets, and a full collection, from Hedgehog Poetry Press, they are Circling the Sun, Memory Forest, and Venus in Pink Marble (2018, 2019 and September 2020 respectively). She is co-author, along with Karen Mooney, of Penned In a poetry pamphlet written in response to the pandemic (November 2020). Follow her on Twitter at https://twitter.com/gaynorkane and you can find out more about Gaynor and her collections at her website…
For more information about The Hedgehog Poetry Press click below…
Kevin Higgins (in the photo with his wife Susan Millar DuMars) is co-organiser of Over The Edge literary events in Galway. He has published five full collections of poems: The Boy With No Face (2005), Time Gentlemen, Please (2008), Frightening New Furniture (2010), The Ghost In The Lobby (2014), & Sex and Death at Merlin Park Hospital (2019). His poems also feature in Identity Parade – New British and Irish Poets (Bloodaxe, 2010) and in The Hundred Years’ War: modern war poems (Ed Neil Astley, Bloodaxe May 2014). Kevin was satirist-in-residence with the alternative literature website The Bogman’s Cannon 2015-16. 2016 – The Selected Satires of Kevin Higgins was published by NuaScéalta in 2016. The Minister For Poetry Has Decreed was published by Culture Matters (UK) also in 2016. Song of Songs 2:0 – New & Selected Poems was published by Salmon in Spring 2017. His poems have been praised by, among others, Tony Blair’s biographer John Rentoul, Observer columnist Nick Cohen, writer and activist Eamonn McCann, historian Ruth Dudley Edwards, and Sunday Independent columnist Gene Kerrigan; and have been quoted in The Daily Telegraph, The Independent, The Times (London), Hot Press magazine, The Daily Mirror and on The Vincent Browne Show, and read aloud by Ken Loach at a political meeting in London. He has published topical political poems in publications as various as The New European, The Morning Star, Dissent Magazine (USA), Village Magazine (Ireland), & Harry’s Place. The Stinging Fly magazine has described Kevin as “likely the most widely read living poet in Ireland”. One of Kevin’s poems features in A Galway Epiphany, the final instalment of Ken Bruen’s Jack Taylor series of novels which is just published. His work has been broadcast on RTE Radio, Lyric FM, and BBC Radio 4. His book The Colour Yellow & The Number 19: Negative Thoughts That Helped One Man Mostly Retain His Sanity During 2020 is just published by Nuascealta. Kevin’s sixth full poetry collection, Ecstatic, will be published by Salmon Publishing. Kevin is on Twitter at https://twitter.com/KevinHIpoet1967 and you can find out more about Over the Edge at https://twitter.com/OverTheEdgeOpen and for more information about forthcoming events check out the website below…
http://overtheedgeliteraryevents.blogspot.com/
Susan Millar DuMars was born in Philadelphia but has lived in Galway for the past twenty years. Her debut poetry collection, Big Pink Umbrella, was published by Salmon Poetry in 2008. Her next collection, Dreams for Breakfast, appeared in April 2010. Her work features in Landing Places, Dedalus’ 2010 anthology of immigrant poetry written in Ireland; and also in The Best Of Irish Poetry 2010. A fiction writer as well, she published a collection of short stories, American Girls, with Lapwing in 2007. She published a book of short stories in 2010: Lights in the Distance, published by Doire Press, and was the Featured Fiction writer in the American online magazine The Atticus Review. She has been the recipient of two Arts Council Literature Bursaries (2005 & 2020). Susan’s third collection of poetry, The God Thing, was published by Salmon Poetry in 2013; her fourth collection, Bone Fire, was launched at the 2015 Cúirt Festival of International Literature. She lives in Galway, where she and her husband have run the Over the Edge readings series since 2003. Susan edited the anthology Over the Edge – The First Ten years, published by Salmon, which includes work by forty seven writers who have published a first book since they did a reading at an Over The Edge: Open Reading in Galway City Library. Susan’s Naked: New & Selected Poems was published in Spring 2019 by Salmon Poetry. In March 2020 she received a literature bursary from the Arts Council of Ireland to work on her highly anticipated forthcoming collection of short stories.
For more information about Salmon poetry…
Kevin Bateman is a Surrealist poet from Galway currently based in his mind who has created at a variety of Events In Spiritual Places That People Have Forgotten To Visit. He has been short listed for the Saboteur Awards in 2017 and 2019 for his events and his poem have been published in many journals including in The Runt Magazine issue 7, 9 and 10, Beir Bua Journal, Fly on the wall Press, BlueFoot Press. He is on Twitter at https://twitter.com/Bate_Kevin and you can watch his poetry events on Youtube by following the link below…
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwmrm_0baN66mAH-02zrmmA?view_as=subscriber
Anne Walsh Donnelly lives in Ireland with two teenagers and works as a Student Services Officer in a third-level college. Her work has been published in several literary outlets including The Irish Times, Crannog, Boyne Berries, The Blue Nib, Cold Coffee Stand, Ariel, Heart and Humanity, Inside the Bell Jar, Please Hear What I’m Not Saying and Star82 Review. Her short stories have been shortlisted in competitions such as the Over The Edge New Writer of the Year Award (2014, 2016), Fish International Prize (2015) and the RTE Radio One Frances Mac Manus competition (2014, 2015). Her poems were highly commended in the Over The Edge New Writer of the Year Award (2017 & 2018). She won the Spring 2018 Blue Nib poetry chapbook competition and also the 2018 Over the Edge Fiction Slam. She was also nominated for the Pushcart Prize in 2018. Her debut chapbook A Woman with An Owl Tattoo and her full collection Odd as Fuck are both published by Fly on the Wall Press. Anne is on Twitter at https://twitter.com/AnneWDonnelly and you can read more of her poetry at Poethead…
https://poethead.wordpress.com/2019/11/18/mna-na-heireann-and-other-poems-by-anne-walsh-donnelly/
Anne’s collections are available at Fly on the Wall Press…
https://www.flyonthewallpress.co.uk/product-page/odd-as-f-ck-by-anne-walsh-donnelly
https://www.flyonthewallpress.co.uk/product-page/the-woman-with-an-owl-tattoo-by-anne-walsh-donnelly
Paul McCarrick has been published in Crannóg, The Ogham Stone, Honest Ulsterman, The Stinging Fly, Poetry Ireland Review, and elsewhere. In 2019, he was selected to take part in the 2019 Poetry Ireland Introductions Series. He was also awarded an ArtsBursaries Grant from Westmeath County Council. He lives in the midlands in Ireland where is currently completing his first collection. Paul was one of the featured writers recently at the Cuirt New Writing Showcase and there is a link below to watch the event on You Tube. Paul is on Twitter at https://twitter.com/PaulMcCarrick and you can watch the video of Paul reading his poem Promise of a sunny day at the link below…
The Cuirt Festival New Writing Showcase 2021 hosted by Susan Millar DuMars featuring Paul…
Annraoi de Paor was born in Waterford. He was a Professor Emeritus of Electrical Engineering, University College Dublin as well as a writer and translator. He is a Irish history, language and folklore enthusiast. In addition to a long career of academic writing and publication, Annraoi de Paor has written four Irish language books, all published by Coiscéim; Buan ar Buairt (1985) le Annraoi de Paor (úrscéal) Dubček faoi cháil is faoi scáil (1997) le Tereza Michalová, arna aistriú ag Annraoi de Paor (bailiúchán d’ailt) Beirt Mhairnéalach (2003) le Alfred Tennyson & Samuel Taylor Coleridge, arna aistriú ag Annraoi de Paor (leaganacha Gaeilge de “Ulysses” Tennyson agus “Ancient Mariner” Coleridge) Duanaire Daonscoile (2014) le Annraoi de Paor (Eagarthóir). In 2013, Tyndall Scientific published Annraoi’s “An Illustrated Collection of Limericks for Engineers & Physicists”, with cartoons by Jane Courtney. Although now out of print, it is available to view online at the following link
http://limericks-depaor.localdem.net/index.html
To buy his latest collection Cuimhní Oisín, Some Lays of the Fianna click below…
Eilín de Paor lives in Dublin and works in health and social care, was selected for The Stinging Fly Summer School 2019, her poems have been published by Algebra of Owls, Ink, Sweat and Tears, The Bangor Literary Journal, The Stony Thursday Book, Vox Galvia, Abridged and Dreich (upcoming). Eilín is on Twitter at https://twitter.com/edepaor and you can read more of her poems at The Organic Poet at the link below…
https://www.theorganicpoet.com/post/on-howth-head-edepaor
Keep up -to-date with all of Dreich publications here…
Eleanor Hooker’s third collection, Of Ochre and Ash will be published by Dedalus Press and she has two chapbooks due for publication later this year. She is a recipient of the Markievicz Award 2021. Her two other poetry collections with Dedalus Press are: A Tug of Blue (2016); The Shadow Owner’s Companion (2012). Eleanor holds an MPhil (Distinction) in Creative Writing from Trinity College, Dublin, an MA (Hons) in Cultural History from the University of Northumbria, and a BA (Hons 1st) from the Open University, UK. Eleanor is a Fellow of the Linnean Society of London (FLS). She is a helm and Press Officer for Lough Derg RNLI Lifeboat. Eleanor is on Twitter at https://twitter.com/EleanorHooker_ and you can find out more about her at…
For more information about Eleanor’s collections and Dedalus Press click below…
https://www.dedaluspress.com/authors/hooker-eleanor/
Theresa Donnelly is an Irish/Canadian poet was born and educated in Dublin. She attended the Richemont Cookery School in Luzern, Switzerland; worked in hospitality and culinary management. She is also a qualified Makeup Artist who has dabbled in interior design and antique collecting. Living abroad in a variety of countries enabled her to become socially involved in their communities. These experiences are reflected in her poetry. Her work has been published with Beret Days Press , The Copperfield Review, Verse Fire, Buried Horror, Red Claw Press, The Brooklyn Towncrier, Surfacing Magazine, UCD Library Poems for the Pandemic, The Caterpillar Magazine , Tales from the Forest, Dreich, Black Bough Poetry and she is a regular contributor to Poetry Ireland, Poetry Prompts. She is a founding member of The Brooklin Poetry Society and a member of The Ontario Poetry Society. She is the author of Moon Witch and Reoccurrence of Blue, presently working on the second collection for adults and fairy tale poems for children. Up until the pandemic, she was spending her time equally between Waterville, County Kerry and Brooklin, Ontario. Theresa is on Twitter at https://twitter.com/TheresaWriter and you can find out more about her work at her website…
Catherine Ann Cullen is the inaugural Poet in Residence at Poetry Ireland and an award-winning poet, songwriter and children’s writer. She has published three collections: A Bone in My Throat (Doghouse 2007), Strange Familiar (Doghouse 2013) and The Other Now (Dedalus Press, 2016). Two of her children’s books, The Magical, Mystical, Marvelous Coat (2001) and Thirsty Baby (2003), were published by Little, Brown in the US, the former winning a gold award for Poetry and Folklore. Her latest children’s book, All Better! Poems on Illness and Recovery (Little Island, 2019), was reimagined from Latvian. Catherine Ann Cullen has twice won the Francis Ledwidge Poetry Award, was joint first in the JoyceCycle Poetry Competition 2019 and has been shortlisted for many prizes including the Listowel Writers Week Irish Poem of the Year 2020. She has a PhD in Creative Writing from Middlesex University. She has presented at international conferences on ballads and on children’s literature, and published several chapters on broadside ballads. In 2020, Catherine Ann Cullen organised “Living Ghosts: A Tribute to Frank Harte in Poetry and Song” and curated Irish participation in the Irish Spanish Latin American Literary Festival. Her “Behind the Lines” series of videos, recorded during lockdown, has Irish poets discussing their own or favourite poems on the Leaving Certificate. Another lockdown project is a crowd-sourced rhyming alphabet of Dublin. She was awarded a Patrick and Katherine Kavanagh Fellowship 2018 and has received bursaries from the Arts Council of Ireland and Irish Writers Centre. Her work as A&L Goodbody Writer in Residence in East Wall won her the nationwide B2A award of Best Use of Creativity in the Community 2017. She works on the Trinity Access Programmes and is a former producer for RTÉ Radio 1. Catherine Ann is on Twitter at https://twitter.com/tarryathome and you can follow her at her website…
https://catherineanncullen.wordpress.com/
At Poetry Ireland you can follow her blog…
http://www.poetryireland.ie/poetinresidence/blog
And on YouTube you can find her videos…
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2RobusuSC2jxg-5aLkOIqQ
Aisling Keogh is a writer who lives in County Galway. She’s had stories and poems published with The Irish Independent, The Honest Ulsterman, Crannog Magazine, Wordlegs, Ropes, Bangor Literary Journal, A New Ulster, and anthologies in the U.K. and the U.S.A. Her first published short story, “How to Save a Life,” was shortlisted for the Hennessy Irish Literary Awards 2012, and in 2019 she was shortlisted for the Doolin Writer’s Weekend Short Story Competition. In 2020, she was selected, as one of three emerging writers, to read at the New Writers Showcase, as part of Cuirt International Festival of Literature. In her free time Aisling likes to write, sing, and try to play the guitar. Aisling is on Twitter at https://twitter.com/aislingtkeogh
Marty McKenna is an independent Irish poet born in Tyrone, now living and writing in Belfast. He works for the Belfast Trust and is currently publishing poems to put toward his forthcoming chapbook ‘Silent Stigma, Loud Leaf’. Poems have been published in Vernacularisms, Dreich and Blue Nib, among others; He won the Matrix Poetry Competition in 2017. When not writing poems he is out walking around the hills of Belfast with his daughter, Roisín. You can read Marty’s poem at the wonderful Feral Poetry by clicking the link below…
https://feralpoetry.net/untitled-by-marty-mckenna/
Cathy Carson is a cancer nurse, counsellor and spoken word performer from Co Down in Northern Ireland . She has performed at festivals and for radio and television. She has also featured on podcasts. The subjects in her work have also led to commissions and performances for charity events. She is published in “ The Bramley Anthology “ editions one and two and in “Her other language”, an anthology highlighting domestic violence. Her performances have been described as “ raw, honest and unflinching “ and focus on exploring human connection and condition. This year she has headlined at: Pic n mix, Oooh beehive, Crafty Crows, Fragmented voices, Stamford poetry and Lit up. She will soon headline at Flight of the DragonFly Spoken Word and the link is below. She is on Twitter at https://twitter.com/ourweekathy73. For Flight of the DragonFly details click below…
https://flightofthedragonfly.com/next-dragonflies/
Ruairí de Barra is from Co. Mayo and now resides in Co. Cork. He is a sailor, an award-winning military journalist, and a poet. His creative work has featured with Tinteán, A New Ulster, Live Encounters, Bangor Literary Journal, The Ranthology Anthology, Black Bough Poetry, The Boston Globe, Boston Accent, Poetry Jukebox, The Silence Anthology, Eat the Storms Podcast, The Cobh Chronicle. Ruairí is on Twitter at https://twitter.com/r_debarra and all his work can be read on his blog below…
https://paperneverrefusedink.com/about/
Damien B Donnelly returned to Ireland at the end of 2019 after 23 years in Paris, London and Amsterdam, working as a pattern maker in the fashion industry. His writing focuses on identity, fragility and connection. His daily interests revolve around falling over and learning how to get back up while baking rather delicious cakes, especially carrot cake! His short stories have been featured in the Irish best-selling short story anthology; A Page from My Life/Harper Collins, Body Horror/Gehenna & Hinnom, Coffin Bell & Prismatica. His poetry has appeared online and in print including Black Bough, Barren Magazine, Impspired, Neurological, The Adriatic, Fahmidan Journal, Anti-Heroin Chic, Fevers of the Mind, Bealtaine, 2 Metre Review and coming soon in both The Bangor Literary Journal and Ice Floe Press. His debut poetry pamphlet Eat the Storms was published by The Hedgehog Poetry Press in Sept 2020 and nominated for a Pushcart Prize and was featured on the Poetry Book Society Winter List 2020/21. He followed Storms with his Stickleback, Considering Canvases with Boys (micro collection) in Jan 2021, also from The Hedgehog Poetry Press. He is the producer and host of the poetry podcast Eat The Storms which he created in 2020 as a platform for all poets, at all stages of their careers, published or not, a space to share and shine.
https://www.hedgehogpress.co.uk/
My Stickleback poetry collection is available to buy here…
Book Shop: Stickleback
My debut collection Eat the Storms is available here…
Book Shop: Eat the Storms
If you have questions, comments, improvements, desires to be a guest poet on the show, then please drop me an email at eatthestorms@yahoo.com
Until next time… Stay Bloody Poetic!
Damien B Donnelly
You can find us on many platforms including Spotify and here is the link…
Storm Shelter 