Fifth Anniversary Celebration of iYeats Poetry Competition

The Hawk's Well Theatre Sligo, has organised a 5th anniversary celebration of the iYeats Poetry Competition in the theatre on 3 August, at 8pm. This event, entitled ALOUD  will also include the announcement of this year's winners.

The celebration will include readings from Mary Branley, Gerald Dawe, Katie Donovan, James Harpur, Paula Meehan, Niall McMonagle and Enda Wyley all distinguished poets and past judges of the iYeats online international poetry competition.

The readings will be complemented by invited musicians including American Kyle Alden, a San Francisco based singer/songwriter best known for his award winning folk music settings of W.B. Yeats' poetry.

This is a Tread Softly Yeats Festival Season event. Tickets can be booked on the website.

As a commended poet in the iYeats Competition in 2010 I was invited to attend but unfortunately cannot as I will be attending the Fermoy Poetry Festival at that time. I will be attending the Poets Parlour event in the Yeats Memorial Building later that week on the Friday 9 August, at 1pm.

November On The Nail Limerick

Photographs from last week's On The Nail reading in Limerick can be seen here. It was the usual enjoyable event with three featured readers, Greagóir Ó Dúill, James Harpur and myself. Gregóir read in Irish and English and included his wonderful A Ford Anglia dumped on a High Bog Road from his latest Doghouse collection Outward and Return.

James read from his fifth poetry collection Angels and Harvesters. Among those he read was The Leper's Squint about the feature in St Mary's Cathedral, Limerick, which allowed lepers get communion without being part of the congregation.

I was nominated to go first and chose poems from my book which I hadn't read in Limerick. I started with a history poem, one on the Public Records Office UK at Kew. I also read two more recent poems both connected with Limerick, one called Limerick Cafe and the other Lough Gur Stone Circle which was included in the Stony Thursday Book.

The Open Mic was great, with a great variety of themes and styles. We had an extract from a novel, some short fiction and even a poem consisting of limericks for the day that was in it - the US election. Retired American high school teacher, John Pinschmidt, left noone in any doubt where his absentee vote went. He must have been very happy the following morning.

We also had two Limerick writers reading pieces which we published in the most recent Boyne Berries. Caroline Graham read her flash fiction End of the Storm and Sheila Fitzpatrick O'Donnell her poem Summer of '75.

On The Nail November: James Harpur, Michael Farry, Gregóir Ó Dúill

Back to Limerick again! I'm one of the three featured readers tonight, Tuesday's On The Nail reading.

The Limerick Writers' Centre Presents The November 'On The Nail' Literary Gathering on Tuesday next 6 November 2012 at The Loft Venue at The Locke Bar, Georges Quay, Limerick at 8.00pm.

Gréagóir Ó Dúill is a fellow Doghouse author. His collection New Room Windows (Doghouse, Tralee) was published in 2008 and this year saw the publication of Outward and Return. Dublin-born, he is much published in Irish with nine collections, he was awarded first prize for a new collection in the 2010 Oireachtas, and Comhar issued his new selected verse, Annála in 2011.

James Harpur has had five poetry collections published by Anvil Press. His latest book, Angels and Harvesters (2012), was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation; The Dark Age (2007) won the Michael Hartnett Award; Oracle Bones (2001) was a Tablet Book of the Year; and The Monk’s Dream (1996) includes the sonnet sequence that won the British National Poetry Competition.


Everyone is invited to take part in the open-mic after the main event, poets, storytellers, musicians and writers . Even if you don't write you are welcome to bring something along to read. The night begins at 8.00pm and admission is free. So join us on the night and make this event something special.