Cork Spring Poetry Festival

Cork Spring Poetry Festival started on Wednesday and continues until Saturday night. It has a great mixture of events with a good selection of Irish and foreign poets reading. Full programme here.

Among the unusual events are the Cork Debutantes Reading: These are readings by four Cork poets who have all had début collections published in the last year: Paul Casey, author of home more or less; Kathy D'Arcy, author of The Wild Pupil; Afric McGlinchey, author of The Lucky Star of Hidden Things; and Mary Noonan, author of The Fado House. This was held on Wednesday.

Another similar event is the The Emerging Poets Reading on Saturday afternoon. This showcases five writers of talent who have yet to publish a full-length collection of poems, include Kate Dempsey, Cal Doyle, Annemarie Ní Churreáin, Kerrie O'Brien, and Fiona Smith.

I'm attending the Saturday morning workshop/masterclass with award-winning American poet Carolyn Forché (above) whose most recent collections include The Angel of History, Blue Hour and In the Lateness of the World. I'm looking forward to this.

We each submitted a poem for discussion at the event. So do you submit your "best" poem - sensitive to what the other poets might think, or do you submit one you think needs improving advice? I chose the latter.