Yesterday was All-Ireland Poetry Day, celebrated with readings in every county in Ireland. Cork's session was hosted by the ever-gracious Clonakilty library (housed in a renovated corn mill), with poets Tom McCarthy, Catherine Phil MacCarthy and Ian Wilde.
Poetry and the Internet share a similar obstacle: at times, it's like sifting for gold; you have to trawl through a lot of rubbish to get to the good stuff (or to continue the corn-grainey theme, there's a whole lotta chaff to separate). Last night was like stumbling upon the perfect internet portal site, maintained by users a bit cleverer, sharper, a bit more visionary than you yourself.
The poems, styles, themes, deliveries were all pleasingly diverse, and while there was talk of writers and writing and writers-on-writing, there was plenty about other media; words that had been inspired by a Rodin sculpture, or a painting, or a friend's turn of phrase. It reminded me of a quote from sculptor Antony Gormley: "I want to start where language ends". And so he sculpts, and perhaps his work inspires a poem, which inspires a painting, which inspires a quirky remark, which a poet overhears and it resonates with them, and on and on.
It was a treat.
Poetry and the Internet share a similar obstacle: at times, it's like sifting for gold; you have to trawl through a lot of rubbish to get to the good stuff (or to continue the corn-grainey theme, there's a whole lotta chaff to separate). Last night was like stumbling upon the perfect internet portal site, maintained by users a bit cleverer, sharper, a bit more visionary than you yourself.
The poems, styles, themes, deliveries were all pleasingly diverse, and while there was talk of writers and writing and writers-on-writing, there was plenty about other media; words that had been inspired by a Rodin sculpture, or a painting, or a friend's turn of phrase. It reminded me of a quote from sculptor Antony Gormley: "I want to start where language ends". And so he sculpts, and perhaps his work inspires a poem, which inspires a painting, which inspires a quirky remark, which a poet overhears and it resonates with them, and on and on.
It was a treat.
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