Poetry Town Wexford began on Friday (September 10) with a highly anticipated free reading/workshop (booking essential) by one of Ireland’s best known poets, Stephen James Smith, the first of several live readings at Wexford Library, including Patrick Kehoe, Margaret Galvin and Poet Laureate Sasha Terfous.
The programme:
Friday, September 10, 2 p.m.
Workshop/Reading
Workshop/reading at 2 p.m. in the library courtyard with Stephen James Smith, poet and playwright who is central to the rise of the vibrant spoken word scene in Ireland today. To date, his poetry videos, such as My Ireland and Dublin You Are have amassed over three million views online. Stephen recently performed for three consecutive evenings at the internationally acclaimed Borris book festival.
Saturday, September 11, 1.15 p.m.
Poetry at Jazz at Johnstown
Joe Neal will read a jazz inspired poem, outside the café at Johnstown Castle, prior to the performance of the Kevin Lawlor Quintet at the Jazz at Johnstown event, to mark Poetry Town’s Chemist & Café poem series.
Saturday, September 11
Filíocht faoi bhláth
Wexford poet Mary O’Brien is comfortable writing in English and Irish. Two of her nature-inspired poems, including Ag an Slab Thuaidh, will be available to people attending Jazz at Johnstown at the Johnstown Castle, part of the Irish Heritage Trust.
Monday, September 13.
Workshop Championing the Value of Diversity
Margaret Galvin holds a BA in Social Care and an MA in Child, Youth and Family Studies. She has a particular interest in making poetry available to diverse groups of people and has successfully facilitated workshops for students attending special schools and for adults attending day services. Margaret will facilitate a workshop for a group of adults with intellectual and /or physical challenges. During the workshop, participants will be guided in the writing of poems based on a rainbow hued variety of fruit. They’ll also discover how asking for a burger ‘with everything’ at the crazy cafe leads to some bizarre dining surprises! A delicious if off-beat morning of language, image and story is just a slice of melon or even a bee in a bonnet away!
Monday, September 13 – Saturday September 18
Seamus Heaney Between the Covers
An exhibition of first editions and memorabilia associated with Seamus Heaney, a frequent visitor to Co. Wexford, will be on display on the ground floor. Curated by Tom Mooney, Poetry Town co-ordinator for Wexford.
Monday, September 13 – Saturday September 18
Wexford Women Writing Undercover
The library will host a video installation of a dozen poems by poets from Front Room Poets and writers who appeared in the Wexford Women Writing Undercover anthology. The poems will be collated by Deirdre McGarry and curated for an innovative visual presentation by Tom Mooney. Deirdre edited Wexford Women Writing Undercover and was the founder of the Little Lights Fringe Poetry Festival in Bridlington, England
Tuesday, September 14, 7 p.m.
Poetry in the Courtyard
Enniscorthy poet Paddy Kehoe will read from recent work in the Wexford library courtyard at 7 p.m. His first poems were published by the late James Liddy: his debut collection, It’s Words You Want, appeared in 2011, followed by The Cask of Moonlight in 2014. He also composed the lyrics for an album with Sonny Condell, Seize The Day, in 2017. Another collection Places To Sleep was published in 2018.
Wednesday, September 15, Noon to 3 p.m.
Café & Chemist Poems Live !
Joe Neal has published half a dozen collections of poetry but he has also performed on stage, radio and television. Joe will visit several outdoor cafes along Wexford’s pedestrianised main street – the longest in the country – and perform ‘prescriptive’ poetry with dramatic fervour, with and without notes.
Wednesday, September 15, 1 p.m.
Poetry in the Courtyard
Margaret Galvin has lived in Wexford town for over forty years where she worked variously with the library service, as Editor of Ireland's Own and in Social Care. Her work is well represented in literary journals, most recently The Honest Ulsterman, The North, The Lake and in encounters.net Her collections include The Waiting Room (Doghouse), The Wardrobe Mistress and The Scattering Lawns (Lapwing). In 2019, in collaboration with Cahir Historical Society she brought out a collection of poetry, 'The Finer Points', detailing the experiences growing up in Ireland in the 1960s and 1970s.
Thursday, September 16, 6.30 p.m.
No Zoom: Poetry Outdoors and Live
A group of Wexford poets, known as Front Room Poets, are staging Poetry Allowed, a defiant response to Covid-19, a reading which will take place at St. Peter’s Bandstand.
Friday September 17, 2 p.m. – 2.45 p.m.
Visit to Presentation Secondary School
Reading of a poem by Sasha at the Presentation Secondary School before a class of Leaving Cert pupils, followed by questions and answers.
Friday, September 17, 4 p.m.
Reading by Sasha Terfous with Sinéad O’Reilly
Poetry Town laureate for Wexford, Sasha Terfous, will read in the library courtyard. Her professional career as a poet began in 2016 with Word Up Collective, a newly formed group bringing together Irish artists working in rap, hip-hop, and spoken word. Since then, she has performed for Red Bull, RTÉ Ireland, Dance 2 Connect, and other venues and events. In 2019, she participated in the Female Tribes project, the largest global study on contemporary women to date, becoming a voice for its arrival in Ireland. The poem she wrote for the occasion, Warrior Women, is a vehement, urgent response to the study’s findings that it has never been better to be a woman in Ireland. Sasha will be joined by young Wexford poet Sinead O’Reilly, one of the youngest poets ever to be published by The Irish Times (Ode to the Milkman). A four time award winner in the Trocaire Poetry Ireland Competition, Sinéad has also been commended in the Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award, the Patrick Kavanagh Student Poetry Awards and the RVEEH poetry competition. She was selected for the inaugural Edna O’Brien Young Writers Bursary. In 2019 she read alongside Paula Meehan at the Write ByThe Sea Festival in Kilmore Quay.
Friday, September 17, 7.30 p.m.
Sasha Terfous/Stephen James Smith
Poetry Town in association with Culture Night at Wexford Arts Centre
For the first time ever, two of Ireland’s most celebrated spoken word poets and performers will share the stage: Sasha Terfous was born and raised in New Ross where she was indoctrinated into a love of literature by her grandfather. Best known for the poems Identity and Warrior Women, Sasha has been appointed the Wexford Laureate for Poetry Town throughout September. She will debut her poem specially commissioned for Poetry Town at an evening performance at Wexford Arts Centre. Also participating at this event is Stephen James Smith - My Ireland, Dublin, You Are - a poet central to the rise of the vibrant spoken word scene in Ireland today.
Saturday, September 18, morning
Poetry Underfoot
In the morning, Poetry Underfoot artist Mary O’Connor will visualise a verse by the poet Doireann Ní Ghríofa near the entrance to the library. The lines of poetry are:
So throw open
the drapes
And praise
the rain.
Poetry Underfoot artist Mary was born in Wexford and studied visual communication and 3D design at DIT in Dublin, and painting at Chelsea College of Art, London, and in New Zealand. She has also lived in Belize and Kazakhstan, a place of vast landscapes and infinite white winters; during her time there she published two books of photojournalism on central Asia. Her work is included in many public and private collections including The OPW, The Environmental Protection Agency, Holles St. Hospital collection, and CITI. Mary’s paintings and prints are influenced by her surrounding, the vast landscapes encountered on her travels are conveyed through shapes, space and colours that emerge as non-representational abstract compositions. Cultures, travel, time, memory and flux are essential elements in her work.
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