John Hewitt Summer School - Poetry Readings
Monday 22 - Friday 25 July - The Market Place Theatre
Event: John Hewitt Summer School - Poetry Readings
Date: Monday 22 - Friday 25 July 2024
Time: Various Times - See Below
Location: The Marketplace Theatre, 9 Market St, Armagh BT61 7BW
Price: See Below
Tickets: See Below
Poetry at the John Hewitt Summer School
Monday 22nd July: Paul Meehan & Theo Dorgan (7.00pm)
Tickets: £13 - Book Here
Gala Poetry Reading with Paula Meehan and Theo Dorgan
Paula Meehan is among the best-known and most admired of contemporary Irish poets. Born in 1955 in Dublin where she still lives, she has published seven collections of poems including, most recently, ‘The Solace of Artemis’ as well as ‘As If By Magic: Selected Poems’ (2021). Paula is a member of Aosdána and from 2013 to 2016 she was Ireland Professor of Poetry. Her lectures from this time were published in 2016, titled ‘Imaginary Bonnets with Real Bees in Them’.
Paula Meehan is that rare and precious thing—a vocational poet of courage and integrity - Carol Ann Duffy
Theo Dorgan is one of Ireland’s foremost poets. In ‘Once Was a Boy’, his vivid, unsparing, new collection, he reaches deep into his Cork childhood to examine, among other things, the wellsprings of what would become a life in poetry. His most recent collections of poetry are ‘Nine Bright Shiners’ (2014) and 'Orpheus' (2018). Awards include the Irish Times | Poetry Now Prize, Listowel Prize for Poetry and The O’Shaughnessy Prize for Irish Poetry. He is a member of Aosdána.
Theo Dorgan … one of the great keepers of the Grail of Irish poetry in the current era - Bernad O’Donoghue
Tuesday 23rd July: Susie Dickie & Katie Donovan (11.15am)
Tickets: £10 - Book Here
Poetry Reading
Katie Donovan is a writer, a published poet and a facilitator. Her sixth collection of poetry, May Swim, has just been published by Bloodaxe Books UK. Her fifth collection, Off Duty (Bloodaxe, 2016) was shortlisted for the “Irish Times”/Poetry Now Prize. In 2017 she received the O’Shaughnessy Award for Irish Poetry. Her work has been widely anthologised and she has given poetry readings at many of the major Irish festivals, and abroad (UK, US, France, Belgium, Spain, Portugal). A native of Co. Wexford, Katie has resided in Dalkey, Co. Dublin for many years.
Susannah Dickey is a writer from Derry. The author of four pamphlets, Ihad some very slight concerns (2017), genuine human values (2018), bloodthirsty formarriage (2020) and Oh! (2022), her poems have been published in The Poetry Review, The TLS, Poetry London and Poetry Ireland Review, amongst others. Her two novels, both published by Doubleday UK, are Tennis Lessons (2020), and Common Decency (2022). Susie’s much-anticipated debut poetry collection, ISDAL (Picador, 2023), was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection and the John Pollard Prize and Guardian and Irish Times Book of the Year 2023.
Wednesday 24th: Mícheál McCann & Adam Lowe (11.15am)
Tickets: £10 - Book Here
Poetry Reading
Adam Lowe is a writer of British, Irish and Black Caribbean heritage. He is the UK’s LGBT+ History Month Poet Laureate and was Yorkshire’s Poet for 2012. Adam is a graduate of The Complete Works, Obsidian and Inscribe. His debut poetry collection, Patterflash (Peepal Tree Press, 2023) is a PBS Recommendation, acclaimed by The Big Issue, and featured on BBC radio. adam-lowe.com/
A collection of ecstatic queer hymns that walk us through Leeds, through Manchester, with the unique language of being young and queer in the north - Andrew McMillan
Mícheál McCann has just launched his debut poetry collection, Devotion with Gallery Press. Author of the poetry pamphlet Safe Home (Green Bottle Press, 2020), his poems have been published in The Poetry Review, Poetry Ireland Review and Banshee, Romance Options (Dedalus Press, 2023), anthologised in Queering the Green (Lifeboat Press, 2021), and broadcast on RTÉ and BBC. A native of Derry City, he is a Poetry PhD graduate from the Seamus Heaney Centre at Queen’s University Belfast, where he is the 2024 Publishing Fellow.
Thursday 25th July: Nithy Kasa & Martina Evans (11.15am)
Tickets: £10 - Book Here
Poetry Reading
Nithy Kasa is a Congolese born poet based in Dublin.Her debut poetry collection, Palm Wine Tapper and The Boy at Jericho was shortlisted for the 2023 Pigott Poetry Prize and featured among the top 2022 poetry books by the Irish Times.Her work features on the Adrian Brinkerhoff Poetry Foundation, the University of Galway’s archive, the Special Collections of University College Dublin, Poetry Ireland Review and others. She is among the ten poets selected for Poetry as Commemoration for the Decade of Centenaries programme by University College Dublin.
Martina Evans is an Irish poet, novelist and teacher who lives in London.The author of thirteen books of poetry and prose. Her latest poetry collection American Mules (Carcanet, 2021) won the 2022 Pigott Poetry Prize and was the Times Literary Supplement (TLS) and Sunday Independent Book of the Year.Her latest narrative poem, The Coming Thing (Carcanet, 2023) is a brilliant long narrative poem and is a TLS Book of the Year. Martina is a Royal Literary Fund Advisory Fellow and Books Critic for the Irish Times.
Friday 26th July: Dawn Watson & Scott McKendry (11.15am)
Tickets: £10 - Book Here
Poetry Reading
Dawn Watson is a writer from Belfast. Her debut collection We Play Here (Granta Poetry) was a Guardian Poetry Book of the Year 2023 and was shortlisted for the John Pollard International Poetry Prize for an outstanding debut. It was described as an “extraordinary, game-changing narrative long poem” by Luke Kennard. Her pamphlet The Stack of Owls is Getting Higher was published by The Emma Press (2019). In 2022, Dawn graduated with a Poetry PhD at the Seamus Heaney Centre Queen’s University Belfast where she is now a lecturer in creative writing.
Scott McKendry is poet-critic and educator from North Belfast. His poems were published in The Poetry Review, The Stinging Fly, Virginia Quarterly Review and elsewhere. In 2019 he was won the Patrick Kavanagh Poetry Award and his pamphlet, Curfuffle (Lifeboat Press), was selected by the Poetry Book Society for their Autumn Choice.He recently published first full poetry collection, GUB (Little, Brown, 2024) to high acclaim.
‘GUB is unlike anything I have ever read… exhilarating, hilarious…The most exciting poet to come out of the north of Ireland in years’ Louise Kennedy, author of Tresspasses.
Books will be available from the No Alibis stall at The Market Place Threatre.
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