Amergin Online
This week we have a slightly different offering with a stunning poetry film from Pat Boran paired with a reading by John McAuliffe, with more exceptional music from Su Garrido Pombo.
PAT BORAN was born in 1963 in Portlaoise, in the Irish midlands, and has long since lived in Dublin. He has held a number of posts as Writer-in-Residence with libraries and third-level institutions. He has published more than a dozen books of poetry and prose, most recently Then Again (Dedalus Press, 2019) and Waveforms: Bull Island Haiku (Orange Crate Books, 2016) with photographs by the author. A Man Is Only As Good: A Pocket Selected Poems was published in 2017 by Orange Crate Books. Editions of his poetry have been published in Italian, Hungarian, Macedonian and Portuguese, with further works in progress. Pat Boran's non-fiction includes the popular writers' handbook The Portable Creative Writing Workshop (various editions) and A Short History of Dublin (Mercier Press). His humorous memoir The Invisible Prison: Scenes from an Irish Childhood, was published by Dedalus Press in 2009 and published in Italian as Un'Infanzia Irlandese in 2019 by Edizioni Kolibris. A former editor of Poetry Ireland Review and a former presenter of The Poetry Programme and The Enchanted Way on RTÉ Radio 1, Pat Boran has edited numerous anthologies, among them Wingspan: A Dedalus Sampler (2006), Flowing, Still: Irish Poets on Irish Poetry (2009), The Bee-Loud Glade (2009), Shine On: Irish writers supporting those affected by mental ill health (2011), the 2014 Dublin One City, One Book choice If Ever You Go: A Map of Dublin in Poetry and Song (with co-editor Gerard Smyth) and, with co-editor Eugene O'Connell, The Deep Heart's Core: Irish Poets Revisit a Touchstone Poem (2017). During lockdown in Spring 2020 he edited and produced The Word Ark: A Pocket Book of Animal Poems, illustrated by the Sicilian artist Gaetano Tranchino. Pat Boran’s distinctions include The Patrick Kavanagh Award in 1989 and the US-based Lawrence O'Shaughnessy Poetry Award in 2008. He is a member of Aosdána, the Irish affiliation of creative artists. (See also www.patboran.com)
Su Garrido Pombo Award-winning singer-songwriter Su Garrido Pombo incorporates Latin, Jazz, Bossa and Folk into her music. She studied guitar and musicology at the Universities of Salamanca and Granada and took a second degree in Art History in the Universities of Santiago and Florence. She has toured throughout Europe and North America with the folk group Lembranzas Galegas and later with her group Sonhos with whom she wrote and recorded the prize-winning album Sonhos. With her band Treme, she was awarded the Galician music prize Musicaxove 15 for best Galician group. She has also been awarded the Premio NARF in 2018 for Best Galician Musician and The Martin Codax Prize for Best Singer-Songwriter in 2019. Su shares her time between Galicia and Ireland. http://sugarridopombo.com/
John McAuliffe’s fifth poetry collection, The Kabul Olympics, was published by The Gallery Press in April 2020. Described by the PBS as “one of the most gifted and versatile poets of his generation”, his versions of the Bosnian poet Igor Klikovac, Stockholm Syndrome (Smith Doorstop), was a Poetry Book Society Spring Pamphlet Choice in 2019, and his previous book The Way In (Gallery) won the Michael Hartnett Award in 2016. He lives in Manchester, where he teaches poetry at the University of Manchester’s Centre for New Writing. He also writes a regular column for The Irish Times and co-edits the online journal, The Manchester Review.
Seán Dennehy is a Clare poet and singer living and working in Dublin. In 2012 he won the final of the All Ireland Poetry Slam in Cork. His first collection in print, No Poetry, was published in 2013 by QS Press. In May 2015 he presented Pieces in Project Arts Centre, a night of poetry and song showcasing his own work and that of his favourite poets. Following the success of Pieces he presented a festive follow up, Christmas Pieces in December 2015. His debut album of recorded spoken word and song, What it feels like, was released in May 2019.
Su Garrido Pombo Award-winning singer-songwriter Su Garrido Pombo incorporates Latin, Jazz, Bossa and Folk into her music. She studied guitar and musicology at the Universities of Salamanca and Granada and took a second degree in Art History in the Universities of Santiago and Florence. She has toured throughout Europe and North America with the folk group Lembranzas Galegas and later with her group Sonhos with whom she wrote and recorded the prize-winning album Sonhos. With her band Treme, she was awarded the Galician music prize Musicaxove 15 for best Galician group. She has also been awarded the Premio NARF in 2018 for Best Galician Musician and The Martin Codax Prize for Best Singer-Songwriter in 2019. Su shares her time between Galicia and Ireland. http://sugarridopombo.com/
Polina Cosgrave was born in Volgograd. Her poetry was featured on national radio and TV in Russia. She came to Ireland in 2016 to get an MA in Creative Writing. Her work has been published in a number of journals and anthologies, including Writing Home by Dedalus Press. Next week we welcome Eva Bourke, Breanndán Ó Beaglaoich and Greg Delanty to Amergin Steps Online at 7.00pm Saturday 9th January.
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Peter Sirr
has published ten collections, of which the most recent are The Gravity Wave (2019), a Poetry Book Society recommendation and Sway (2016), versions of poems from the troubadour tradition. The Rooms (2014) was shortlisted for the Irish Times Poetry Now Award and the Pigott Poetry Prize. The Thing Is (2009), was awarded the Michael Hartnett Prize in 2011. He is a member of Aosdána.
Each poem seems written with immense care, not only to arrange words scintillatingly, but also to preserve the briefest, most otherwise-ephemeral details. Reading these poems, we’re reminded that exactly where we’re vulnerable is where change is possible.’— from the PBS judge’s citation for The Gravity Wave. ‘Everyone who takes poetry seriously should read him attentively.’–Bernard O’Donoghue, The Irish Times
Breanndán Ó Beaglaoich
Is boscadóir agus amhránaí cáiliúil ó Chorca Dhuibhne é Breanndán Ó Beaglaíoch ó theaghlach go bhfuil ceol traidisiúnta sa smior iontu. Tá aithne forleathan air mar cheoltóir, bádóir, láithreoir teilifíse, áisitheoir ceardlainne agus mar chathaoirleach ar Scoil Cheoil an Earraigh i gCorca Dhubhne. Tá ceithre albam aonair aige, maraon le go leor taifeadtaí le ceoltóirí iomráiteacha eile. Is minic é ar stáitse le leithéidí na Boys of the Lough, na Chieftains, Stocktons Wing, Na Casadaigh, Seán Davey srl. Chomh maith lena mhac Cormac. D’oibrigh sé le Philip King, Niamh Ní Bhaoill, agus Nuala O’Connor ar go leor léiriúcháin do TG4, ina measc Caipíní, Sé mo Laoch agus Cérbh É agus tá sé le feiscint ar an scannán le Dónal Ó Céilleachair Camino na Sáile a bhuaigh go leor gradaim ag féiltí scannáin. Dar leis féin ní bheadh ann dá cheol mura mbeadh na sléibhte, na farraigí agus na stoirmeacha ina áit dúchais féin i gCorca Dhuibhne.
Breanndán Ó Beaglaoich, from a well- known traditional music family, is known far and wide as an exceptional box player and singer from the Corca Dhuibhne Gaeltacht in Kerry. He has carved a name for himself as a musician, a boatman, TV presenter, a workshop facilitator and as an organiser of the annual Scoil Cheol an Earraigh in Corca Dhuibhne. He has recorded four solo albums as well as others with many acclaimed musicians. He has played with The Boys of the Lough, Na Casadaigh, Seán Davey etc as well as with his talented son Cormac. He has worked on music projects for TG4 with Philip King, Niamh Ní Bhaoill, Nuala O’Connor for such programmes as Caipíní, Sé mo Laoch, and Cérbh É. and he featured in Dónal Ó Céilleachair’s award winning film Camino na Sáile. He himself has said that without the mountains, seas and storms of Corca Dhuibhne he would have no music.
Enda Wyley
lives in Dublin and is a member of Aosdána. She has published six collections of poetry with Dedalus Press from her debut Eating Baby Jesus, (199233 ) through to Borrowed Space, New and Selected Poems. ( 2014) Her work has been widely broadcast and anthologised and she was the inaugural winner of the Vincent Buckley Poetry Prize, twice a winner of the British National Poetry Competition and a recipient of a Patrick and Katherine Kavanagh Fellowship for her poetry. Her most recent book of poetry is The Painter on his Bike, 2019. The UK poet Peter Robinson reviewing it in Dublin Review of Books, 2020, wrote; ‘it is the balancing act of drawing transitory subjects from the experiences of a life, presenting them with a deftness and lightness of touch that still delivers a weight of implication, while yet shunning overt claims to attention, that I found so captivating, so enabling in Enda Wyley’s The Painter on his Bike.’
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Welcome to Amergin Steps Online. We hope you can join us from the comfort and safety of your home. The series will be available on our website amerginpoetry.com and on our social medias @amerginpoetry. We hope enjoy.
To kick off the series we welcome two formidable poets Paddy Bushe and Paul Casey and a wonderful musician Breanndán Ó Beaglaoich.
Paddy Bushe
Born in Dublin in 1948, Paddy Bushe lives in Kerry and is a poet, editor and translator in both Irish and English. His collections include Poems With Amergin (1989), Digging Towards The Light (1994), In Ainneoin na gCloch (2001), Hopkins on Skellig Michael (2001), The Nitpicking of Cranes (2004), To Ring in Silence: New and Selected Poems (2008), My Lord Buddha of Carraig Éanna (2012) and On A Turning Wing (2016). He edited the anthology Voices at the World’s Edge: Irish Poets on Skellig Michael (Dedalus, 2010). The recipient of the Oireachtas prize for poetry in 2006, he also received the 2006 Michael Hartnett Poetry Award and the 2017 Irish Times Poetry Now Award. Two new books, Peripheral Vision, a collection in English, and Second Sight, a selection of his poems in Irish with his own translations, have recently been published by Dedalus. He is a member of Aosdána
Breanndán Ó Beaglaoich
Is boscadóir agus amhránaí cáiliúil ó Chorca Dhuibhne é Breanndán Ó Beaglaíoch ó theaghlach go bhfuil ceol traidisiúnta sa smior iontu. Tá aithne forleathan air mar cheoltóir, bádóir, láithreoir teilifíse, áisitheoir ceardlainne agus mar chathaoirleach ar Scoil Cheoil an Earraigh i gCorca Dhubhne. Tá ceithre albam aonair aige, maraon le go leor taifeadtaí le ceoltóirí iomráiteacha eile. Is minic é ar stáitse le leithéidí na Boys of the Lough, na Chieftains, Stocktons Wing, Na Casadaigh, Seán Davey srl. Chomh maith lena mhac Cormac. D’oibrigh sé le Philip King, Niamh Ní Bhaoill, agus Nuala O’Connor ar go leor léiriúcháin do TG4, ina measc Caipíní, Sé mo Laoch agus Cérbh É agus tá sé le feiscint ar an scannán le Dónal Ó Céilleachair Camino na Sáile a bhuaigh go leor gradaim ag féiltí scannáin. Dar leis féin ní bheadh ann dá cheol mura mbeadh na sléibhte, na farraigí agus na stoirmeacha ina áit dúchais féin i gCorca Dhuibhne.
Breanndán Ó Beaglaoich, from a well- known traditional music family, is known far and wide as an exceptional box player and singer from the Corca Dhuibhne Gaeltacht in Kerry. He has carved a name for himself as a musician, a boatman, TV presenter, a workshop facilitator and as an organiser of the annual Scoil Cheol an Earraigh in Corca Dhuibhne. He has recorded four solo albums as well as others with many acclaimed musicians. He has played with The Boys of the Lough, Na Casadaigh, Seán Davey etc as well as with his talented son Cormac. He has worked on music projects for TG4 with Philip King, Niamh Ní Bhaoill, Nuala O’Connor for such programmes as Caipíní, Sé mo Laoch, and Cérbh É. and he featured in Dónal Ó Céilleachair’s award winning film Camino na Sáile. He himself has said that without the mountains, seas and storms of Corca Dhuibhne he would have no music.
Paul Casey
Paul Casey has published poems in numerous journals and anthologies in Ireland and internationally, most recently in Pratik and New Coin. His collection Virtual Tides (2016) was published by Salmon Poetry, which followed home more or less (Salmon, 2012) and It's Not all Bad (Heaventree Press, 2009). He is the recipient of three writing bursaries from the Cork City Arts Office. He created a poetry-film of Ian Duhig’s The Lammas Hireling (on vimeo). He edits the annual Unfinished Book of Poetry for secondary school students and promotes poetry in his role as director of Ó Bhéal in Cork - www.obheal.ie