IRISH POETRY READING ARCHIVE

 

If you have any interest at all in Irish poetry — and who hasn't! — you might like to visit the Irish Poetry Reading Archive, Ireland's only curated digital collection where the voices of Irish poets, both North and South, doing readings, scholarly masterclasses, and in conversation, along with digital copies of poetry related materials (anthologies programmes posters) are preserved for future generations. If you're in Dublin, you will find the archives in the James Joyce library at the University College of Dublin (UCD) otherwise you can jump online and find them here. 

Poets include everyone from Nuala Ní Dhomhniall and Mary Dorcey to Theo Dorgan and President Michael D Higgins to Andrew Jamison [related by chance?? — nee Jamison here] and Michael Longley to Medbh McGuckian, Maíghréad Medbh and Christine Murray. You will also find Australian poets Anne Casey, Robyn Rowland and myself, all part of the Irish diaspora. This is just a sampling — all the poets are fascinating. 

I must thank and thank Anne Casey who put the Archive in touch with me. It was such a great experience to visit the James Joyce Library and to meet co-founder Ursula Byrne and her team — great thanks indeed to them. It was fun too, travelling from Belfast to Dublin on the train with daughter Aroona Murphy and testing the Guinness at a couple of venues before the return trip. 

Here are my eight recorded poems, including links: 

A Woman’s Work (after Jenni Kemarre Martiniello) from The Wear of my Face (Spinifex Press 2021) 

The Weight of Tomatoes from Two Lips went Shopping (Spinifex Press 2000) 

$600 from Six Hundred Dollars (PressPress)  

Departure from Stop your Cryin (Island Press)  

Felt from The Wear of my Face (Spinifex Press 2021) 

Out of the White from Walk the Wildly (Picaro/Ginninderra)  

Brown Hills from Two Lips went Shopping (Spinifex Press 2000) 

Syria’s Children from The Wear of my Face (Spinifex Press 2021) 

Photo: A Dublin afternoon in January