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Pat
Winslow's blog / Thursday, 5 May 2011
/ Breathing Pure Oxygen /
I've just come back from the Strokestown Poetry Festival in
Ireland. If you've never been, let me tell you, it's a heady mix of poetry
in Gaelic and English...
The festival is unique in that it celebrates the best of a wide spectrum
of work. Friday's opening events included readings from shortlisted young
poets from schools around Co. Roscommon and performances from an
international shortlist of witty and satirical verse writers. It's not
unusual for this final event to spill over into one of the local pubs and
carry on into the wee hours. I'm pretty sure there were one or two
hangovers for the start of the next day. The last event on the Sunday is a
lively inter-pub competition. Never have I heard drinkers go so quiet when
a poem is being read out. You'd be hard pressed to find an English pub
crowd that showed such respect. Let me say this, loudly and very clearly,
Ireland is a civilized country.
Saturday's and Sunday's cornucopia was a dazzling showcase of poets from
the Gaeltacht and other parts of Ireland, the Scottish islands and English
speaking poets from Britain, the US, South Africa and Germany. Believe me,
this was first rate poetry. It was a joy to hear. It was also wonderful to
meet and talk to the poets. We were all up for prizes, but so many of us
said that just being there was prize enough. How many international
competitions pay you for coming to do a reading and then feed you such
nourishing fare all weekend?
If I single out the highlights for me, it doesn't mean I didn't rate those
who are not on my list. It's just that the poets I'm going to mention
somehow sharpened my ears and made me aware of particularly strong
resonances.
Suzanne Erhart has left me with some extraordinarily memorable images
and sounds. She's just won the Straid and will be launching her first
collection at the Derwent Poetry Festival in England later this year. Her
poetry has a wonderful economy. You get the sense that every word is
carefully weighed and turned over before it's selected. She doesn't dodge
'difficult' subjects. She holds them up to scrutiny. She's scrupulous and
her work has tremendous humanity. Integrity is a word that comes to mind.
Terrific integrity.
Áine Uí Fhoghlú is another poet who had an impact on many of us. She has
four books to her name and if ever a poet made me want to learn Gaelic,
this is one. Having said that, she provided some more than adequate
translations. It really can't be underestimated how challenging this is.
I've tried translating poems myself and it's impossible. At best, all one
can do is write a new poem. You're not just struggling to find words that
do the same job, you're attempting to translate concepts that have a
specific cultural currency. Bread to a Russian who's had to queue up for
hours only to find the price has risen fourfold is not the same as bread
to someone walking into Walmart for a cheap packaged loaf that tastes of
sugar and God knows how many chemicals. So, good on Áine for such strong
work in English, as well. She's a powerful performer of her poetry. She
has great presence.
It's always deeply pleasurable to hear Eileán Ní Chuilleanáin.
She's a very generous poet and editor of the highly esteemed
Cyphers
(read it!). She introduced Ndrek Gjini to us, an Albanian poet who had no
English ten years ago. There's something very interesting about writing in
a language that's not your own. It demands a simplicity of expression
which can sometimes be at odds with the depth and complexity of your
subject matter. But this is also rather exiting. It creates a strange
dynamic. It puts pressure on the language. I imagine this must also have
been true for Heather Clyne who is in her third year of a degree in Gaelic
Language and Culture. Yes, that's right, she's only been speaking Gaelic
for three years. Total immersion is the secret...
Yes, I shall enter the Strokestown competition
again. Why wouldn't I? As I've said, the prize is just being there." -
Pat
Winslow
...Send poems, send money, send friends and family, send your tired, your
poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe where poetry is FREE. But,
most of all, send yourself to help ensure that an event as joyous as the
Strokestown Festival can continue to thrive in these increasingly
difficult and barbarian times.
God love you, Strokestown -- town and Festival both -- for the warmth of
your welcome and for the delights which followed. If you did not already
exist it would be impossible to invent you... Thank you all for one of the
best weekends of my life. ~ Martin Parker
Congratulations on a marvellously successful festival… Strokestown is the
most convivial and congenial of poetry festivals - literally a fireside
gathering. ~ Dennis O’Driscoll
Congratulations on bringing
off such a majestic achievement... ~ Sebastian Barker
A
tremendous festival, such a privilege and terrific opportunity to read
with Big Names and meet fellow short-listed poets in such a friendly and
welcoming atmosphere in the beautiful but homely Strokestown House. The
gold on the wall paper glinting behind the poets reading in the evenings,
the lambs peering in during the day-time readings, everyone sitting on the
sofas, the lovely garden tour and the last night hoolie in the Victorian
kitchen are some happy memories. I loved the way the whole community was
involved…" ~ Stephanie Green
Read it all at
http://stephaniegreensblog.blogspot.com/2009_06_01_archive.html"
A
great festival… Enda
Wyley
Thank you for a FANTASTIC
weekend of poetry. It was a rich and varied feast of work, so many voices
I hadn’t heard before and so many interesting new people to meet… I think
it’s a marvellous format giving each shortlisted poet a reading. It’s a
terrific festival and I’m having terrible trouble getting back to ‘real
life’! ~ Pam Zinneman-Hope
My thanks for the warm
welcome, excellent conversations, attentive and literate audiences and
wonderful setting of Strokestown last weekend… and the chance to meet
like-minded people, Paddy Bushe's poems about Skellig, the two lambs in
the crook of the oak tree, the high hill of Tulsk… Your festival is the
most generous and convivial I have attended in many years, characterised
by high seriousness and a serious sense of fun. ~ Hilary Davies
Thank you so much for the wonderful time at Strokestown festival,
I thoroughly enjoyed the readings and meeting the judges and poets...a
very well run and compact offering of events. Well done to all. ~
Heather Brett
Thank
you very much for the wonderful time we had at the festival.
Ireland is beautiful, and
Strokestown uniquely so. Altogether a great experience. ~ Gavin
Bantock
I have not been to another
poetry event that was as well thought out and well run….Only your hard
work could have made it seem so effortless… The level of poetry read was
consistently high, the schedule was reasonable (and it's great that
everyone can attend all sessions), the participants were
invariably interesting and passionate about poetry, the judges handled
their duties in a highly professional manner, and so much more. We did not
miss a single session of the festival, and we're awfully glad we didn't,
because every session offered powerful and unique poetry, wit, personality
and charm. Since we'd never heard it before, the Irish/Gaelic poetry was a
special treat, especially since most of it was translated as well as being
read in the original, so we could enjoy the music of the language as well
as its English interpretation.
We also loved it that the festival opened with the schools’ competition
and the delightful humorous poetry competition. As Janet said, public
speakers are always told to open their speeches with a joke to break the
ice, and the Percy French Prize served a similar purpose for the festival
as a whole. Who could not be in a good frame of mind after listening to
all that hilarious verse?...
We were also struck, time and again, by the graciousness, generosity and
soulfulness of the Irish people. The generosity especially struck us –
from Leo Cox's complimentary tea and toast when we arrived at the Percy
French Hotel, to Cathal O'Searcaigh's giving Janet a spiral pendant that
matched one he was wearing, which she had admired, to Triona McMorrow, a
Dublin poet attending the festival, offering to mail my ash plant from
Dublin and refusing to take a penny for the postage or her trouble…
Finally, I want you to know how deeply honored I am to have won first
prize in Strokestown. It is the biggest thing that's ever happened to me
as a writer--and there is no place I would rather have had it happen. We
will be back, whether I'm shortlisted again or not ("God willin' and the
creek don't rise" as my friend from Alabama always used to say). You put
on such a wonderful festival and made us feel so welcome that we can't
imagine never being there or seeing you all again. Once more, thank you,
thank you, thank you. ~ Lawrence Kessenich
Thank you so much for all the wonderful readings, and receptions and the
Award Ceremony. It seemed to be such a smooth-running weekend… I enjoyed
the festival from start to finish. ~ Julie O’Callaghan
Just to say how
much we enjoyed the festival... Every year it seems to get better
and better and it really is a huge anticlimax to be driving back to Dublin
in the car. Probably our highlight was Sebastian Barker’s reading. For me,
it was a jaw-dropping experience – completely blew me away.
Looking forward to next year already. Many thanks for a brilliant
weekend. ~ Peter Goulding Strokestown poetry festival has forged a special place for itself
in Irish life. I can sense a caring for poetry there, with the individual
poem at the heart of it. They have an admirably broad concept of the
Gaelic, too, that encompasses Ireland and Scotland, and that carries
echoes of an older, shared tradition. This offers a treasure-trove to
contemporary poets.
"Tá a sain-ionad féin i saol na hÉireann bainte amach ag féile
filíochta Bhéal mBuillí. Airím cúram na filíochta inti: an dán aonair an
chloch choirnéil. Tá tuiscint bhreá leathan ann freisin faoin nGaelachas,
a chuimsíonn Éire agus Albain agus a bhaineann macalla as seantraidisiún i
bpáirt. Tobar domhain é d'fhilí an lae inniu." ~ Prof. Máire Ní Annracháin
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