The Cork Spring Poetry Festival 2012
The Irish pages on Poetry International are curated by the Munster Literature Centre which also produces the Cork Spring Poetry Festival (15–18 February 2012). The festival’s website has just been launched, and the programme includes many poets featured on the Poetry International website – not only Irish poets but also poets from other countries.
As director of the Munster Literature Centre, I have been cognisant for some time of the Internet’s usefulness as a resource to discover new poets from other countries, poets who would make excellent festival guests. I find no web resource is better for this than Poetry International.
Among the poets featured on both this website and our upcoming festival are: Elisa Biagini (Italy), Greg Delanty (Ireland/USA), Katie Donovan (Ireland), Kerry Hardie (Ireland), Taja Kramberger (Slovenia), Afric Mac Aodha (Ireland), Thomas McCarthy (Ireland), Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill (Ireland), Billy Ramsell (Ireland) and Damir Ŝodan (Croatia).
By no means do I choose only poets featured on this website, however. There are also other poets from Ireland such as Paddy Bushe, Daragh Breen, Rosemary Canavan and Noel Monahan. We have Nathalie Handal and Gregory Orr from the USA, Fiona Sampson from the UK, Gregory O’Brien from New Zealand and Mary Dalton and Patrick Warner from Canada. British publisher Neil Astley will be giving a special presentation on his bestselling Staying Alive anthology series, there will be workshops and of course, as at any Irish literary festival, plenty of drinking and craic.
I hope many of our readers will be able to join us here in Cork next February.
