Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Letterkenny launch of Tribe by Mary Montague


Mary Montague's second collection of poems, Tribe, was launched in Letterkenny on 03 October 2008, at the Regional Cultural Centre. Pictured here are some of the members of the Errigal Writers Group, of which Mary is a long-time member, who attended on the night.

Saturday, October 18, 2008

Launch of 3 new titles from Paula Meehan, Mary Montague & Mark Roper



The Dedalus Press, in association with Poetry Ireland, is pleased to present a reading to launch 3 new titles:

Music for Dogs : Work for Radio by Paula Meehan
Tribe by Mary Montague
Even So ; New & Selected Poems by Mark Roper

The reading takes place at The Damer Hall, St Stephen's Green, Dublin 2 on Tuesday 04 November, 2008, commencing at 7.00 pm, and all are welcome.

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MUSIC FOR DOGS by PAULA MEEHAN


Best known as one of the leading Irish poets of her generation, Paula Meehan is also an accomplished and much-admired playwright, and her stage work has been performed by, among others, Team Theatre Company, Rough Magic, Calypso Theatre Company and The National Theatre Company at the Peacock.

As well as her work for stage, in recent years she has also written for radio, a medium which provides particular scope for the oral qualities so often admired in her writing. Music for Dogs presents, for the first time in print, a selection of that work for radio from a poet of “perfect pitch” (Midwest Book Review).

Janey Mack is Going to Die, The Lover and Threehander were all written for and first performed on RTÉ Radio 1.


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TRIBE by MARY MONTAGUE

“[T]he trained eye of the natural scientist and the impassioned soul of a poet fuse to create a poetic universe that is nothing short of miraculous. At home in the liminal spaces where revelations still occur, she approaches our fragile natural environment invariably with a sense of wonder and a detached observant love for its creatures. The precision of her sensual, superbly controlled descriptions, are breath-taking. Encounters with the ‘other’ world of our animal brothers and sisters display a sense of tact and empathy which is Keatsian in scope. Tribe is an elegy for a lost paradise, a Song of Songs for squirrel, fox and raven, whale, wolf and gannet, and ultimately it raises serious questions for us and generations to come—how did we squander our inheritance so mindlessly: what have we done with the garden entrusted to us?”
—Eva Bourke, author of The Latitude of Naples


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EVEN SO by MARK ROPER

Even So reveals the extent to which Mark Roper’s move from the UK to the Kilkenny countryside in 1980 has liberated his imagination and, by allowing him to report on lived, day-to-day experience, helped him to become an extraordinarily distinguished ‘nature poet’—or, perhaps the better term, ‘poetic naturalist’. Ireland’s gift to the poet has been an environment that is still relatively unspoiled, and continues to permit ancient harmonious relationships between land-working humans and the birds, beasts, woodland, pools and pastures with which their lives interweave. Roper’s gift to his adopted home, and to the great poetic tradition of ‘nature writing’ in these islands, is laid out here, in this wonderfully varied miscellany of new work and selections from his earlier volumes.”
— Carol Rumens, from the Introduction

Tuesday, October 07, 2008

Gerry Murphy gets the Crazy Dog treatment at Cork Jazz Festival '08


Gerry Murphy : Poet Laureate of the People's Republic of Cork

Get ready for fun as Crazy Dog Audio Theatre and Tinpot Productions bring selections of Dedalus Press poet Gerry Murphy's poetry vividly to life through performance, music and sound in a riotious radio adaptation by the Award winning dramatist Roger Gregg.

Murphy's renowned satiric poetry will be performed by several leading Irish voice talents to the accompanient of specially composed live music and sound effects. All the infamous personnas of Murphy's scathing verse, from his savagely comical portraits of demented despots to his highly personal love poems will be presented each evening of the Cork Jazz Festival at 6 pm. in the Everyman Palace Bar.

These very special performances will be recorded for subsequent radio and internet broadcast. Seating is extremely limited, so book now by contacting the Everyman box office at 021 450 1673.

Dedalus Press is delighted to support and work with Crazy Dog Audio Theatre and Tinpot Productions in what we hope will be the first of a series of such productions aimed at bringing poetry to the widest possible audience, both on the page and off it.

See here for a Sunday Tribune article on the show.