Salmon Poetry Reading, The Courthouse Gallery, Ennistymon, Thursday 25th June, 7.30pm:

Salmon Poetry and The Courthouse Gallery, Ennistymon, host an Evening of Poetry on Thursday 25th June, 7.30pm, at The Courthouse Gallery, Ennistymon, County Clare. Readers are:

John Corless, whose debut collection of poetry, Are you ready?, has just been published by Salmon.

Kerry writer Gabriel Fitzmaurice whose most recent collection “Twenty One Sonnets” was published by Salmon in 2007.

Dublin writer Nessa O’Mahony who will read from her verse novel, In Sight of Home (Salmon, 2009)

and Doolin visual artist and poet Ilsa Thielan.

About John Corless and “Are you ready?”:

“The Ireland of 2009 has almost as many ‘serious’ poets as it does blocks of unsold apartments. What I love about John Corless’s poetry is that instead of pretending to sit po-faced on the summit of Mount Parnassus, it goes absolutely in the opposite direction. Like Swift, Paul Durcan and Rita Ann Higgins before him, Corless takes the low road and shines the telltale torchlight of his killer wit into all the most embarrassing areas of contemporary Irish life. No-one is safe. If the truly serious are those who see the world for the joke it is, John Corless is one of the most serious poets we have. He is also a great performer of his own poems, one of the brightest rising stars of the live poetry scene. If you get the chance to go and see him read, do. Desperate Housewives will be repeated. John Corless may not.”
Kevin Higgins

“John Corless comes to poetry with an infectious enthusiasm. He has imbued his work with a sense of discovery and wonder. His debut collection is gritty and irreverent, infected with copious amounts of tongue-in-cheek humour. Here you will find fake tan and calf nuts, the PDs, dancehall fights and dry cash hid behind dressers by dead bachelors. This is not a naive nostalgic sojourn through rural Connaught but an uncompromising white knuckle ride through sometimes dark and menacing places where sacred cows are put through their paces before being loaded up in a trailer and driven unceremoniously out to grass. You have been warned.”
Ger Reidy

John Corless lives and writes in County Mayo, Ireland. His poetry is a mix of political, satirical and rural and has been described as ‘Paul Durcan meets The Sawdoctors.’ He has an MA in Creative Writing from Lancaster University (2008) and is currently researching for a PhD. He writes poetry, fiction and drama. His work has been published in magazines and collections worldwide. He teaches creative writing in the Castlebar campus of GMIT (Galway Mayo Institute of Technology). This is his first collection.

Are you ready? was launched as part of the Force 12 Writers’ Festival in Belmullet, County Mayo, on Sunday 14th June.

About Nessa O’Mahony & “In Sight of Home”:

“Nessa O'Mahony’s writing is subtle and precise and this fine book crackles with truthfulness. But even more importantly, this is a work of great beauty, a story of how past and present flow into one another all the time. It’s a moving, powerful and richly pleasurable read, audaciously imagined and achieved.”
Joseph O’Connor

Nessa O’Mahony was born and lives in Dublin. Her poetry has appeared in a number of Irish, UK, and North American periodicals, has been translated into several European languages. She won the National Women’s Poetry Competition in 1997 and was subsequently shortlisted for the Patrick Kavanagh Prize and Hennessy Literature Awards. Her second poetry collection, Trapping a Ghost, was published by bluechrome publishing in 2005 and her third, The Side Road to Star, is forthcoming from bluechrome in 2009. She was awarded an Irish Arts Council literature bursary in 2004 and an Artist’s Bursary from South Dublin County Council in 2007. She is currently Artist in Residence at the John Hume Institute for Global Irish Studies, University College, Dublin. She is Assistant Editor of UK literary journal Orbis. 


About Gabriel Fitzmaurice:

This is deeply indigenous poetry, vitally in touch with a loved community and its experience. Les Murray

These sonnets make the best collection yet of Fitzmaurice’s adult poems. Declan Kiberd

[T]he best contemporary, traditional, popular poet in English. Ray Olson, Booklist

Fitzmaurice is a wonderful poet. Giles Foden, The Guardian

He has a gift for making the quotidian interesting and investing the ordinary with extraordinary significance. Gearóid Mac Lochlainn, The Celtic Pen

[Fitzmaurice] favours the sonnet and is able to manipulate this challenging form very effectively. Angela Topping, Orbis

[Fitzmaurice] is a master of the sonnet form. Eugene O’Connell, Southword

Gabriel Fitzmaurice was born, in 1952, in the village of Moyvane, County Kerry where he still lives. He has been teaching in the local primary school, where he is now principal teacher, since 1975. He is author of more than forty books, including collections of poetry in English and Irish as well as several collections of verse for children. He has translated extensively from the Irish and has edited a number of anthologies of poetry in English and Irish. He has published two volumes of essays and collections of songs and ballads. A cassette of his poems, The Space Between: New and Selected Poems 1984-1992, is also available. He frequently broadcasts on radio and television on education and the arts.

About Ilsa Thielan:

Ilsa Thielan is a member of the North Clare Writers’ Workshop and has published her poetry in widely in journals and anthologies, most recently in the White House Poets’ Revival Poetry Journal. Her poetry will also appear in “Spotlight”, a forthcoming anthology for schools. Her photographic work is a homage to the beauty of the West of Ireland., its stunning nature and unique rural scenes. She also works with mixed media and tapestries. From May to October she exhibits and sells her artwork with BURRENCRAFTS every Sunday in Ballyvaughan, Co. Clare in the Community Centre from 10am to 6pm (www.burrencrafts.net ).


About Salmon Poetry:
Salmon Poetry, taking its name from the Salmon of Knowledge in Celtic mythology, was established in 1981 as an alternative voice in Irish literature. The Salmon, a journal of poetry and prose was a flagship for writers in the west of Ireland, and Salmon's first books, Gonella by Eva Bourke and Goddess on the Mervue Bus by Rita Ann Higgins broke new ground for women poets. Since then over 200 volumes of poetry have been produced, and Salmon has become one of the most important publishers in the Irish literary world. www.salmonpoetry.com