Starting in May, Galway Arts Centre
is offering aspiring poets a choice of three poetry workshops, all facilitated
by poet Kevin Higgins, whose best-selling first collection, The
Boy With No Face, published by Salmon Poetry, was short-listed for the
2006 Strong Award for Best First Collection by an Irish poet. Kevin’s second
collection of poems, Time Gentlemen, Please, was published in 2008 by
Salmon Poetry and his poetry is discussed in The Cambridge Introduction to
Modern Irish Poetry. His third collection Frightening New Furniture
was published in 2010 by Salmon. His work also appears in the generation
defining anthology Identity Parade –New British and Irish Poets (Ed.
Roddy Lumsden, Bloodaxe, 2010) and
The Hundred Years’ War: modern war poems
(Ed Neil Astley, Bloodaxe April 2014). A
collection of Kevin’s essays and book reviews, Mentioning The War, was
published by Salmon Poetry in 2012. Kevin’s poetry has been translated into
Greek, Russian, Spanish, Italian, Japanese & Portuguese. His fourth
collection of poetry, The Ghost in the Lobby, was published in 2014 by
Salmon. Kevin's poetry was the subject of a paper 'The Case of
Kevin Higgins, or, The Present State of Irish Poetic Satire'
presented by David Wheatley at a Symposium on Satire at the University of
Aberdeen. Kevin was satirist-in-residence with the alternative literature
website The Bogman’s Cannon
2015-16 and is Writer-in-Residence at University Hospitals Galway. 2016 – The Selected Satires of Kevin Higgins
was published by NuaScéalta in early 2016; a pamphlet of Kevin’s recent
political poems The Minister For Poetry
Has Decreed was published in 2016 by the new Culture Matters imprint of U.K. based
Manifesto Press. Song of Songs 2:0 – New
& Selected Poems is published by Salmon (Spring 2017) and launched at the
2017 Cúirt Festival. The Stinging Fly
magazine recently described Kevin as “likely the most widely read living poet
in Ireland”. His poems have been quoted in The
Daily Telegraph, The Times (UK), The Independent, The Daily Mirror, on Tonight
With Vincent Browne; and read aloud
by film director Ken Loach at a
political meeting in London.
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| Kevin Higgins |
Each week Kevin will give participants a
poetry writing exercise for the following week and will offer each participant
constructive suggestions as to how her or his poem can become the best possible
poem it can be.
Kevin is an experienced workshop facilitator and several of
his students have gone on to achieve publication success. One of his workshop
participants at Galway Arts Centre won the prestigious Hennessy Award for New
Irish Poetry, two have won the Cúirt New Writing Prize, and yet another the
Cúirt Poetry Grand Slam, while several have published collections of their poems;
two being shortlisted for the Shine-Strong Award for Best First Collection of
poems. In 2013 a group of his students set up the poetry newspaper Skylight 47, which publishes new poems,
reviews of poetry books and opinion pieces about poetry related matters. Kevin
teaches poetry on the NUIG BA Creative Writing Connect programme and is
Creative Writing Director for the NUI Galway Summer School. Kevin is also
co-organiser of the successful Over The Edge reading series which specialises in
promoting new writers.
Each workshop will run for eight weeks,
commencing the week of Monday May 14th. They will take place on Tuesday
evenings, 7-8.30pm (first class Tuesday, May 15th);
on Thursday afternoons, 2-4pm (first class Thursday, May 17th) and on Friday
afternoons, 2-3.30pm (first class Friday, May 18th).
The Tuesday evening and Friday afternoon workshops are open
to both complete beginners as well as those who’ve been writing for some time. The
Thursday afternoon workshop is an Advanced Poetry Workshop, suitable
for those who’ve participated in poetry workshops before or had poems published
in magazines. The cost to participants is €90, with a €80
concession rate.
Places must be paid for in advance. To reserve a place contact reception at Galway Arts Centre, 47 Dominick
Street, phone 091 565886, email info@galwayartscentre.ie,
or go to GalwayArtsCentre.ie
