Autumn POETRY WORKSHOPS From GALWAY ARTS CENTRE

Starting in September, Galway Arts Centre is offering aspiring poets a choice of three online 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, Spanish, Italian, Japanese, German, Serbian, Russian, & Portuguese. In 2014 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.  He was Satirist-in-Residence at the Bogman’s Cannon (2015-16). '2016 - The Selected Satires of Kevin Higgins' was published by NuaScéalta in 2016; a pamphlet of Kevin’s political poems The Minister For Poetry Has Decreed was published, also in 2016, by the Culture Matters imprint of the UK based Manifesto Press. His poems have been praised by, among others, Tony Blair’s biographer John Rentoul, Observer columnist Nick Cohen, historian Ruth Dudley Edwards, and Sunday Independent columnist Gene Kerrigan; have been quoted in The Daily Telegraph, The Times (UK), The Independent, The Daily Mirror, Hot Press magazine and on Tonight With Vincent Browne; and read aloud by the film director Ken Loach at a political meeting in London. In 2016 The Stinging Fly magazine described Kevin as "likely the most read living poet in Ireland." He has published six collections of poetry with Salmon, including Song of  Songs 2.0: New & Selected Poems (2017).  Kevin has read his work at Arts Council and Culture Ireland supported poetry events in Kansas City, USA (2006), Los Angeles, USA (2007), London, UK (2007), New York, USA (2008), Athens, Greece (2008); St. Louis, USA (2008), Chicago, USA (2009), Denver, USA (2010), Washington D.C (2011), Huntington, West Virginia, USA (2011), Geelong, Australia (2011), Canberra, Australia (2011), St. Louis, USA (2013), Boston, Massachusetts, USA (2013),  Amherst, Massachusetts, USA (2013), & New Mexico, USA (2018). Kevin’s most recent poetry collection, Sex and Death at Merlin Park Hospital, was published by Salmon Poetry (June 2019); one of the poems from which will feature in A Galway Epiphany, the final instalment of Ken Bruen’s Jack Taylor series of novels. His poems have been broadcast on RTE Radio, Lyric FM, and BBC Radio 4.  

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.

The workshops will commence the week of September 21^st. They will be conducted via private Facebook group, group email, and Zoom in the usual friendly supportive manner that have made Kevin's regular in-person poetry workshops at Galway Arts Centre so popular. Participants shouldn't worry about the technology! Full details of precisely how the workshop will function online will be explained to participants during the first session.

They will take place on Tuesday evenings, 7-8.30pm (first class Tuesday, September 22nd); on Thursday afternoons, 2-4pm (first class Thursday, September 24th) and on Friday afternoons, 2-3.30pm (first class Friday, September 25th).

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 €110.

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 https://www.galwayartscentre.ie/courses

Autumn Creative Writing Classes with Kevin Higgins at Galway Technical Institute BOOK YOUR PLACE NOW

Kevin Higgins

Creative Writing for Beginners with Kevin Higgins takes place one evening per week (Monday) from 7-9.30pm (8 weeks) with a mid-term break. It commences on Monday, September 14^th, 2020. Advance booking is essential. Places cost €120. Kevin Higgins will provide writing exercises for, and give gentle critical feedback to, those interested in trying their hand at writing stories, poems, or memoir.

To book a place, go to https://www.gti.ie/parttime/courses/detail/4780

 

YOU CAN ALSO BOOK in person at Galway Technical Institute, Monday-Friday, (10am-4.30pm) when it re-opens after the summer break.

For further information contact Galway Technical Institute, Father Griffin Road, Galway, phone 091-581342 or email gtiadulted@gretb.ie or see http://www.gti.ie 

Over The Edge presents the Zoom launch by Jane Robinson of issue 13 of Skylight 47

  

Over The Edge presents issue 13 of Skylight 47 “possibly Ireland's most interesting poetry publication”, edited by Bernie Crawford, Nicki Griffin, & Ruth Quinlan. The issue includes a wide range of poems, reviews of poetry collections, and a poetry master class in which an established poet makes detailed editing suggestions for a poem submitted to them anonymously. The launch will be include readings by contributors of their poems and the issue will be launched by award-winning poet Jane Robinson who will also read some of her own poems.

Jane Robinson

Jane Robinson's Journey to the Sleeping Whale - published by Salmon - won the Shine-Strong Award in 2019.  She is a previous recipient of the Strokestown International Poetry Award and the Red Line Book Festival Poetry Prize, and was runner-up in the 2019 Gingko Ecopoetry competition. Her recorded readings have been broadcast on RTÉ's Lyric FM, the Poetry Programme, the Poetry Jukebox, and the Poetry Ireland podcast series. She was the Irish Writers' Centre 2019 Writer in Residence in Norway. Her recent collaborations include a music drama for children, and a short poetry film called Orchard Diary of our Undoing.  

Join the Over The Edge Zoom meeting at

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/7389013549

Meeting ID: 738 901 3549

 6.30pm, Thurs, July 23rd

ALL WELCOME!

Make sure you have your copy of Skylight 47 for the launch by buying a copy in advance here https://skylight47poetry.wordpress.com/buy-skylight-47/
 

The MC for the evening will be Susan Millar DuMars. For further details phone 087-6431748.

Over The Edge acknowledges the ongoing generous financial support of Galway City Council, Poetry Ireland & The Arts Council.