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, Phoenix 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 fifth poetry collection Sex & Death at Merlin Park Hospital (Salmon Poetry) was published in June 2019, and one of the poems from it features in A Galway
Epiphany, the final instalment of Ken Bruen’s Jack Taylor serieons of novels. His
poems have been broadcast on RTE Radio, Lyric FM, and BBC Radio 4. His book The
Colour Yellow & The Number 19:
: Negative Thoughts That Helped One Man Mostly
Retain His Sanity During 2020 was published last year by Nuascealta. His
essay Thrills & Difficulties: Being A
Marxist Poet In 21st Century Ireland was published in pamphlet
form by Beir Bua Press last year. In December 2021 Kevin was both expelled from
the British Labour Party, of which he was an overseas member, for publishing
his poem ‘Tribute Acts’ in Socialist Appeal magazine and, on the very same day,
awarded ‘Poet of The Year’ at the Labour Heroes Awards event at Conway Hall in
London. In 2022 Kevin received a dozen nominations for the position of Ireland
Chair of Poetry. Kevin’s
sixth full poetry collection, Ecstatic,
was published by Salmon this June.
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 in English with Creative Writing 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 all commence the week of Monday September 26th. They
will be conducted via Zoom in the usual friendly supportive manner that made
Kevin's 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 27th); on Thursday afternoons, 2-4pm (first
class Thursday, September 29th)
and on Friday afternoons, 2-3.30pm (first
class Friday, September 30th).
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. As a bonus,
Kevin is offering five optional in person workshop sessions which will take
place in The House Hotel, Galway every other Wednesday, during the term, all
starting at 2pm and running until 4pm. These sessions are open to ALL enrolled
participants in this term’s poetry workshops.
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/367-poetry-with-kevin-higgins-tuesday-evening-online-remote-course
