Galway University Hospitals Arts Trust will be taking part in the Arts and Health Coordinators Ireland National Poetry Project, A Moment in Time on Thursday 6 October as part of All Ireland Poetry Day 2011. Staff and patients of University Hospital and Merlin Park University Hospital will be receiving a short anthology of poems, selected by Poet Mark Roper. The anthology will be presented as a menu on the breakfast tray for patients and will be available on tables in the staff canteens and in the hospital restaurants and shops. The poems approach the topic, A Moment in Time in various ways: some focus on the awareness of a single moment, others on a moment of realisation or choice.
Patients and staff of the hospital will also be in for a lunchtime treat when local poet Michael Gorman will give a poetry reading at 1.00pm in Conference Room 1, Nurses’ Home in University Hospital Galway. Michael Gorman was born in Sligo and educated at Summerhill College and NUI, Galway. His poetry collections include Postcards from Galway, Waiting for the Sky to fall and Up She Flew. He teaches poetry on the MA in Writing at NUI Galway. Michael Gorman is a hugely charismatic reader of his work; his readings are everything a good poetry reading should be.
The aim of the Galway University Hospitals Arts Trust is to support and enhance the patient environment in University Hospital Galway and Merlin Park University Hospital. We believe that involving the arts in the healing process promotes the wellbeing of patients staff and visitors to the hospital. For further information on this project and or the arts programme in Galway University Hospitals please contact Arts Officer, Margaret Flannery at 091 544979 or Margaret.Flannery@hse.ie