‘Our Roots Travel Widely’: Irish Poetry Beyond Regionalism and Nationalism (BRAN)

A public symposium

Friday 14 June, 10am - 4.30pm at The Linen Hall, Belfast

Register here: www.linenhall.com/event/our-roots-travel-widely-irish-poetry-beyond-regionalism-and-nationalism/

The images are Freda Laughton, Ferdinand Levy and a Woodcut of a Dublin worker by Harry Kernoff. 

‘Our Roots Travel Widely’: Irish Poetry Beyond Regionalism and Nationalism (BRAN) sets out to explore mid-century Irish poetry’s rich web of affiliations, reconceptualising the period from Partition to the Troubles by bringing to light neglected cross-border collaborations, transnational connections, poets of colour, feminist, ecocritical, socialist, queer, and working-class perspectives. This free, public symposium opens with a keynote lecture by Dr Lucy Collins (University College Dublin) on Women Poets Writing War. After lunch, we present Bran’s research findings and launch a special edition of the Poetry Jukebox, with poems by Valentin Iremonger, Pearse Hutchinson, Juanita Casey, Ferdinand Levy, Freda Laughton and others read by Paul Muldoon, Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin, Séan Hewitt and other contemporary poets. Professor Fran Brearton (Queen’s University Belfast) and Professor Matthew Campbell (University of York) offer some reflections and conversation on Irish Poetic Futures and the day concludes with a poetry reading by Nithy Kasa, Scott McKendry and Julie Morrissy.

This symposium, the project’s second, is led by Dr Gail McConnell (Queen’s University Belfast) and Dr Karl O’Hanlon (Maynooth University), in partnership with the Linen Hall Library and Quotidian: Poetry Jukebox. ‘Our Roots Travel Widely’: Irish Poetry Beyond Regionalism and Nationalism’ is a two-year project funded by the Higher Education Authority under the North-South Research Programme of the Shared Island Initiative. All events are free and catering is provided. Further information and registration here: www.linenhall.com/event/our-roots-travel-widely-irish-poetry-beyond-regionalism-and-nationalism/