Archive

Archive for February, 2013

Kathleen is just a word we’ll never settle

February 24, 2013 Leave a comment

From First Book of Frags, entertaining, experimental fiction by Dave Lordan available at http://www.wurmimapfel.net/wurmpress. Read more about the author at http://www.davelordanwriter.com. Contact at davelordanpoet@gmail.com

First Book of Frags is a gallery of cosmic and psychic perversion and violence. Punctuated by moments of intense, incandescent writing, it gives us a marriage of heaven and hell, good and evil, repressive force and hopeless sex. Whether it shows us the success of suicide towns, the unrecorded victims of the Titanic, revolutions in housing estates, cornerboys, destructors, accomplices, violent fire bombings, stew and shit stirrers, animals and pornstars, writers under attack, the people who live permanently in Swedish-based furniture stores, or women speaking to the dead, it is always, allegorically and literally, concerned with an Ireland, a Europe, and a humanity which has lost its way and wandered into nightmare dead ends only partially of its own making. The contemporary resonances of these strange and brief short stories, with their weird and uncanny narrators, equals the political bite of Lordan’s best poetry. — Graham Allen.
Category

Launch of Heart in Mouth, a groundbreaking community writing festival in Fingal

February 12, 2013 Leave a comment

 

 Heart in Mouth

A groundbreaking poetry competition and project brought to you by Fingal County Libraries and poets, Dave Lordan and Colm Keegan

will launch at

Blanchardstown Library 1st March at 8 pm

RSVP: lilian.whelan@fingalcoco.ie tel.8905536

The Heart-in-Mouth audio competition will be Ireland’s first ever  poetry prize for original audio poetry. Entrants will record their best and most heart-felt work and send it as an MP3 file to Colm and Dave.

They will judge the entries based on the strength of the reading as well as the content of the work. The winner will receive an IPOD and, along with the two runners up, will be invited to partake in
the Heart-in-Mouth performance poetry showcase along with special guests on Sat May 17th.

Other dates for your diary:

April 6th and 16th

Want advice on your writing? Dave and Colm will offer two free editorial advice clinics in Blanchardstown Library.

Note: Places are limited so early booking is advised.

April 20th: Closing date for “Heart in Mouth” Poetry competition

April 27th Winners showcase event. The showcase event will also include free talks and workshops by Dave and Colm on the theme of Getting Creative. Again, early booking is advised.

Recommendation for my performance poetry workshops for teens from the Irish Film Institute

February 11, 2013 Leave a comment

In November and December last I led a series of very successful performance poetry workshops for teenagers in partnership with Poetry Ireland and with the education department of the Irish Film Institute. The workshops were attended by teenagers in TY, 5th year, and Leaving Cert from schools across Dublin. Under my direction, the group devised an original performance poetry show on the theme of FREEDOM, which they performed to acclaim before an audience of over 200 students and teachers in  the Irish Film Institute on Dec 12th. Here is the recommendation of Deirdre Quinlan of the Irish Film Institute:

 ”In collaboration with Poetry Ireland and Dave Lordan we gave students the opportunity to deliver powerful performance poetry in front of a full house in Cinema 1 prior to a screening of award winning youth arts documentary We Are Poets. Under  Dave’s expert guidance the teenagers wrote an entirely new poetry show on the theme of freedom while experimenting with a range of performance and literary styles. The groups’ passionate and well received work was testament to Dave’s excellent teaching style and his total dedication to the project. “

This Spring I continue my groundbreaking work with young people as writer in residence in four secondary schools. These are Larkin College and Mount Carmel, Dublin, Colaiste Chumainn, Co Wicklow, and Hospital Youthreach in County Limerick. I am also co-ordinating a pilot programme of performance poetry workshops in school libraries throughout Ireland in partnership with the VEC and Poetry Ireland.

I will also be working with teenagers at a number of literary festivals including Listowel Writers Festival and West Cork Literary Festival.

To book me for a workshop for your school, youth group, or festival email davelordanpoetatgmail.com or call 0870921117

The Excuse- February’s Creative Writing Prompt for New Planet Cabaret, in association with RTE Arena, and New Island Books

February 6, 2013 Leave a comment

Book Dave Lordan for a creative writing workshop at davelordanpoet@gmail.com or 0870921117. Read more here.

The Excuse

 Every great criminal has their excuse.

This month’s crime-writing prompt asks you to come up with the perfect

excuse for a terrible crime.

The excuse has to be good enough to help absolve your character of the crime.

 The more heinous the crime, the better the excuse will have to be

and the more challenging and interesting this writing exercise becomes.

 Write up to 700 words for your Excuse in the first person. Imagine your 

character attempting to convince us, or a judge and jury, or a god, or whoever you choose that they were right to do what they did, that they had no choice, that it will be best for us all in a long run, that there was no other way…

 Remember that there are many different types of crimes, many different kinds of criminals, and many different kinds of excuses. 

 Make yours different- don’t go for the obvious choices. 

 Make yours the best excuse for the worst crime you can think of.

Deadline 28th February. Maximum word count 700 words. Excerpts from the best entries will be broadcast on rte arena om Tuesday March 5th.

 

Note

If you do want to submit your work to arena for possible broadcast, and for possible publication in our RTE/New Island Press anthology, there are a couple of additional things you need to keep in mind.
• We want work that will come across well on the air and on the page. It must speak in an interesting and novel way to Arena’s broad and intelligent audience. Be original. Avoid cliche. Pay attention to the medium you are writing in and the audience you are writing for.
• Think about the title of the project: NEW PLANET CABARET. NEW means work that is alive to and interested in the novelty of the present moment and in the way the world is changing around us. PLANET means we are seeking work that speaks to us from all over the world, work from and about our diaspora, work from and about our own many immigrant communities, work from and about those who have traveled and journeyed. CABARET means we are looking for work in a variety of styles and voices, and also work that is both sophisticated and well communicated, both experimental and populist- writing that is serious entertainment.
• Email your entry with the heading NEW PLANET CABARET to arena@rte.ie or by post to Arena, RTE Radio 1, Donnybrook, Dublin 4. All entries will be read and considered, but only those people whose work has been chosen for broadcast will be contacted. No other correspondence will be entered into and canvassing of any kind will disqualify.
• Listen in to RTE RADIO 1′S ARENA to hear some of the selected work, and more discussion about creativity, along with the next month’s writing prompt.

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 1,028 other followers