All Ireland Poetry Day: October 2, 2008

This month Poetry Ireland celebrates its 30th anniversary. To mark the occasion, and to raise awareness of the richness and diversity of contemporary poetry in Ireland, we have organised, in partnership with Arts Officers and individuals throughout the country (including Gaelteacht areas), a reading in every county in Ireland.

A reading in each county emphasises Poetry Ireland's all-Ireland remit and the initiative means that a poetry event on October 2nd is within reach of almost everyone. Almost every county is presenting at least 3 poets, pairing Irish and English language poets, performance poets or pairing established voices with emerging local poets, while some counties have responded imaginatively by programming lunchtime events and involving local radio, and so on.

The roster of poets is diverse but the important thing is that somewhere near you on October 2nd a poetry reading is taking place. Poetry Ireland hopes to establish many new contacts and develop new reading bases across the country as a result of All-Ireland Poetry Day.

Once established, the day will be used in the future as a basis for all sorts of interesting events pertaining to poetry. At the local level, it could motivate a school to have a visiting poet or to engage in a poetry project. On a larger scale, the day could be used as an encouragement for institutions such as RTÉ to broadcast excerpts from their extensive audio-visual archives or even to commission new work. The possibilities are endless once the day has been firmly established in people's consciousness.

Poetry Ireland already financially supports 120 poetry readings annually, and we are co-funding all of these 30th anniversary events through the generous assistance of the Arts Council/An Chomhairle Ealaíon. All of the countrywide readings can be viewed at the following webpage www.poetryireland.ie/poetryday; for further information, talk to Joe or Ayoma at 01 4789974.