Saturday, October 26, 2019

All set for Achill Harp Fest!

Well, the car is nearly packed up and the harp will be the last thing to go in as we set off for the 2019 Féile Chruite Acla - Achill International Harp Festival where I'll be giving a reading and recital with multi-talented musician, Sile Denvir at 4pm tomorrow and also a free talk on the 'Irish harp as trope, icon and instrument' on Monday at 11:30am. Check out the exciting programme full of gems below and on the festival website at: http://achillharpfestival.ie/!

 I have an extra spring in my step today because acclaimed novelist, Neil Hegarty, whose new novel The Jewel is out now and garnering multiple accoldades, has recommended my book, Conditional Perfect, in today's Irish Independent. I'm honoured that my book is among his current stack of bedside reads and what a great, eclectic list it is too. Thanks so much Neil for the kind mention! 

How lovely that Neil Hegarty is reading my new book and in such great company too!

Tuesday, October 22, 2019

Flesh and Blood and Gut (strings!) - all happening this week!

This is an action-packed week when much Weetabix-consumption will be required! Having taught Creative Writing and 'Landscape, Literature & Culture' seminars to some of my students at NUI Galway already this week I'm getting set to read from my new collection, CONDITIONAL PERFECT, at the lovely Vintage Room, at the WorkmansClub in Dublin at 6:30pm tomorrow (Wednesday) evening along with two wonderful poets, my fellow travellers on the Doire Press 'Flesh and Blood' tour, Michael Whelan and Simon Lewis

Dublin friends, this is a free event and we hope you can join us! Then one further Creative Writing seminar on Thursday (how I love teaching this subject!) and then on Friday I'm bound for Achill where the 2019Achill Harp Fest will be kicking off and where I'm honoured to be giving a poetry reading and recital along with the multi-talented Síle Denvir at 4pm on Sunday and a free illustrated talk on the 'Irish harp as trope, icon and instrument' at 11:30am on Monday. The full line-up can be viewed here. All very exciting! Congrats to Laoise Kelly and the Achill Harp Fest committee on another wonderful programme this year!

Next stop on the 'Flesh and Blood' tour tomorrow is.... Dublin!




Monday, October 14, 2019

Belfast Here We Come!


I'm typing this on the Enterprise train bound for Belfast where I'm especially looking forward to reading tomorrow afternoon at 3:30pm in Belfast Central Library. Why am I so excited about reading in Belfast, in particular? Because a number of the poems in my new collection, Conditional Perfect, are set in that city in 1792 where ten harpers - six of them blind, including one female - gathered in the Exchange Rooms to perform their music at the Belfast Harpers Assembly. A watershed moment in the preservation of our native Irish music, thanks to Edward Bunting who transcribed and notated the tunes each of the harpers performed, tomorrow's reading will hold special significance for me and I'm looking forward to reading my monologues in the voices of some of the harpers, such as Denis Hempson and Rose Mooney. I'm also looking forward to reading alongside Michael Whelan and Simon Lewis for the first time - our reading in Galway was postponed until November due to Storm Lorenzo! The reading tomorrow is free admission and all are welcome. Tell your Belfast friends to come along!



Wednesday, October 2, 2019

Taking poetry on the road with Doire Press Reading Tour, 'Flesh and Blood'


The FLESH AND BLOOD Doire Press Reading Tour, featuring poets Michael Whelan, Simon Lewis and myself, begins tomorrow (Thursday, 3rd Oct) in Galway at 6:30pm in the City Library. The event is free and everyone is welcome! There will be wine too, I'm told. The tour will continue on to Belfast, Dublin and Cork. Dates, venues and times below and the short description from the FLESH AND BLOOD page on Facebook:


GALWAY CITY LIBRARY - Thursday 3rd October, 6.30pm
(postponed until November due to Storm Lorenzo, date tba)

BELFAST CITY LIBRARY - Tuesday 15th October, 3.30pm

DUBLIN, THE VINTAGE ROOM, WORKMANS CLUB - Wednesday 23rd October, 6.30pm

CORK CITY LIBRARY – Wednesday, 6 November, 6:30pm


You are all very welcome to come and hear Doire Press poets Emily E. Cullen, Simon Lewis and Michael Whelan read from their new collections, as they tour Ireland with FLESH AND BLOOD. Hear some fine words, and enjoy a glass of wine with us at Galway City Library!



Reading from CONDITIONAL PERFECT Emily Cullen travels the veins of being both artist and mother in an increasingly technological landscape, from the sublime mundanity of ordinary life, to the legacy and beauty of the harp; in AH, MEN!, Simon Lewis explores what it means to be a man in a culture where roles and expectations have shifted, with poems that speak of a desire to connect and its frustrations, of relationships with friends and family, and the small ministries of love; soldier-poet Michael J. Whelan reveals the personal losses and futility of war in RULES OF ENGAGEMENT, which visits past conflicts and current bloodshed, rich also with a revelatory beauty in nature. From music, to encounter, to peace, these three distinct voices talk of their intimate experience of the world, and reach to the heart of things.



Tuesday, October 1, 2019

My third collection of poetry is officially launched

Conditional Perfect is published by Doire Press

This blog has been in extended hibernation, but all that is about to change. The gloriously busy daily life of the past two years, during my enjoyable tenure as Programme Director of Cúirt International Festival of Literature, made the prospect of regular posts a little too challenging. As we usher in the Winter, this first day of October, with all the grace we can muster, it seems like a good time to take stock of all that's been happening of late, especially during the milestone month of September. So, I'm returning here with renewed vigour as there are multiple reasons for excitement and a few good excuses for celebration too!

On the poetry front, I was delighted when my poem – a monologue in the voice of 1792 harper, Denis Hempson – was shortlisted for the ‘Pastimes – Past Times’ Summer poetry competition organised by Strokestown International Poetry Festival as part of National Heritage Week. On Saturday, 17th August, we gathered in Strokestown Library to read our shortlisted poems in front of a warm, receptive audience (there were over 200 entries to the competition, which was judged by poet, James Harpur, with 14 of us shortlisted). Congratulations to Annette Skade, Rory Duffy and Siún Carden who won first, second and third prize respectively. You can read all of the shortlisted poems, including the three beautiful prize-winners, here.

The month of August also saw me refining and polishing the manuscript for my third poetry collection, Conditional Perfect, and eventually letting it go and submitting to my publishers at Doire Press. It's always a fraught time for any writer, but John and Lisa have been wonderful throughout and have made the process an easy and seamless one. I’m still in the afterglow of the book’s official launch, just three days ago in Galway City Museum with more on that and some pics to follow below shortly.
Elated, just after receiving the first copy of Conditional Perfect
As many of us parents and educators know, September heralds the beginning of the real year! We had all the usual flurry of excitement as my toddler began his ECCE year at his crèche and my older boy started in third class. (He also turned 9 in September - which I still can't believe - and our modest back lawn is now colonised by a trampoline!). No sooner were both my boys getting settled back to school when I also found myself returning to the educational sphere, to NUI Galway campus to teach undergraduate seminars in Creative Writing (to second-year English students) and ‘Landscape, Literature and Culture’ to visiting students from the U.S. I’m now into my third week and what a privilege it is to be back among bright young people who're eager to learn and full of curiosity, with so much of life ahead of them. One of the contemporary sonnets we looked at last week, which piqued the students' interest, was Marilyn Nelson's powerful 'How I Discovered Poetry'. The exchange students and I are exploring the Idea of the West, landscape-as-text and contrasting W.B. Yeats's symbolic use of the land with Patrick Kavanagh's earthy representations. We continue to be fascinated by polymath, Tim Robinson's mapping of Connemara and his unique methodologies. 

I was honoured to be invited to officially launch Issue 12 of Skylight 47 at the House Hotel on Sunday, 8th September.

If you haven't already picked up a copy, it is well worth checking out for its wealth of diverse voices and its special 8-page supplement showcasing the work of emerging writers from throughout Galway city and county.

With my book, Conditional Perfect, still hot off the press it was a great pleasure to some of my new poems for the very first time with a lovely audience at the 42nd Clifden Arts Festival on Wednesday, 18th September. Reading along side poet, Richard Halperin, the wonderful Tony Curtis was our master of ceremonies and treated us to musical interludes during the event. Poets, Gerry Hanberry and Moyra Donaldson also read that afternoon and it was a memorable occasion. My sincere thanks again to Brendan Flynn, Des Lally and all at Clifden Arts Festival for inviting me to read and congrats on another stellar line-up this year. 

Reading at Clifden Library as part of Clifden Arts Festival
Poet and musician, Tony Curtis at Clifden Arts Festival
Just a few days later, on Saturday, 21st, I had the pleasure of reading in The Bookworm bookshop in Thurles as part of the Féile Flipside programme of cultural events. With true Tipperary hospitality, owner John Butler gave me a warm welcome, not to mention some delicious coffee. In the days leading up to the launch of Conditional Perfect, Charlie McBride of The Galway Advertiser met me for a coffee and a chat about the book which you can read in this week's edition of the newspaper online here

Then, finally, last Saturday, with the book's poems proving to be popular with audiences and readers alike (two were also featured on the Poethead website and shared widely on Twitter and Facebook  – thank you Christine Murray), it was high time to officially launch Conditional Perfect! And so we gathered at Galway City Museum at noon last Saturday, 28th September to give the book its send-off into the world, with Galway poet and musician, Gerry Hanberry, kindly doing the honours. A huge thank you to Gerry for eloquently launching Conditional Perfect, to my gifted friend, Pat Jourdan for her beautiful art which graces the book's cover, to Brendan McGowan, Damien Donnellan and the staff of Galway City Museum, to John Walsh and Lisa Frank and to everyone who took the time to come out and support me on the day. Any slight nerves I had beforehand were quickly banished by the abundant good vibes and collective joyful wishes in the room. Conditional Perfect is now launched and will hopefully travel far and wide and bring pleasure to many many readers. Here are some endorsements for the collection:

 ‘Discursive, widely-travelled, at once cerebral and lyrical, Emily Cullen’s Conditional Perfect is an ambitious and beautiful work. Here are the streets of Grattan, Elgin and Canning in Melbourne, motherhood and its mysteries, the indictment of victims by defending barristers, the ancient harpists of Belfast; all creating one great embracing, forceful charge in poem after poem. Witty and sardonic too, her poems of mirrors and reflections bring us back to an instantly recognisable human ordinariness. This collection, a Cullen masterpiece, will certainly beguile the reader with its astonishing range and poise.’
 Thomas McCarthy, author of Prophecy (Carcanet)

‘Emily Cullen’s third collection takes the reader on journeys from Ireland to Australia and back, and to the 1792 Harpers’ Assembly in Belfast. Her poems are “freighted” in social realities, but always seek out the “poise” that comes with experience and empathy, the harmony—both literal and figurative—of an open mind and ear that are attuned to “the music of what happens”.’
 Lorna Shaughnessy, author of Anchored (Salmon Poetry)

Emily Cullen can wave a child off to school while encompassing the world’s fears, find the seamless continuum between politics and motherhood and surprise us with the music of her lines all at the same time. In these pages too you will meet the Belfast Harpers, among them blind Rose Mooney, from whom you’ll learn it’s the music that lasts beyond what anyone can see.
— Kevin Brophy, author of Look at the Lake (Puncher & Wattmann)

You can order a copy from the Doire Press website here. And now, a few of those launch pics!


Gerry Hanberry launching Conditional Perfect

Gerry Hanberry launching Conditional Perfect


Reading poems from my new book

My boys, Lee & Lorcan were on their best behaviour and did me proud
With my publishers, Lisa Frank & John Walsh of Doire Press
With a great friend, Mairéad Roche

Launch of Conditional Perfect at Galway Museum on Saturday, 28 September




                              
James Martyn Joyce & Aideen Henry among the crowd at the launch
Pat Carton and Pat McMahon at the launch