Poetry Day Ireland 2023 will take place on Thursday 27 April. Now in its ninth year, Poetry Day Ireland is an annual island-wide celebration of poetry which invites the nation to read, write, and share a poem on the day. Poetry Day Ireland welcomes acclaimed poet Martina Evans on board as this year’s curator. Martina chose ‘Message in a Bottle’ as the theme for Poetry Day Ireland 2023, reminding us, in the words of Paul Celan, that “a poem can be a message in a bottle, sent out in the – not always greatly hopeful – belief that somewhere and sometime it could wash up on land, on heartland perhaps. Poems in this sense too are under way: they are making towards something.

ArtNetdlr | Poetry Day Ireland 

Thursday 27 April, 7pm

Upstairs @Walters, Dun Laoghaire

Featuring the duelling banjo poets, Alison Hackett and Arnie Yasinski, with Chris Fitzpatrick — reading from their poetry books published by Alison Hackett (21st Century Renaissance)

Followed by Open Mic. This event is free and all welcome, please sign-up before event if you’re interested to read.

It’s Okay. He’s American. by Arnie Yasinski
Sentient by Alison Hackett
Poetic Licence in a Time of Corona by Chris Fitzpatrick

Arnie Yasinski knows his difference is noticed when he opens his
mouth to speak in Ireland; he sees how the stasis of Beckett’s ‘Waiting for
Godot’ is everywhere, knows how darkness can be camouflaged, how the
Irish avoid pain by averting their eyes from the abyss.

— ​Alison Hackett’s poems of remembrance, of love, of still-life;
language, people, place and religion pepper her second collection which
sets out from West Cork and takes in Dublin, India, Germany, Beirut,
France and England on the way.

— A medic, Chris Fitzpatrick, finds healing for himself by writing poems
on his phone as the pandemic grips –  rhythm, rhyme, haiku, a list-poem
of what to do when someone can’t breathe (and why you wouldn’t kneel
on their neck), why Lionel Richie keeps sending him emails, reading a
letter from the Liverpool manager, Jürgen Klopp, written to his brother
who is dying.