To mark the launch of the European Parliament's election awareness campaign for the Midlands-North-West Constituency, on 2nd May, there will be a European Elections Special of the monthly Illuminations poetry evening at The Model, Sligo from 8-10pm. The themes of the evening are European democracy, its value, citizens voices and encouraging people to vote.
The event is jointly organised by the European Parliament Liaison Office in Ireland with Bookmart, The Model, Poetry Ireland, and The Yeats Society.
The evening will be compered by The Model's Patrick Karl Curley, and will see a mixture of readings by international poets Alice Lyons, Sean Borodale and Viviana Fiorentino, Susan O'Keeffe Direcotr of the Yeats Society, and open mic contributions.
Entrance is free and refreshments will be served. No registration required.
Background and Biographies
Illuminations – Open Mic Poetry is a monthly event running in association with local, independent book shop Bookmart. Founded in 2013 by Donal Adams, Adam Rooke and Patrick Karl Curley, it’s a not-for-profit, artist-led event with a particular emphasis on inclusion through poetry. There is no charge for attendance and the event is open to all forms of poetry, fiction, non-fiction, music and performance art.
Alice Lyons is an Irish writer, originally from the USA, who has lived in the west of Ireland for over 20 years. Author of three books of poetry, she is the recipient of several awards both in Ireland and the USA for her work. Many of her poems have been translated into Polish, appearing most recently in publications such as Czas Literatury and Tygodnik Powszechny. She currently lectures in writing and literature at the Yeats Academy of Arts, Design & Architecture at the Institute of Technology, Sligo. She was selected in 2023 as the first writer in residence of the new Heaney-Miłosz Residency in Krakow, Poland
Sean Borodale lives in Liverpool and Sligo. He was Resident Artist & Writer at Bluecoat, Liverpool, 2016-2017 and was Creative Fellow at Trinity College Cambridge from 2013-15. He was selected as a Granta New Poet in 2012, and his debut collection Bee Journal was shortlisted for the T S Eliot Prize and the Costa Book Award in 2013. Mighty Beast, a documentary poem for Radio 3 won the Radio Academy Gold Award in 2014 for Best Feature or Documentary. His topographical poem 'Notes for an Atlas' was recommended by Robert Macfarlane in the Guardian Summer Books 2005. It was performed in 2007 at the Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall, directed by Mark Rylance, as part of the first London Festival of Literature. Borodale’s second collection of poems, Human Work, was published in 2015.
Viviana Fiorentino lives in Belfast. An award-winning poet in Italy, her poems appear in the anthology ‘Writing Home’ (Dedalus Press). In 2019 she published a new poetry collection and a novel in Italy. Her poems, short stories and translations have appeared in international literature magazines (as Nazione Indiana, FourXFour NI, Poethead, The Blue Nib, Paris Lit Up, Mantis). She has co-founded two activist poetry initiatives: Sky, You Are Too Big and Letters With Wings. She is on the editorial staff of Le Ortique, (forgotten women artists blog).