As Poetry Ireland marks its 30th birthday with tomorrow's Poetry Day, it has much to celebrate - though a permanent home would help
'SIR, - IN MY OPINION, poetry in this country, at least in the Republic, is in a sad position," began John F Deane's letter to The Irish Timeson March 20th, 1978. "In spite of what we like to believe, our country is abysmally unawake to contemporary poetry and our poets (apart from a few exceptions) unknown or amusedly tolerated abroad . . . Would it not be worthwhile to create a Poetry Society to concentrate on furthering the cause of poetry in Ireland?"
The response, Deane recalls, was overwhelming, and included countless letters of support, some even of the financial variety.
"I hadn't intended to volunteer," he says, but his letter had a profound effect, and soon Deane found himself organising his first reading, in Dublin's Player Wills Theatre. In a 30-year-old ledger, the signatures of the poets who read - among them Paul Durcan and Derek Mahon - appear in Deane's handwritten record of the event, under the date it took place, September 22nd 2008, the day Poetry Ireland was born.
Thirty years on, it is still thriving as a 32-county national organisation supported by both the Arts Council of Ireland and its Northern Ireland equivalent.
"I'm proud to be the grandpappy," says Deane of the organisation his angry letter spawned, and of which he became the first director. He was succeeded by fellow poets Rory Brennan, Theo Dorgan and, seven years ago, Joseph Woods. During each tenure, Poetry Ireland evolved further, and today it funds some 130 poetry readings around the country every year, as well as publishing a quarterly review and a newsletter which has been running almost as long as the organisation itself and is now available to subscribers free of charge through e-mail.
As Woods explains it, Poetry Ireland has also, along the way, become a sort of one-stop shop for Irish poetry.
"The amount and variety of queries we get are staggering," he says. "Somebody will say: 'My father is being buried tomorrow and I need a poem and can only remember a line or a word.' "
For the rest, Poetry Ireland is the first port of call. The organisation not only fosters new and emerging poets, through a series of introductory readings, competitions, and advice on publication, but also deals in what Woods calls the "invisible traffic" generated by some of the country's more established poets.
"People are looking to clear copyright for a major poet, or there's an international festival and people contact us looking for an address, so there's a lot of background work going on at any one time," he says. "Sometimes there's a perception out there that all poets need is a pen and paper."
POETRY IRELAND IS testimony to the fact that a lot happens beyond the interaction between poet and page, and that what Patrick Kavanagh once referred to as the "standing army of Irish poets" often requires more than ink and blank pages to flourish.
"If you don't look after that standing army, it's not going to run itself," says Woods.
For the maintenance of such, Poetry Ireland receives annual funding from the Arts Council, these days to the tune of more than €400,000. It may sound like a princely sum, but according to Sarah Bannan, head of literature at the Arts Council, it's a considerable bargain when the work of the organisation is taken into account. "If you were to compare the cost of art forms, it's not as much as they deserve, probably, for the amount they deliver: publications, readings, education, and an information and resource service," she says.
A quarter of Poetry Ireland's funding goes to its Writers in Schools Scheme, which part-funds visits by writers and storytellers to tens of thousands of primary and post-primary schools around the country.
"We're not running out to create new poets, but we're running out to create new audiences for literature - and once you have new audiences, the writers will come out of that," says Woods.
These potential poets are the future contributors to Poetry Ireland's flagship publication, Poetry Ireland Review, which boasts a current print run of 1,200. Describing it as "a magazine of international standard", poet and former Revieweditor Dennis O'Driscoll, whose long-running quotations column has spawned several books since its first appearance more than 20 years ago, sees this quarterly publication as an important ambassador for Irish poetry abroad.
"Since poetry is where we're supposed to alliterate, you could say Poetry Ireland is a guild, a guide and a gateway," says O'Driscoll. "It's a guild in that it gives poetry (which is an art form for which Ireland is internationally renowned, after all) an authoritative and concerted voice wherever the art needs to be represented."
Its role as guide is to help all "who want to find their way to poetry", while O'Driscoll describes it as "a gateway between the poet and the public, between the writer and reader - it keeps the communication flowing both ways".
From a poets' perspective, this link, not just with other poets but with readers, is essential.
"I think of as a place I would turn if there was anything I needed to do in relation to making the link between writers and readers," says poet Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin, a recent editor of Poetry Ireland Review.
Over three decades, Poetry Ireland has organised readings from all manner of Irish and international poets, to audiences of admittedly varying sizes. Deane recalls an early reading by renowned American poet Galway Kinnell attended by an eager audience of just five people. "He read a poem and we all adjourned to the pub," recalls Deane of what he remembers as a highly enjoyable evening. These days, Woods tells me, readings are generally better attended.
"There is huge appetite for poetry readings and book launches," he says, adding that if the organisation had a permanent room in which to hold such events, it could fill it every night. Yet no such place exists for an organisation that has been forced to move on two separate occasions over the past five years alone.
"The dream still hasn't been fulfilled," says Deane. "The dream was to have a premises, with a theatre for readings, a library and a dedicated bookshop."
The push for a permanent location is still top of Poetry Ireland's agenda. "The art form Ireland is known for across the world is poetry, and it seems a shame to me that we don't have a venue, given the funding we receive from the Arts Council and the fact that we have a Nobel Prize winner in our ranks," Woods says.
Yet despite the fact that some of his dreams have yet to be realised, there have been some changes in the country Deane described 30 years ago as "abysmally unawake to contemporary poetry and our poets".
"People are quite receptive to poetry now, and maybe Poetry Ireland has had something to do with that," says Ní Chuilleanáin. "I think there is much more of a recognition now that poetry is part of culture and culture is part of society."
For poet Tom McCarthy, the function of Poetry Ireland goes beyond practical and administrative considerations.
"To call us back to that kind of still centre where poetry is, is an important human function," he says. "It's like breathing . . . It's as vital as that."
THE WAIT FOR a home for this vital function continues, but to those who would argue, in the words of WH Auden, that "poetry makes nothing happen", Poetry Ireland can provide plenty of evidence to the contrary, including the newly established Poetry Day, which takes place tomorrow with poetry readings in every county in Ireland. As Ní Chuilleanáin sees it: "The arts are not, in general, a luxury, and people need them, especially when times are hard." Times, we are being warned, are about to get harder, yet Poetry Ireland is only getting into its stride. As Auden wrote: "Ireland has her madness and her weather still, For poetry makes nothing happen; it survives . . . A way of happening, a mouth."
Poetry Day Lined up
To celebrate Poetry Ireland's 30th birthday and the launch of Ireland's first Poetry Day, readings will be taking place in every county in Ireland tomorrow.
Dublin Unitarian Church will be hosting readings from Poetry Ireland founder John F Deane, Rutger Kopland from the Netherlands, and English poet Fiona Sampson.
Other highlights include Tom McCarthy, Catherine Phil MacCarthy and Ian Wilde in Clonakilty Library, Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill, Pádraig J Daly and Alice Lyons reading in Carrick-on-Shannon, Ruth Carr and Medbh McGuckian in Cookstown, Co Tyrone, Rita Ann Higgins in Kilkenny, and the ubiquitous Tony Curtis, who will be reading at lunchtime in Clonmel, Co Tipperary and in the evening with Eleanor Hooker and Paddy Moran in Dromineer, Co Tipperary.
For details of readings in your county, see www.poetryireland.ie/poetryday.
