Poetry Now/Mountains to Sea

 

The gorse reading at Mountains To Sea Book Festival took place on Friday 24 March 2017, and was part of its Poetry Now strand, curated by Alice Lyons. Bringing together three contributors from across the issues, it added a performative and multi-disciplinary aspect to the festival programme. Aodán MccCardle opened the event with a short performance-writing set, which led to the reading of a series of texts involving repetition, interruption and erasure. Christodoulos Makris read the entirety of his limited edition pamphlet if we keep drawing cartoons, its delivery beginning at the back of the auditorium and gradually moving to the front. Suzanne Walsh performed text from her commission to the exhibition A Different Republic, accompanied by an audio piece interrupting the vocalisation of the writing. The performances were followed by the launch of gorse no. 8, accompanied with a reading by Dimitra Xidous from her essay ‘We Cannot Be Trusted With Chairs’ which features in the issue. Our thanks to Alice Lyons and Poetry Now for their invitation to participate in Mountains To Sea 2017.