Our second interview of the week is with writer & teacher Dave Lordan. You can check out Dave’s work in issue #1 & in issue #4 of the Burning Bush 2.
How long have you been writing? 25 years
What was your first publication? A pamphlet published by UCC English Literature Society in the Spring of 1994, edited and introduced by Philip Coleman, called -18-.
What have been the most significant developments, negative and positive if you like, in poetry in Ireland over the last 10 years or so? I don’t see any negative developments of note within the art. We have older established writers often publishing healthy and vivid collections, and we have a generation of half hippies, half-punks between their teens and their thirties who are rather nervously marching towards and surrounding all the high castles in the land, like Fortinbras’ army, with added coffee and wine.
What do you think needs to happen, and what would you like to see happen, in Irish poetry over the next few years? I’d like to see more good poets writing more good poems and enriching the cultural atmosphere with their art and opinions and all their positive culture-building and scene-making activities. I’m excited about the coming years. i think we have an evolving progression towards a new engagement of poetry with culture as a whole and I’m looking forward to what will i think be an unpredictable, gorgeously fragmented period in Irish poetry.
We often hear in Ireland of the pull from either Boston or Berlin: broadly speaking, are Irish writers European writers in the English language or wholly steeped in the Anglosphere? Every writer has a different reading history and a particular disposition, and none would have such little complexity as to have only two poles of literary attraction. I’d have to place myself in a composite of County Sligo in 1920, Bologna in 1970, Atlantis….
Finally, if you had to recommend one regular poetry event in Ireland to someone, what would it be? I recommend that the person reading this goes off and sets up their own literary event.
Dave Lordan is a past holder of the Ireland Chair of Poetry Bursary Award and a previous winner of the Kavanagh and Strong Awards. His collections The Boy in the Ring (2007) and Invitation to a Sacrifice (2010) are published by Salmon Poetry. A new collection is forthcoming in 2013, also from Salmon. Wurm im Apfel recently published his First Book of Frags, a collection of short fiction. His website is www.davelordanwriter.com
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