Arts and Culture
A Very Kinetic National Poetry Month
National Poetry Month is the largest celebration of literature on the globe. The month of April is meant to encourage readers of all ages to engage with poetry in some way, to illuminate the important mark it has made on the cultures of so many peoples. The Academy of American Poets established NPM in 1996….
Continue ReadingCelebrating St. Brigid’s Day and “Imbolc”
Today, Irish people celebrate St. Brigid’s Day also known as “Imbolc,” which, in the old Irish Neolithic language, means “in the belly.” “Imbolc” is the Gaelic festival to celebrate the beginning of Spring and is one of the four Gaelic seasonal festivals including Beltane, Lughnasadh, and Samhain. This holiday was once only celebrated by pagans…
Continue Reading“Mostly dark, with a chink of light”: Alan Gillis reflects on Scapegoat and Other Poems
Alan Gillis’s Scapegoat and Other Poems launched on October 1st. To celebrate, WFU Press interns Fahad Rahmat and Rachel Stewart asked Gillis about his influences, religion’s redemptive impulse, how he sees current society and pop culture, and plenty more. WFU Press: Throughout Scapegoat, the reader encounters words like “fugging” and “pizz-popping, jingle-jangle”—sounds which you’ve incorporated into the…
Continue ReadingCiaran Carson is coming, so we broke out the letterpress
We’re all incredibly excited for Ciaran Carson’s reading here at Wake Forest next week, so we thought that we would share some of what we’ve been doing to make the time pass more quickly. WFU Press intern Sophie Leveque worked with Craig Fansler of ZSR Library to design a broadside for the reading.
Continue ReadingCiaran Carson on tour in the U.S. next month
We are pleased to announce that Ciaran Carson will be on tour in the U.S. this November. If you’ve never had the opportunity to see him read his work, you’re in for a treat. His lively readings combine poetry with traditional Irish music, making for a delightful and festive evening. A quick search on YouTube…
Continue ReadingNew Irish Literature Festival in Phoenix
This weekend Irish literature will be celebrated in a new way here in America. The non-profit organization Phoenix Sister Cities will be hosting its own Ennis Committee Book Festival this Sunday, September 27 in Phoenix, Arizona. This year is the first for this festival, but it is meant to be a counterpart to an established literary event in…
Continue ReadingIndependent Bookstore Day
May 2nd marks the first annual Independent Bookstore Day, a holiday that makes us happy down to our book-lovin’ souls. Small publishers and independent bookstores go together like bread and butter. The idea to celebrate small, independent bookstores came about after the success of last year’s California Bookstore Day. Looking to expand the celebration outside of…
Continue ReadingIt’s No Joke! April 1st Kicks Off National Poetry Month
April marks the beginning of National Poetry Month! While poetry can and should be celebrated all year round, this is the “official” month to celebrate poetry in all of its various forms. Literary geeks around the country will soon participate in another annual National Poetry Month, which was first founded in 1996 by the Academy of American…
Continue ReadingPoem of the Week: John Montague’s “At Last”
We are drawn to John Montague’s poem “At Last” for its tale of reunion and the sense of readjustment to what once was familiar, which the speaker suggests through the images of Ireland and the relationship between the father and son.
Continue ReadingA festive celebration for WFU Press
In the U.S., there’s no better day to celebrate Irish heritage and our connections with Ireland than St. Patrick’s Day. Green rivers, cheesy shamrock hats, and buckets o’ Guinness aside, we’re always happy to advocate for the rich Irish culture that exists in our country. This year, we’ve been celebrating with the publication of a very special and unique book…
Continue ReadingMothering Sunday
Last week, the Irish Times published an article containing a recipe for the most delicious-looking, homemade coconut cake. The article suggested that this might be a wonderful treat to bake our mothers on this upcoming Mother’s Day. Though my first thought was that this was a fantastic idea, my second thought was nothing short of:…
Continue ReadingPicking a Poem for Ireland
Raidió Teilifís Éireann (RTÉ), Ireland’s National Public Service Broadcaster, is currently promoting a campaign called A Poem for Ireland. This contest began in September when RTÉ asked followers to submit stand-out poems from the past century that encapsulated the Irish experience. With their nominations, followers submitted explanations for why their favorite should earn the recognition. Over…
Continue ReadingRevealing Ciaran Carson’s From Elsewhere Cover
This April, we’ll be releasing the North American edition of Ciaran Carson’s From Elsewhere and we are pleased to reveal the cover design. In From Elsewhere, Carson translates poems by the French poet Jean Follain and includes his own riffs inspired by these poems. The book’s cover points to Carson’s interest in translation and reflection, with the water…
Continue Reading5 things we’re looking forward to in 2015
Though it may look like we’re late to the “Top 10 list” train that hits at the end of each year, we thought it might be nice to look forward rather than back. Here are a few things we’re looking forward to this year: 1. Yeats turns 150! 2015 marks the 150th anniversary of W.B. Yeats’s…
Continue ReadingHere’s how you feel about e-books
Happy New Year, poetry readers! We had a busy holiday season, and we’re looking forward to what 2015 may bring. Right away, we’re preparing to attend the Digital Book World conference in New York next week to learn more about how we can continue to adapt to an increasingly digital publishing climate. With that priority in mind, we conducted…
Continue ReadingIrish: A Dying Language?
An article published yesterday in The Irish Times titled “Have Irish-Language books fallen off the shelf?” poses an interesting inquiry for bilingual presses. As a press specializing in Irish poetry, we take pride in publishing works both in our native English tongue, as well as in the guttural, consonant-strewn language of Irish Gaelic. Since for a large part of the 19th…
Continue ReadingGet Your Daily Dose of Poetry
Do you love poetry, but find yourself unable to sit down and read an entire collection?Between running around doing errands, writing for ourselves, or sitting behind a desk working, it can be hard to find time to read the genre that we all love. But never fear! Here at the Press, we have compiled a…
Continue ReadingIt’s University Press Week
Yesterday marked the commencement of the third annual, week-long celebration of university presses. From November 9th through the 15th, the Association of American University Presses (AAUP) hosts what is affectionately known as University Press Week. Events include a blog tour and collaborative projects gallery. As the AAUP website explains, this week exists not only to recognize…
Continue ReadingIrish poets in New York City this weekend for 6th Annual PoetryFest
This coming weekend in New York City will be an exciting one for the poetry community. The 6th Annual PoetryFest (November 7–9), is a three-day celebration of contemporary Irish and American poetry, featuring lectures, readings and more. Over the course of the weekend, ten poets will be featured, including Vona Groarke, Peter Fallon and Rita…
Continue ReadingSpooky History of Samhain
Halloween is upon us, but did you know that this beloved holiday is a descendent of the pagan Celtic festival called Samhain? Samhain (pronounced sah-win or sow-in) celebrates the end of the harvest season and beginning of winter, the time of year often associated with darkness and death. The Celts believed that on this night,…
Continue Reading“Wouldn't trade it for gold”: Music and the Irish spirit in Broadway’s Once
A few weeks ago, the first US touring production of the Tony-award winning Broadway musical Once gave a weekend of performances at Charlotte’s Belk Theatre. The show is based on the 2006 Oscar award-winning film of the same name, with music by Markéta Irglová and Irish singer-songwriter Glen Hansard. It tells the story of a…
Continue ReadingWhat does Ireland’s official Professor of Poetry do?
In September of last year, WFU Press’s very own poet, Paula Meehan, was appointed to serve as Ireland’s newest Professor of Poetry. This prestigious position, which is Ireland’s equivalent to the U.S. Poet Laureate, was founded by an independent Board of Trustees in response to Seamus Heaney’s 1995 win of the Nobel Prize for Literature. Of the six individuals (including…
Continue ReadingDiscover the Irish theatre scene with the 2014 Dublin Theatre Festival lineup
While some will be flocking to Munich throughout the next couple weeks to gorge on pretzels, schnitzel, and beer, others will converge in Ireland for the Dublin Theatre Festival. From September 25th to October 12th, Ireland’s finest artists will share their passion and talent with patrons at venues throughout the city. Visitors and locals can enjoy theatre, dance,…
Continue ReadingThe Lowdown on the U2 Controversy
Ireland’s most famous band, U2, has been getting a lot of headline attention these past few days. If you’ve checked your iTunes account recently, you might have noticed a new addition to your albums. U2 has collaborated with Apple to release their newest album, Songs of Innocence, and deliver it automatically to your iTunes account, free of…
Continue ReadingIt’s Festival Season: A Celebration of Irish Arts and Culture
As we slowly transition into autumn here in the United States, so too does Ireland undergo a seasonal transition — “festival season” that is. Fall in Ireland marks the commencement of a string of events celebrating all things related to Irish art and culture. From the 16-day-long Tiger Dublin Fringe festival currently transforming the city into a mecca for…
Continue ReadingAmerican Students in Ireland: Perspectives from WFU Press
Two of our new WFU Press interns recently returned from a seven week internship program in Dublin, Ireland. Below, they recount their unique experiences and reflections from their time abroad. Alex Price: The day I arrived, I went tired, a bit smelly if we are being honest, and with the look of the lost to Trinity…
Continue ReadingIreland ranks 1st in “Good Country Index”
Today, Ireland was ranked #1 on a new report called the Good Country Index, released by British policy advisor Simon Anholt. And what makes a Good Country, you ask? The Index measures how countries contribute to the planet and the human race. Ireland ranked within the top 10 in four of the seven categories, securing…
Continue Reading“How do you sew the night?”: A poem in memory of Maya Angelou
We at Wake Forest University Press join the rest of the university, and the rest of the world, in celebrating Maya Angelou’s life and mourning her passing. In her memory, here is a poem that WFUP poet Michael Longley wrote a few years ago after seeing Shaker-designed quilts in New England. …
Continue ReadingThe Falls Road: Carson’s childhood neighborhood
WFUP poet Ciaran Carson, native of Belfast and resident still, has written intimately about his experiences in the most urban sections of the city. This week, The Irish Times published a review of a new book of photographs taken in the late 1960s through the 1970s on the Falls Road, a portion of Belfast known for violent clashes,…
Continue ReadingPoem of the Day: “Be Someone” by Rita Ann Higgins
In honor of National Poetry Month, WFU will be posting a poem a day for the entire month of April. Today’s poem is “Be Someone” by Rita Ann Higgins, a working class Irish poet and playwright. Her work can be found in the Wake Forest Book of Irish Women’s Poetry. “Be Someone” by Rita Ann Higgins from…
Continue ReadingHappy Poetry Month!
The Narrator during the break in chapter, gets up to stretch beneath a skylight and hears seagulls, small girls running. So many pages since he listened last that he can’t recall how it came to this or which wall the door was on or even now what time of year it is Are his…
Continue ReadingPoetry Month with Paula Meehan
It’s our favourite month of the year: April! …also known as National Poetry Month. Our campus stalls have already been graced with “potty poetry,” and we will continue celebrating online by posting even more poetry than usual. To start with, here is an enlightening poem about changing times and weary souls. Nomad Heart by Paula Meehan…
Continue ReadingMacNeice poem inspires Scottish song
Louis MacNeice is one of the inspirations for the Scottish group, Battlefield Band. MacNeice’s poem, “Bagpipe Music,” provides the lyrics for the song on the group’s newest album Room Enough for All, which has been nominated for an Independent Music Award in the category of “World Traditional Song.” You can read the poem just below, buy MacNeice’s Collected Poems here, and…
Continue ReadingPaula Meehan touring United States
Wake Forest University Press poet and current Ireland Professor of Poetry, Paula Meehan, has been charming audiences in the United States on her current reading tour. Earlier in March, Meehan appeared at HoCoPoLitSo’s Thirty-Sixth Annual Evening of Irish Music and Poetry. And on Thursday, April 3, Meehan will be reading at Canisius College in Buffalo, New York. The reading…
Continue ReadingPoetry in Pop Culture: “poems change people’s understanding of what’s going on in the world”
Who said the technological age is taking people further away from literature? Perhaps it is true that millennials are reading fewer tangible books and more electronic books, but according to an article by The Irish Times this past weekend, poetry is popping up in pop culture all over the place. Maureen Kennelly, director of Poetry…
Continue ReadingSnow, Joyce and Voicemails: A Closer Look at Conor O’Callaghan’s “Three Six Five Zero”
Today’s snow-blanketed Wake Forest University campus. How does Conor O’Callaghan seamlessly connect a snowy North Carolinian landscape, James Joyce and voicemails? Ripe with isolation, introspection, recovery and renewal, O’Callaghan’s latest collection, The Sun King, whispers secrets and sings the emergence of light born of the soul’s darkest moments. Technology flashes in and out of The Sun King, yet O’Callaghan’s…
Continue ReadingPoetry By Heart
Earlier this week, the Poetry Book Society (UK) announced that Sinéad Morrissey is the winner of the TS Eliot Poetry Prize. We published Morrissey in our first Wake Forest Series of Irish Poetry and The New North: Contemporary Poetry from Northern Ireland. The Independent asks Morrissey if she is in favor of students in school learning poetry by…
Continue ReadingWhat’s Irish for “Merry Christmas to You”?
(Celtic Knot Christmas Wreath from the very impressive Nacho Grandma’s Quilts . Check out the other Celtic Knot designs while you’re there.) Nollaig shona duit! (Say “null-ig hun-nuh dit.”) “Nollaig” (which also means “Christmas” in Scottish Gaelic) derives from the Latin “natalica” for “birthday” and can sometimes be used as a personal name, like “Noel.” …
Continue ReadingBEST OF 2013: WFU Press Style
It’s that time of year again. Christmas trees are going up, people are frantically searching for just the right present, holiday plans are being made and, of course, The Best Of lists are being released all month. Maybe you watched that video about the best of Youtube in 2013 or heard Miley Cyrus was named…
Continue ReadingPoetryFest
Over the weekend, the Irish Arts Center in New York City hosted its 5th annual PoetryFest. Contemporary Irish poets including our own Conor O’Callaghan, Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill, and Colette Bryce (from the Wake Forest Series 3) all read poetry at this event. We are delighted to be publishing O’Callaghan’s new book, The Sun King, later this year.
Continue Reading“Bigger isn’t always better: Confessions from Wake Forest University Press interns on working at a small university press”
Wake Forest University Press is the premier publisher of Irish poetry in North America. Despite the lofty designation, it is among the smallest university presses in America. WFUP publishes an average of 4-6 titles each year, all from native Irish poets. It employs two full time staff members, in addition to a half dozen or…
Continue ReadingVona Groarke in The New Yorker
The November 11 issue of The New Yorker includes Vona Groarke’s poem “The Landscapes of Vilhelm Hammershøi” on page 61. Vilhelm Hammershøi (1864-1916) was a Danish painter best known for his low-key, soft portraits and interiors. Enigmatic and secretive, his paintings were described as “highly traditional, but also distinctively modern” in the 2008 London Royal…
Continue ReadingThe Question of E-Publishing
Over the past few weeks, our press has been researching new and (for us) largely unexplored markets. Like many publishers, we want to jump into the e-book game and start selling our content on numerous market places for nearly all devices. We do sell a few books in .pdf form via our Wake Forest University…
Continue ReadingA Sort of Homecoming
There is something special about returning to a place that you call home, whether it is a childhood memory, a small town left many years ago, or even a country returned to after being abroad. It is the feeling of familiarity tinged with change; something is different even though so much remains in tact. Maybe…
Continue Reading‘Tis the season for Poetry Readings
Everyone knows that poetry is best when listened to, so kick back, relax and belatedly celebrate National Poetry Day with some readings from our poets. Conor O’Callaghan reading “January Drought” from his newest collection, The Sun King. WFUP will publish the North American edition in December. Conor will be reading from The Sun King at the…
Continue ReadingBanned Books Week
It’s Banned Books Week, an annual celebration of the freedom to read, sponsored by the American Library Association. From September 22nd-28th, people are encouraged to read previously banned or challenged books. Since 1982, more than 11,300 books have been challenged, or attacked and almost removed due to content. One of our books, The Midnight Court translated by…
Continue ReadingSpeaking Out for the Small Press
Publishing is a constantly changing industry. Every day, new ideas rise out of companies, expertly crafted to improve customer experience, to make book buying simpler. New technology is pushed to the forefront and heralded as the future of publishing; soon, as it is prophecized over and over, all publishers will be using ebooks and turning…
Continue ReadingRealizing a Destiny in Full: On the Death of a Friend
“When asked to pronounce on Seamus’s death, a phrase coalesced in my mind: he did his work.” This, according to poet John Montague in his Sept. 7 memorial in the Irish Times, is the most succinct way to describe the late Seamus Heaney. But his description, which seems so far removed from the beauty and…
Continue ReadingThe Wake Forest Series of Irish Poetry, Volume 3 Launches in Paris
The Paris launch earlier this month included readings by the anthology’s featured poets, an appearance by Volume 3 editor and author of the forthcoming book The Sun King Conor O’Callaghan, as well as a lecture on the state and future of Irish poetry by Wake Forest Press director Professor Jefferson Holdridge. We at the press…
Continue Reading“Belfast Confetti,” Writers Workshops, and Modern Security
“The subversive half-brick, conveniently hand-sized, is an essential ingredient of the ammunition known as ‘Belfast confetti’, and has been tried and trusted by a generation of rioters.”–Ciaran Carson, “Brick” What happens when the “real world” gets in the way of creativity? Glenn Patterson happened to be leading a workshop for the Fermanaugh Writers in Enniskellen–while…
Continue ReadingThe Poetry Project
Harry Clifton’s poem “Picardy” was highlighted in the latest piece for The Poetry Project. Take a few moments to just breath and enjoy a mental health break with this combination of poetry and natural imagery: David Farrell and Harry Clifton, “Picardy” . “Picardy” is from Clifton’s volume Secular Eden, winner of the 2008 Irish Times Poetry Now…
Continue ReadingLouis MacNeice Poetry Evening
On May 17th, in conjunction with Ireland’s National Poetry Day celebrations, contemporary poets gathered to mark the 50th anniversary of Louis MacNeice’s death. Sinéad Morrissey, Ciaran Carson, Lucy Caldwell, and others joined together for readings at Ulster Hall in Belfast. MacNeice also has an international appeal, as demonstrated by the participation of Bermudian poet Paul…
Continue ReadingWake: Up to Poetry Reading and Celebration
youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDVeLeP-rlI If you weren’t able to make it to our Wake: Up to Poetry reading and celebration last month, you’re in luck. Thanks to The Wake Forest Interdisciplinary Performance and Liberal Arts Center (iPLACe) and the Wake Forest Documentary Film Program, we now have this lovely video of highlights from the event. We hope…
Continue ReadingWake Up to Poetry Celebration: A WFU Press’ Intern’s Reflection
The intermingling of poetry and Irish music created an atmosphere of captivation, reflection, and joy. This past Saturday night marked Wake Forest University Press’ first Wake Up to Poetry Celebration. In honor of National Poetry Month, WFUP collected student submissions, receiving more than 50 poems. The submissions were then evaluated by award-winning poets, Adrian Rice,…
Continue ReadingCiaran Carson to Read at UGA on April 10th
One of WFUP’s most distinguished poets, Ciaran Carson, will be reading selections of his work at the University of Georgia this week, on Wednesday, April 10th at 7 PM. The university is hosting the 2013 Atlantic Archipelagos Research Project, and Carson’s reading will be a feature of the welcome ceremony. The event reflects on elements…
Continue ReadingWake Up to Poetry! – Saturday, April 6th
May we have your attention, Winston-Salem? The Wake Up to Poetry! event is finally drawing near. This Saturday, April 6th, at 5:30 the WFU Press is hosting a celebration of poetry at the Community Arts Café on Fourth St., downtown. The three winners of the contest, Bailey Pittenger, Mackenzie Connollee, and Jessica Whitehair, will be reading…
Continue ReadingÉigse Festival Honors Michael Hartnett
This year’s Éigse Michael Hartnett Literary and Arts festival is coming up soon—April 25– April 27. This will be the 13th annual event, which began in 2000 after Michael Hartnett’s death the previous year. Held in Newcastle West, County Limerick, various events over the course of the weekend will take place in schools, pubs, offices…
Continue ReadingHappy World Poetry Day!!
Today, all of us a Wake Forest University Press hope you’re enjoying World Poetry Day!! Our internet community has been helping us celebrate in many ways. First, we’re excited to see that The Poetry Project for poetry and art from Ireland has recently added a new project inspired by Paula Meehan’s “My Father Perceived as…
Continue ReadingMichael Longley to Read at Cúirt International Festival of Literature
WFUP’s esteemed poet, Michael Longley, will be reading selections of his work on the opening night of the Cúirt International Festival of Literature. Longley’s most recent publication A Hundred Doors won the 2011 Irish Times Poetry Now Award, and he is also the recipient of the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry, the Hawthornden Prize and the T.S. Eliot Prize,…
Continue ReadingPoetry Magazine Honors Dennis O’Driscoll
The February issue of Poetry magazine, commemorates Dennis O’Driscoll, who passed away in December. The inside cover features the first stanza of his poem “Tomorrow.” Tomorrow Tomorrow I will start to be happy. The morning will light up like a celebratory cigar. Sunbeams sprawling on the lawn will set dew sparkling like a cut-glass tumbler of…
Continue ReadingGeneration: Blogger Boomers
Here at WFUP we are actively working to expand our use of social media and blogging as a means to connect, share our thoughts, and listen to others. A recent study by NM Incite tracked over 181 million blogs worldwide in 2011, a drastic increase from the recorded 36 million blogs in 2006. Blogs have…
Continue ReadingIt Runs In the Family
It’s rare enough to have one famous artist in the family, rarer still to have two. The parents of Thomas and John Kinsella – lauded Irish poet and composer, respectively – must have been doing something right. The Kinsella boys, who grew up in the Dublin suburb of Inchicore to a family employed in the…
Continue ReadingIt’s Poetry Month!
April is the month to celebrate poetry! And while we here at the Press rejoice it every day, we encourage our readers to take part with us in the celebration of National Poetry Month, established in 1996 by the Academy of American Poets. Now is the time to start that spring cleaning by dusting off…
Continue ReadingA Lil’ Bit of Lit. Crit.: The Vocal Landscapes of Vona Groarke
In the Spring 2010 issue of Poetry London, W.N. Herbert of Newcastle University wrote an article on “Approaching Simplicity” in which he compares the works of poets Billy Collins and Don Paterson to our very own Vona Groarke. Looking at Groarke’s most recent publication with the Press, Spindrift, Herbert writes: “Vona Groarke’s work finds itself…
Continue ReadingBut who is Captain Lemass?
Currently at the press, we are looking forward to releasing Harry Clifton’s new book The Winter Sleep of Captain Lemass. When first hearing this title, the name Captain Lemass seems so lyrical that many assume it must be a fictional name. However, some researched revealed that Clifton is actually referring to Captain Noel Lemass, the…
Continue ReadingSmartphones and Tablets and E-Readers, Oh My!
At the Wake Forest Press, we have been closely following the debate over e-books and posting articles waged from both sides of this war. Endless questions have been raised, and very few definite answers have been provided. In his recent article “The Way We Read Now,” New York Times book critic Dwight Garner made it…
Continue Reading“The Wild Dog Rose” – A Collaboration of Arts Nearly Fifty Years in the Making
In 1962, a group of Irish musicians formed a band called The Chieftains that would specialize in traditional music. Now fifty years later, The Chieftains are a six-time Grammy award winning group that has popularized traditional Irish music around the world. The band’s name came from the book Death of a Chieftain, written by our…
Continue ReadingReading Between the Pixels: What Cover Art Really Means
They say that you can’t judge a book by its cover, but in the case of poet John Montague’s new book Speech Lessons, the cover is quite revealing. The image on the cover comes from a painting titled Adam and Eve by German painter Hans Baldung, the artist of the crucifixion painting upon which Montague meditates in…
Continue ReadingA Lil’ Bit of Lit. Crit.
What is the place of poetry in modern society? An unoriginal question, I know. But, it is clear that, at best, there is a certain collective ambivalence towards it, evidenced by the shrinking sections of poetry in libraries, bookstores, and on personal bookshelves. Poetry, sadly (or not-so-sadly for others), is often declared to be a…
Continue ReadingValentine’s Day
In honor of St. Valentine’s Day, we at WFU Press have selected three different poems that cover the different spectrums of that confusing but beautiful thing known as love. Michael Longley’s poem “The Scissors Ceremony” depicts the heartwarming image of an old couple that are still very much in love. In contrast, John Montague reminds…
Continue ReadingArts & Culture
The cover art on The Wake Forest Series of Irish Poetry, volume 2 to the casual observer may seem a tad too modernist or minimalist to garner any serious, long-term reflection. It could be say, a fork and a crumpled foil wrapper, or perhaps a field goal being kicked for those of us (yes, myself…
Continue ReadingArts and Culture: Cover Art for McGuckian’s “My Love Has Fared Inland”
According to a review by Borbala Farago in The Irish University Review, Medbh McGuckian’s My Love Has Fared Inland takes up “familiar themes of creativity and spirituality” and the poems “trace an introspective trajectory” including themes of “death, writing, nature, and love.” Due to the diverse content of the book, it was important for Wake Forest University…
Continue ReadingWhy Poetry Readers Can Save A Bookstore
This week at the press, we have been reading Janaka Stucky’s article “How to Survive in the Age of Amazon,” from Poetry Foundation, about the correct way for independent bookstores to compete against the ever-present driving force known as Amazon. The article suggests that these bookstores need to forget about competing against Amazon and focus…
Continue ReadingArts and Culture: O’Reilly Broadside
It’s easy to quickly glance at the image associated with Caitríona O’ Reilly’s poem “Octopus” and see the connection; the image is a direct representation of the title. It all seems pretty standard. However, as I delve deeper into the poem, I find that the illustrated octopus is not only strikingly apt, but is responsible…
Continue ReadingWhat Does This Mean for Writing?
This week at the Press, we’ve all been reading Alexandra Alter’s recent article in The Wall Street Journal on Penguin’s upcoming publication, Chopsticks, which is an enhanced e-book that combines literature with digital photo albums, video clips, and audio clips. Towards the end of the article, Alter shares an interesting quote from the book’s author, Jessica Anthony, on “the future of narrative”…
Continue ReadingTravel
Lara Marlowe, author and Washington correspondent to The Irish Times, stated in an interview with the Irish Echo that you’re Irish if “you delight in language, enjoy good company and never lose touch with the sadness that runs through all things.” Although Marlowe is American, she maintains a residence in Ireland and is a world-traveled journalist. In the interview, Marlowe…
Continue ReadingThe Art of a Cover
It’s traditional for the portrait of authors to be put on covers of compilation volumes of their work. Brendan Kennelly, despite his “notes of disgust, fierce satire, sardonic bitterness” looks fairly happy on the cover as a man who has grown into his career as a poet and grown into his own lyricism. The photograph…
Continue ReadingArts and Culture: Alice Maher and Irish Readers
When Irish artist Alice Maher was commissioned to make drawings for the National Library of Ireland, she thought, naturally, about readers. Combine that with her interest in identities, particularly gendered identities, and you have her series, Lectores Mirabiles (Wonderful Readers). She gave us permission to use Lectores Mirabiles V for the cover of The Wake…
Continue ReadingA healthy dose of poetry
As the spring semester is flying by, we have two days left in March and then it will be…National Poetry Month! National Poetry Month was started in 1996 by the Academy of American Poets and is held every April. It is a time when anyone from poetry publishers to libraries and schools come together to…
Continue ReadingCelebrate St. Patrick’s Day Your Way!
I always enjoy St. Patrick’s Day because, well, green is without a doubt my favorite color, but also because it’s a great excuse for a party! People seem to generally get more bawdy and more mischievous on this day, whether they understand the true meaning of the holiday or not. But did you know that…
Continue ReadingJudging a Book by its Cover: Vona Groarke’s Spindrift
While an old adage suggests that you can’t judge a book by its cover, in the modern publishing world, that’s often all you have to go by. The ever-expanding digital marketplace uses cover art as an ambassador for the intangible, providing a thumbnail image of the physical book. Similarly, in old-fashioned bookstores, cover art is,…
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