On World Book Day, We Read Poetry
Moya Cannon is an Irish poet with five published collections, the most recent being Keats Lives (Carcanet Press, Manchester). The mountains, the sea and our primal and enduring responses to the beauty of the endangered earth are the inspiration for many of her poems. Archaeology and geology figure too as gateways to deeper understanding of our mysterious relationship with the natural world and our past. Music has always been a deep interest and is a constant theme. She has given many readings with musicians and singers. Moya has been invited to read in Ireland, other European countries, in the Americas, North and South, in Japan and India. In recent years, selections of her work have been translated into Spanish by the distinguished Argentinian poet, Jorge Fondebrider, into Portuguese and into German. She has received the Brendan Behan Award and the O’Shaughnessy Award and she was Heimbold Professor of Irish Studies at Villanova University in 2011. She was editor of the Poetry Ireland Review and is a member of Aosdána, the affiliation of Irish creative artists.
Olga Novo (Vilarmao, Lugo, Spain, 1975) is a daughter of farmers, a poet, essayist, translator and a literary critic in the Galician language. She is a teacher of Galician to secondary school students. As a poet, as well as collaborating in a wide range of magazines and anthologies, she has published A teta sobre o sol (1996), Nós nus (1997), A cousa vermella (2004) and Cráter (Critics Award in Spain, 2011). She has published the artists’ book Magnalia (2001), in collaboration with Alexandra Domínguez and Xoán Abeleira. As a literary scholar, Olga has published several works and has participated in a variety of conferences and seminars revolving around literary themes linked to eroticism, feminism, avant-garde, celtism, and anarchism. Vitalism, utopia, feminist liberation, the revolutionary cognitive power of poetry, its visionary and radical character, the authenticity of writing, and telluric impulses are themes frequently referenced in her poetry and essays.
This reading will be followed by events taking place in Cork, on 27th and 28th April, and included in the Cork World Book Festival.