Wow, Sunday already? This week flew by. On Thursday morning, I went to the Social Welfare Office in Galway and signed up for a Personal Public Service, or PPS, number. This allows me to work in Ireland! I'm really hoping to get a job for the summer... it's going to be necessary if I want to, y'know, eat and pay rent. It was also kind of comforting to go there, get a form, take a number, wait in a lobby, etc. It was exactly like going to the Secretary of State's office in the U.S., which is further proof that bureaucracy is the same wherever you go.
I've also been very busy, with schoolwork, meetings, writing... currently I'm juggling about four things.
-PhD application. This requires a writing sample, a CV (like a resume), a cover letter, and the names and contact information of two references. I have both my references, and I know what I'm going to use for my writing sample. It's due on 14 March, but it's also advantageous to get these things in early, so I'm hoping to turn it in this week.
-MA thesis. I don't really need to start really working on this until April, but I'm trying to get a topic nailed down. I have a thesis adviser, and I've read about five books in the last week to try and narrow down my question. Right now, it's gone from "something to do with Irish theater and colonialism" to "J.W. Whitbread, the Queen's Royal Theatre, and something to do with imperialism."
-mid-terms. Really, just my first mid-term, which is due on 29 February. I've started to do some research for it, but I haven't gotten as far as I'd like. That's a goal for the coming week.
-regular class reading. Jeez. On top of everything else.
As far as the PhD application goes, I'm trying to get that all wrapped up this weekend. I'm currently working on my CV, which has been an interesting process-- I've never had to write one of these for an academic reason! The main difference is you don't include your work experience, but instead go into detail about relevant courses you've taken. Writing CVs and resumes is always an interesting process... it makes you realize just how awesome and qualified you really are. I also need to write a nice concise cover letter, and do some final revisions on my writing samples, and then I can hand the whole darn thing in. In addition to getting it in early, it will be nice to have one less ball in the air.
So that's been my week! Not as exciting, culturally, as last week... though, on Thursday (Valentine's day) I did go to a sonnet contest at a local pub. My friend Quincy won first prize for an English sonnet, and my Irish teacher Colette won first prize for an Irish sonnet. There was an a cappella group singing medieval love songs, free chocolate, and free champagne. If I have to spend Valentine's day without my boyfriend, that's a good way to do it!
Showing posts with label poetry. Show all posts
Showing posts with label poetry. Show all posts
Sunday, February 17, 2008
Sunday, February 10, 2008
Culture
First, I have an academic update (I am in school, remember.) I have an adviser for my MA thesis! Dr. Lionel Pilkington will be supervising me for the next six months or so. I met with him on Friday, and he seemed very excited about being my adviser. I still don't have an actual thesis question, but our meeting helped me refine my nebulous "something to do with Irish theater and colonialism" to "something to do with late 19th century Irish melodrama and colonialism," so at least I have a bit of a focus now. He gave me a list of authors and books to look at, which I've been doing this weekend, and we'll meet again in a few weeks, at which time I will hopefully have a stronger sense of an actual topic. Exciting!
In non-scholarly news, this week was one full of culture for me. For starters, this week held the Múscailt arts festival at NUIG, so there were many events for that.
Tuesday night, I went to the Múscailt poetry slam. I got to see some terrible poetry and some great poetry. Notably, one of the best readers was a boy who looked to be about ten or eleven years old. By objective standards, his poetry was good, though not great; given his age, however, he was awesome. (One of his poems involved the words "shit" and "fuck," which didn't appear to shock anyone in the audience, including his mother; the Irish have what I feel to be a much more sensible attitude toward profanity than Americans, and no one really cares about swearing in front of children or if children swear.) The winner of the slam was actually this boy's mother, a woman named Mags Treanor, and she was excellent. I also got to see Stephen Murray, who I have seen on a couple occasions; he is still one of the best readers and slam poets I've ever seen, and it's always worth watching him read.
Thursday night, still a part of Múscailt, our class had tickets (that were graciously provided by the Centre for Irish Studies) to the Traditional Music concert. "Traditional Music" is really just the start of what we saw: a band with a fiddle, accordion, and classical guitarist; a sean-nos singer; an Uilleann piper; a storyteller; two sean-nos dancers, one a 14-year-old boy and one a pregnant woman (accompanied by the fiddler and accordion player from earlier); a contemporary singer (accompanied by the fiddler, accordion player, and guitarist); and a grand finale with the all the instrumental musicians and the dancers. Everything was absolutely excellent, and it was a lovely evening.
Friday night, I went to the "Over the Edge 2007 Poetry Showcase." This was a reading from the 10-or-so Galwegian poets who published books in 2007. It took place at Sheridan's wine bar, which is a wonderful classy little bar/store. There is a cheesemonger's below, and the wine bar upstairs is about the size of a kitchen, with three walls devoted to racks of wine. The "kitchen" atmosphere was highlighted by the long wooden tables and blue tiled walls. When the room was packed with well-dressed literati, all of whom were standing around holding glasses of wine, it made us1 feel like we were at someone's fancy dinner party. The mayor of Galway was there, as well, wearing his mayoral chain, and he gave an address. Each of the poets read three poems, so it was almost like a poetry sampler. Mags Treanor, from the slam on Tuesday, read, as well as my friend Neil McCarthy. After the reading, Brianne, Quincy, and I went with Neil and a couple of the other poets to Freeney's, one of Galway's top old-man pubs, and I managed to get a signed copy of Neil's book for the price of three kisses on the cheek.
In conclusion, I love Galway's art and poetry scene. It took me a while, but I finally feel like I have an established "social circle." The fact that it's comprised mainly of poets and academics makes me happy.
1: I went with my friends Brianne, Meredith, and Jen; we met our friends Quincy and Stephen there, as well as seeing our Irish teacher. It was quite a social event.
In non-scholarly news, this week was one full of culture for me. For starters, this week held the Múscailt arts festival at NUIG, so there were many events for that.
Tuesday night, I went to the Múscailt poetry slam. I got to see some terrible poetry and some great poetry. Notably, one of the best readers was a boy who looked to be about ten or eleven years old. By objective standards, his poetry was good, though not great; given his age, however, he was awesome. (One of his poems involved the words "shit" and "fuck," which didn't appear to shock anyone in the audience, including his mother; the Irish have what I feel to be a much more sensible attitude toward profanity than Americans, and no one really cares about swearing in front of children or if children swear.) The winner of the slam was actually this boy's mother, a woman named Mags Treanor, and she was excellent. I also got to see Stephen Murray, who I have seen on a couple occasions; he is still one of the best readers and slam poets I've ever seen, and it's always worth watching him read.
Thursday night, still a part of Múscailt, our class had tickets (that were graciously provided by the Centre for Irish Studies) to the Traditional Music concert. "Traditional Music" is really just the start of what we saw: a band with a fiddle, accordion, and classical guitarist; a sean-nos singer; an Uilleann piper; a storyteller; two sean-nos dancers, one a 14-year-old boy and one a pregnant woman (accompanied by the fiddler and accordion player from earlier); a contemporary singer (accompanied by the fiddler, accordion player, and guitarist); and a grand finale with the all the instrumental musicians and the dancers. Everything was absolutely excellent, and it was a lovely evening.
Friday night, I went to the "Over the Edge 2007 Poetry Showcase." This was a reading from the 10-or-so Galwegian poets who published books in 2007. It took place at Sheridan's wine bar, which is a wonderful classy little bar/store. There is a cheesemonger's below, and the wine bar upstairs is about the size of a kitchen, with three walls devoted to racks of wine. The "kitchen" atmosphere was highlighted by the long wooden tables and blue tiled walls. When the room was packed with well-dressed literati, all of whom were standing around holding glasses of wine, it made us1 feel like we were at someone's fancy dinner party. The mayor of Galway was there, as well, wearing his mayoral chain, and he gave an address. Each of the poets read three poems, so it was almost like a poetry sampler. Mags Treanor, from the slam on Tuesday, read, as well as my friend Neil McCarthy. After the reading, Brianne, Quincy, and I went with Neil and a couple of the other poets to Freeney's, one of Galway's top old-man pubs, and I managed to get a signed copy of Neil's book for the price of three kisses on the cheek.
In conclusion, I love Galway's art and poetry scene. It took me a while, but I finally feel like I have an established "social circle." The fact that it's comprised mainly of poets and academics makes me happy.
1: I went with my friends Brianne, Meredith, and Jen; we met our friends Quincy and Stephen there, as well as seeing our Irish teacher. It was quite a social event.
Sunday, January 20, 2008
New year, new semester
I just want you to know that you're lucky you even got a 'blog entry today. My internet, always slow, is particularly molasses-in-January pokey today, and I got so frustrated waiting for the 'blog page to load that I almost abandoned it.
Anyway, I am back in Galway, and actually have been for about a week now. The break was lovely-- it was wonderful to see my family and friends-- but it's nice to be back, back to my "real life" of school and reading and Ireland. I was tired, frustrated, and travel-weary after the 12 hours it took me to get from Grand Rapids to Dublin, but as soon as I walked off the plane, I was surrounded by an unquestionable sense of Irishness that felt like a sigh of relief. I really do love this country, and just looking out the window or smelling the air brings an enormous sense of comfort.
This first week back has been largely taken up by the normal "first day of classes" type things-- introductions, short lectures, and syllabi, though thankfully the teachers here don't care to spend much time on the latter and are content to simply hand them out. The most exciting thing that happened was undoubtedly a visit from Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill.
Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill ([nu:lə ni ga:nəl] or "NOO-la NEE GAH-nal") is Ireland's, and therefore the World's, Foremost Irish-Language Poet. She is, simply, a Big Deal when it comes to poetry in Ireland. I actually had the opportunity to meet her once before: on my study abroad in Dublin, she came and talked to our class about the history of Irish. That time, however, I don't think any of our class had had her importance and near-celebrity status impressed on us, and while she read a little of her poetry most of the emphasis wasn't on her. This time, she came to do a private reading for the Irish Studies Centre. Louis De Paor, our fearless leader, arranged it-- I think they might have gone to college together, at University College Cork, back in the '60's. That's what my very tiny knowledge of Irish gathered from Louis' introduction, anyway. Nuala was wonderful. She is very funny and had absolutely no ego about her writing, referring to it as something she had to do, in order to keep sane and express ideas that nag at her. As she put it, she gets a bee in her bonnet about something and it won't go away until she writes about it to her satisfaction.
She read her poetry to us, telling us the stories behind each one. She would read the translation first, frequently stopping to compliment the wonderful way the translator (often Paul Muldoon) had put something-- when asked why she didn't translate her own work, as she is completely bilingual, she replied "I'm not a poet in English!" We are working on some of her work in my Irish class right now, and so I (along with most of my class) brought my copy of her book Spionáin Is Róiseanna ("Gooseberries and Roses") to be signed. When she opened it, it fell open to one of the pages I'd been translating, with glosses written on the lines above the words and translations in the margins. "Oh, that's just my clumsy attempt at translation," I said, embarrassed and worried that she'd actually try to read my gibberish. "No, I love it!" she exclaimed. "Writing in books is wonderful."
Anyway, I am back in Galway, and actually have been for about a week now. The break was lovely-- it was wonderful to see my family and friends-- but it's nice to be back, back to my "real life" of school and reading and Ireland. I was tired, frustrated, and travel-weary after the 12 hours it took me to get from Grand Rapids to Dublin, but as soon as I walked off the plane, I was surrounded by an unquestionable sense of Irishness that felt like a sigh of relief. I really do love this country, and just looking out the window or smelling the air brings an enormous sense of comfort.
This first week back has been largely taken up by the normal "first day of classes" type things-- introductions, short lectures, and syllabi, though thankfully the teachers here don't care to spend much time on the latter and are content to simply hand them out. The most exciting thing that happened was undoubtedly a visit from Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill.
Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill ([nu:lə ni ga:nəl] or "NOO-la NEE GAH-nal") is Ireland's, and therefore the World's, Foremost Irish-Language Poet. She is, simply, a Big Deal when it comes to poetry in Ireland. I actually had the opportunity to meet her once before: on my study abroad in Dublin, she came and talked to our class about the history of Irish. That time, however, I don't think any of our class had had her importance and near-celebrity status impressed on us, and while she read a little of her poetry most of the emphasis wasn't on her. This time, she came to do a private reading for the Irish Studies Centre. Louis De Paor, our fearless leader, arranged it-- I think they might have gone to college together, at University College Cork, back in the '60's. That's what my very tiny knowledge of Irish gathered from Louis' introduction, anyway. Nuala was wonderful. She is very funny and had absolutely no ego about her writing, referring to it as something she had to do, in order to keep sane and express ideas that nag at her. As she put it, she gets a bee in her bonnet about something and it won't go away until she writes about it to her satisfaction.
She read her poetry to us, telling us the stories behind each one. She would read the translation first, frequently stopping to compliment the wonderful way the translator (often Paul Muldoon) had put something-- when asked why she didn't translate her own work, as she is completely bilingual, she replied "I'm not a poet in English!" We are working on some of her work in my Irish class right now, and so I (along with most of my class) brought my copy of her book Spionáin Is Róiseanna ("Gooseberries and Roses") to be signed. When she opened it, it fell open to one of the pages I'd been translating, with glosses written on the lines above the words and translations in the margins. "Oh, that's just my clumsy attempt at translation," I said, embarrassed and worried that she'd actually try to read my gibberish. "No, I love it!" she exclaimed. "Writing in books is wonderful."
Sunday, November 11, 2007
there's diamonds lying in the road
This weekend1 has been full of cultural activities for me!
As you may recall, a couple weeks ago at the BAFFLE poetry festival I met a young man named Neil McCarthy. Neil had invited us to an event he hosts every other Thursday called "the Voice and the Verse," a little show that pairs a local poet and a local musician to perform together. This past Thursday, Beth, Jen, and I decided to check it out, so we went on up to The Crane.
The show was excellent! First, a guitar player named Jamie did a few songs to open. His music reminded me a bit of Dave Matthews, though less pop-y. I recognized him from Shop Street-- he's one of the regular buskers. He has always amused me, being a redhaired Irish guy with a high tenor voice who sings Johnny Cash songs in the street. His original stuff was very good, though.
After him, the main act came one: a performance poet named Stephen Murray. Oddly, I have actually met him before! When I was in Galway during my study abroad, I got to see a great deal of the (April 2005) Cuírt Poetry Festival, but my favorite event by far was the slam poetry competition. I had been the only one interested out of my class, so I had gone alone to the pub where it was held and ended up talking to one of the poets for half an hour, before and after the readings. His poem had been my favorite, and he won that competition. That poet was Stephen Murray, who is also a good friend of Neil McCarthy's. What a strangely small world! Anyway, Stephen recited some fantastic poetry, accompanied by a guy with a guitar who did backup rhythms for his poems. Stephen's poetry is very good, but he also performs it impeccably, which is of equal importance with slam or performance poetry.
When Stephen was through reading, the musician who had been accompanying him took the stage for himself. All I can say about him: wow.
Dan Donnelly is his name; he calls his band "Sonovagun," though it's pretty much just him with a recording box to loop sounds back and accompany himself. I highly recommend giving some of his music a listen, because it's very good. Very pleasant indie-folky guitar pop. He performed for the rest of the night, playing a mix of his own stuff and some fun covers.
After the show, Beth and I talked to Neil for a while, and he informed us of a small informal jam going on the next day, at a pub called The Nauchton. Dan Donnelly would be playing there, and Beth and I enjoyed his music so much that we decided to check it out. So the next night, we went out and brought Meg with us.
This show was a much more typical bar show-- it was packed, standing room only all night, and noisy. People were talking the whole time and the music was just background noise. Still, we secured places near the front of the crowd and watched the whole 2+ hour set. Afterward, Dan came and shook our hands, recognizing Beth and I from the night before. He had CDs for sale, and I decided to buy one. The problem was, I had a hard time deciding which one I wanted. He has two full-length albums for €10 apiece, and a single for €5. Both the albums had songs I really liked-- "Spare Change" on one and "Diamonds In The Road" on the other. I was debating buying both, and he saw this uncertainty, because he said "Tell you what. For €20 I'll give you both albums, the single, and a DVD of two concerts!" Done! So now I have the whole Dan Donnelly collection. It's really good stuff.
It was still fairly early, not even 11pm, by the time Dan got packed up. Meg, Beth, and I weren't sure if we wanted to stick around, go somewhere else, or go home, when Neil came up and invited us to go to another pub with him, Dan, Jamie (the other musician from the night before) and their girlfriends, to see some more live music. We were surprised and a bit flattered, so we went along to another pub. This place was a lot quieter and the music was very low-key, so we just sat around and chatted for a bit until around midnight, when Beth, Meg, and I got too tired and went home. The only bit of excitement here was when a very drunk man started harassing Beth. He was hitting on her in a very vulgar way, and got hostile when she rebuffed him. Dan Donnelly jumped up and confronted him, and looked ready to fight him until he backed off. A Northern Irish man ready to start a bar fight to protect someone he just met? I guess stereotypes exist for a reason. ^_~
Overall, an exciting and enjoyable weekend. It was very nice to get see something a little different than crappy dance music or kitschy tourist bars. I like that Neil has sort of befriended us-- I feel like he can introduce me to a lot of the indie/art scene in this town. I knew it existed, I just hadn't found it... but Thursday, watching slam poetry among lip-pierced intellectuals, I finally felt like I'd discovered my crowd.
1: And by "weekend" I mean "Thursday and Friday." I spent Saturday and today doing homework.
As you may recall, a couple weeks ago at the BAFFLE poetry festival I met a young man named Neil McCarthy. Neil had invited us to an event he hosts every other Thursday called "the Voice and the Verse," a little show that pairs a local poet and a local musician to perform together. This past Thursday, Beth, Jen, and I decided to check it out, so we went on up to The Crane.
The show was excellent! First, a guitar player named Jamie did a few songs to open. His music reminded me a bit of Dave Matthews, though less pop-y. I recognized him from Shop Street-- he's one of the regular buskers. He has always amused me, being a redhaired Irish guy with a high tenor voice who sings Johnny Cash songs in the street. His original stuff was very good, though.
After him, the main act came one: a performance poet named Stephen Murray. Oddly, I have actually met him before! When I was in Galway during my study abroad, I got to see a great deal of the (April 2005) Cuírt Poetry Festival, but my favorite event by far was the slam poetry competition. I had been the only one interested out of my class, so I had gone alone to the pub where it was held and ended up talking to one of the poets for half an hour, before and after the readings. His poem had been my favorite, and he won that competition. That poet was Stephen Murray, who is also a good friend of Neil McCarthy's. What a strangely small world! Anyway, Stephen recited some fantastic poetry, accompanied by a guy with a guitar who did backup rhythms for his poems. Stephen's poetry is very good, but he also performs it impeccably, which is of equal importance with slam or performance poetry.
When Stephen was through reading, the musician who had been accompanying him took the stage for himself. All I can say about him: wow.
Dan Donnelly is his name; he calls his band "Sonovagun," though it's pretty much just him with a recording box to loop sounds back and accompany himself. I highly recommend giving some of his music a listen, because it's very good. Very pleasant indie-folky guitar pop. He performed for the rest of the night, playing a mix of his own stuff and some fun covers.
After the show, Beth and I talked to Neil for a while, and he informed us of a small informal jam going on the next day, at a pub called The Nauchton. Dan Donnelly would be playing there, and Beth and I enjoyed his music so much that we decided to check it out. So the next night, we went out and brought Meg with us.
This show was a much more typical bar show-- it was packed, standing room only all night, and noisy. People were talking the whole time and the music was just background noise. Still, we secured places near the front of the crowd and watched the whole 2+ hour set. Afterward, Dan came and shook our hands, recognizing Beth and I from the night before. He had CDs for sale, and I decided to buy one. The problem was, I had a hard time deciding which one I wanted. He has two full-length albums for €10 apiece, and a single for €5. Both the albums had songs I really liked-- "Spare Change" on one and "Diamonds In The Road" on the other. I was debating buying both, and he saw this uncertainty, because he said "Tell you what. For €20 I'll give you both albums, the single, and a DVD of two concerts!" Done! So now I have the whole Dan Donnelly collection. It's really good stuff.
It was still fairly early, not even 11pm, by the time Dan got packed up. Meg, Beth, and I weren't sure if we wanted to stick around, go somewhere else, or go home, when Neil came up and invited us to go to another pub with him, Dan, Jamie (the other musician from the night before) and their girlfriends, to see some more live music. We were surprised and a bit flattered, so we went along to another pub. This place was a lot quieter and the music was very low-key, so we just sat around and chatted for a bit until around midnight, when Beth, Meg, and I got too tired and went home. The only bit of excitement here was when a very drunk man started harassing Beth. He was hitting on her in a very vulgar way, and got hostile when she rebuffed him. Dan Donnelly jumped up and confronted him, and looked ready to fight him until he backed off. A Northern Irish man ready to start a bar fight to protect someone he just met? I guess stereotypes exist for a reason. ^_~
Overall, an exciting and enjoyable weekend. It was very nice to get see something a little different than crappy dance music or kitschy tourist bars. I like that Neil has sort of befriended us-- I feel like he can introduce me to a lot of the indie/art scene in this town. I knew it existed, I just hadn't found it... but Thursday, watching slam poetry among lip-pierced intellectuals, I finally felt like I'd discovered my crowd.
1: And by "weekend" I mean "Thursday and Friday." I spent Saturday and today doing homework.
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