Tade Ipadeola ( Nigeria) was co-curator of A Deeper Country, our CS Lewis themed curation with EastSide Arts and Belfast City Council. He was an absolute joy to work with, and with the wonders of the internet, although we have never met, we were still able to collaborate across the thousands of miles and put beautiful poetry into the streets of Belfast.
Poetry Jukebox is an on-street audio installation of poetry. This poem, Between Crossing & Passing, is by Deirdre Cartmill. It was integral to our curation Another Country, which responded to the work of CS Lewis and was commissioned by East Side Arts for CS Lewis Square and co-curated by Nigerian poet Tade Ipadeola. Deirdre also worked closely with me to set up the Poetry Jukebox project in 2017.
Poetry Jukebox is an on-street audio installation of poetry. This poem, Tipping Point is by Glen Wilson. It featured on our Once Barefoot curation of poems on climate. This curation runs concurrently in Belfast City Council Tropical Ravine and at Centre Culturel Irlandais in Paris.
Poetry Jukebox is an on-street audio installation of poetry. This poem, Bushfire is by Stephanie Conn. It was included in our Once Barefoot curation of poems about climate, which ran concurrently at Belfast City Council’s Tropical Ravine and at Centre Culturel Irlandais in Paris.
Poetry Jukebox is an on-street audio installation of poetry. This poem, Formerly Exotic Fruit is by Nidhi Zak/Aria Eipe. It is included on our HUNGERING curation for EPIC Museum in Dublin.
Poetry Jukebox is an on street audio installation of poetry. This poem ‘Fear sa Teach’ is by bi-lingual poet Celia deFreine. It is in Irish and in English on this file. Celia is one of Ireland’s most outstanding Irish language poets and she is also an Ambassador and supporter of the Poetry Jukebox project.
This poem was included in our FIRED! Irish Women collection of poems, which was launched at the Belfast International Festival in October 2018.
Poetry Jukebox is an on-street audio installation of poetry. This poem, Empty, is by Ruairi de Barra. The poem was included in HUNGERING, poems of hunger and migration, which we curated with Jessica Traynor. It was hosted at EPIC Museum in Dublin. We hope to tour this collection of poems to Centre Culturel Irlandais, when all of this is over!
The marshes have filled themselves
with wetness and bird song
since they were left alone.
The Basran reed warbler breeds
deep in Mesopotamian banks,
the original garden of Eden.
Each dusk, birds with dark eyestripes
flash amber shadows low
over lakes and gleaming mud.
So many species are flourishing,
the African darter, the sacred ibis –
one day women in libraries, flocks of singing girls.
Poetry Jukebox is an on-street installation of poetry. This poem The Sleepless, is by Amanda Bell. It was part of Another Country, poems in homage to CS. Lewis.
https://wordpress.com/post/mariamcmanus.wordpress.com/1972
The Invisible
‘The secret is to walk evading nothing’, Alice Oswald
Croneshadow stumbles ahead of me catching
erratic feet on the tarmac ruched
as it is by roots her left foot sticking
as if in mud her stoop cranked up
by the pock-marked skin of the drystone wall
she is thrown on the angle of light sickish
orange in the early night. Her mouth
twitches down at the creases Bitchy
Resting Face though you cannot see it
dark on dark. You could say she exists
in relief except there is none not
for a structure like her misbuilt collapsing
inward with each jolt forward. I try
to right her. but she will not straighten. The more
I struggle the more she looks broken. She knows
more of pain than your charts can trace
but you will not acknowledge her hear her. Her name
is a slur. Her body is carrion. It is
too late for this.
My blood too sticky.
Her edges are blurring.
My legs are unravelling.
Her gown of bones is clacking clacking.
Will we ever reach home?
I sink in my clothes
till my breath melts the frost on the empty road.
She pushes ahead of me carries on walking.
Carries on walking.
Carries on walking.
Poetry Jukebox is an on-street audio installation of poetry. This poem, The Invisible by Polly Atkin was included in Song of Myself, poetry by D/deaf and disabled poets. It celebrated the launch of a jukebox which includes features which make it more accessible to disabled people. We launched in the Belfast International Festival in October 2019 at CS Lewis Square in East Belfast.
