16th Annual PoetryFest

Take part in the “literary revelry” (New Yorker) of our longstanding festival of verse! The venerated poet Vona Groarke gathers writers from Ireland, Northern Ireland, and North America for a weekend of readings and conversations, starting with Friday evening’s much-loved Favorite Irish Poems launch event celebrating Irish poetry across the ages.

Most events are free, but reservations are strongly encouraged. Some of the weekend's events have sold out. For the chance to be notified of potential released seats, please subscribe to our e-mail list.

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 5 // 8PM

Favorite Irish Poems

Favorite Irish Poems is the traditional opening night event of our annual PoetryFest, to which we invite festival poets and special guests to share their most-loved verses by Irish writers, followed by a reception in the Devlin Café.

Paula Meehan, "This Poem is a Sanctuary" read by Michael Patrick MacDonald               

Patrick Kavanagh, “Lines Written on a seat on the Grand Canal, Dublin” read by Consul General Gerald Angley       

Eavan Boland, "The Last Discipline" read by Grace Wilentz            

Ciaran Carson, "Belfast Confetti" read by Scott McKendry              

Anne Tannam, "Seated Beside Iggy at a Dinner Party" read by Susan Feldman 

Chiamaka Enyi-Amadi, "Our Hands Like Rain" read by Rita Dove                

William Butler Yeats, "Easter 1916" read by Ciaran O'Reilly

Seamus Heaney, "Scaffolding" read by Clare Foley              

Medbh McGuckian, "Slips" read by Paul Muldoon

Scott McKendry, "La vache qui rit (The Laughing Cow)" read by Kia Corthron     

Michael Donaghy, "Machines" read by Robert Sullivan      

Samuel Beckett, "What is the Word?" read by Kevin Holohan       

Eavan Boland, "Margin" read by Jenny Xie  

Louis MacNeice, "Bagpipe Music" read by Alan Gillis          

William Butler Yeats, "When You Are Old" read by Dorothea Lasky            

Nuala NÍ Dhomhnaill, translation by Paul Muldoon, "Ceist na Teangann" read by Pádraig Ó Tuama   

Seamus Heaney, "A Hazel Stick for Catherine Ann" read by Alan Klein    

Nick Laird, "The Badger" read by Vona Groarke

RESERVE >

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 6 // 2PM, 3:30PM, 5PM
Free readings and conversations with festival poets

2pm // Scott McKendry and m.s. RedCherries
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3:30pm // In Conversation: Poetry Beyond Its Margins (Philosophy / Theology)
Pádraig Ó Tuama and Christian Wiman, with Vona Groarke

RESERVE >

5pm // Alan Gillis and Dorothea Lasky
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SUNDAY, DECEMBER // 1PM, 2:30PM, 4PM
Free readings and conversations with festival poets

1pm // Grace Wilentz and Jenny Xie 
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2:30pm // Desert Island Poems: Paul Muldoon and Rita Dove with Vona Groarke
Each poet chooses the five poems they would bring to a desert island with them.

Rita Dove’s Desert Island Poems
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, "Wayfarer's Nightsong"
Muriel Rukeyser, "I lived in the first century of world wars"
Dylan Thomas, "Fern Hill"
Derek Walcott, "The Light of the World"

Paul Muldoon’s Desert Island Poems
Andrew Marvell, “To His Coy Mistress”
Phyllis Wheatley, “On Being brought from Africa to America”
Eibhlín Dubh Ní Chonaill, “The Lament for Art O’Leary”
T. S. Eliot, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”
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4pm // Paul Muldoon and Rita Dove
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