Friday, May 16th

No booking needed for library events. No physical tickets will be issued for theatre events, your name will be checked off a list at the door. Bookstall sales will be by card only (we cannot accept cash).

Prebooked Poetry Introductions

2.30pm, Cork City Library | Free

The Prebooked Poetry Introductions involves six individuals who have yet to publish a chapbook or collection of poems. The following poets, chosen through open submission, will read in a ten-minute reading slot.

Colm Brennan is poet and writer from Bray, Co. Wicklow. His publication credits include Poetry Ireland Review, The Cormorant, The Waxed Lemon, Sonder, Profiles and The Ogham Stone. He has an MA in Creative Writing from the University of Limerick and is recipient of an Arts Council Literature Bursary.
Daragh Hoey is an Irish poet who has recently returned home after half a lifetime in Seattle and other American places. Daragh’s poetry has appeared in Solstice Magazine, Bluestem Magazine, Skylight 47, and others. He studied at DCU and the University of Houston and will be starting the UCC Creative Writing MA program in autumn 2025.
Clíona Malin is a poet from Dublin. Her poems have recently been published in Catflap, Aimsir, and Poetry with Pride by Belfast Pride. Clíona was selected for the Irish Writers Centre Foundation Programme and the Stinging Fly Summer School in 2024. She has performed poetry sets for Dublin Book Festival and the Irish Cultural Centre in London.
Olha Matso is a Ukrainian poet in Ireland. Awarded the Scholarship of the President of Ukraine for young writers 2021, highly commended poet of Cobh readers and writers International Poetry Competition 2023, part of the Poetry Ireland Introductions Series 2023. Publications: Orbis (England), Poetry Ireland Anthology, Abridged (Ireland). Participant of International art festivals (Ukraine, Austria, Czech republic, Ireland: Dublin Book Festival, Cork Winter Warmer Festival).
Jessica Anne Rose was awarded the Miriam Cotter Award, a full scholarship for an exciting and emerging writer accepted into University College Cork’s MA in Creative Writing. She is a contributing journalist for Hot Press Magazine. Jessica’s published poetry is included in Green Carnations Anthology, Drawn to The Light Press, A New Ulster, The Hog River Press, Cork Pride Magazine 2024, and Hide and Seek Anthology.
Winner of the Good Day Cork Poetry prize, Kemi George Simpson walks and follows the curve of tree branches to stop her mind from getting stuck. She is the 2024 Munster Poetry Slam Champion and is published in The Four Faced Liar, Swerve and the Poetry in the Park Collection.

Bejan Matur (Turkey) & Tuğçe Tekhanlı (Cyprus)

4.00pm, Cork City Library | Free

Bejan Matur was born in the ancient Hittite city of Maraş, in 1968. Her poems have been translated into 44 languages and have received numerous awards. She has published 11 books, 9 of which are poetry. Her music-accompanied poetry has been presented to wide audiences on prestigious stages such as the Royal Opera House, Kings Place and Princeton University. In 2012, her book How Abraham Abandoned Me (Arc, 2012) became the ‘Recommended Translation for Spring 2012’ by the Poetry Book Society founded by T.S. Eliot. Bejan Matur is a graduate of the Ankara University Faculty of Law, and currently lives between Berlin and Istanbul.

Buy How Abraham Abandoned Me from Arc and visit the poet's Versopolis page.

“Its verbs have no tense, its prepositions are like nouns, its own nouns are cries. The reader does not follow word by word, but hand in hand, to touch and recognise piece after piece in the dark.” — John Berger

Tuğçe Tekhanlı was born in 1990 in Nicosia, Cyprus. She is an award-winning poet, translator, and dancer. She writes in Turkish and English. She earned her BA (Translation and Interpreting) from Hacettepe University. She completed an MA in Creative Writing at Dublin City University in 2022 and received first-class honours. She has two poetry collections, her latest Dalgalara İsim Verdik (We Named the Waves) in 2023. Her poems are featured in many international literary magazines and anthologies including Abridged, Cyphers, Skylight47, and The Seventh Quarry. She is pursuing a bachelor’s degree in Contemporary Dance at ARUCAD University. Adopting a multidisciplinary approach to art, she creates contemporary dance performances inspired by her poetry.

Visit the poet's Versopolis page.

“Through poetry, she embodies the resistance of memory against forgetting … In this realm, there are rivers that know no boundaries and flow unhindered; there are centuries-old olive trees, rooted deep into the soil and standing firmly in their place.” — Ahmet Yıkık

(Moderator) Keith Payne is the author of ten collections of poetry in translation and original poetry, most recently Savage Acres (Dedalus Press, April 2025). Building the Boat (Badly Made Books), was featured on BBC Radio 3’s The Essay and Whales and Whales, from the Galician of Luisa Castro, was published by Skein Press in April 2024. He is curator of the Aodh Ruadh Ó Domhnaill Poetry Exchange Ireland/Galicia.

Homage to Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill (Bilingual Event)

Change in lineup:
For personal reasons, and in good health, Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill has had to withdraw from participating in this year’s Cork International Poetry Festival. Instead, a special event in her honour will take place with readings of, and a discussion on, her work by poets Ailbhe Ní Ghearbhuigh, Caitríona Ní Chléirchín and Simon Ó Faoláin.

7.00pm, Cork Arts Theatre | €5 tickets here

Nuala Ni Dhomhnaill is widely acknowledged as one of the greatest poets in Ireland, also reputed for her dedication and defense of the Irish language. Ní Dhomhnaill has published extensively, and her works include poetry collections, children’s plays, screenplays, anthologies, articles, reviews and essays. In her writings, Ní Dhomhnaill focuses on the rich traditions and heritage of Ireland and draws upon themes of ancient Irish folklore and mythology that intermingle with contemporary issues concerning femininity, sexuality and culture. In 2018, she received the Zbigniew Herbert International Literary Award for her achievements in poetry. Her most recent book is Feis & Cead Aighnis (Cló Iar-Chonnacht).

File í Ailbhe Ní Ghearbhuigh as Trá Lí i gCo. Chiarraí. Tá trí bhunchnuasaigh foilsithe aici i nGaeilge ó 2008. Ghnóthaigh Tost agus Allagar Duais Uí hAirtnéide in 2019. Bronnadh Duais Lawrence O’Shaughnessy ar The Coast Road in 2020. D’fhoilsigh Éabhlóid cnuasach úr Tonn Teapsaigh agus Dánta Eile anuraidh.
Ailbhe Ní Ghearbhuigh is a poet from Kerry. She has published three collections in Irish since 2008. Tost agus Allagar won the Michael Hartnett Award in 2019 and a bilingual collection, The Coast Road, was awarded the Lawrence O’Shaughnessy Prize in 2020. Éabhlóid published Tonn Teaspaigh agus Dánta Eile last year.

Caitríona Ní Chléirchín is an Irish-language poet, critic and lecturer originally from Gortmoney, Emyvale in Co. Monaghan. Her début collection Crithloinnir won the Oireachtas Prize for New Writers in 2010. An Bhrídeach Sí won the Michael Hartnett Prize 2015. She has published poetry in Comhar, Irish Pages, Cyphers, The Stinging Fly, Feasta, Blaiseadh Pinn, The SHOp, An t-Ultach and An Guth. Articles and reviews have been published in The Irish Times, Comhar, and Taighde agus Teagasc and others. She is lectures at St. Patrick’s College DCU.

Buy Feis & Cead Aighnis from Cló Iar-Chonnacht and visit the Ní Dhomhnaill's webpage.

“Ni Dhomhnaill can weave together comedy and darkness, confrontation with casual chat. Her poems can be reflective lyrics or sprawling narratives, incantory or wisecracking.” — Lavinia Greenlaw

Á chur i láthair ag Simon Ó Faoláin. File, aistritheoir, eagarthóir agus seandálaí is ea Simon Ó Faoláin. Tá ceithre chnuasach filíochta foilsithe aige go dtí seo, an ceann is déanaí Iasachtaigh (2022), agus trí leabhar d'aistriúcháin liteartha, an ceann is déanaí Meidéa le Eoiripidéas (2024).

Leeanne Quinn (Ireland) & Richard Scott (UK)

8.30pm, Cork Arts Theatre | €5 tickets here

Leeanne Quinn’s debut collection of poetry, Before You (2012), was highly commended in the Forward Prize for Poetry 2013. Her second collection, Some Lives (2020), was noted as a Book of the Year by The Irish Times and the Irish Independent. Her poems have been widely anthologised, appearing in The Forward Book of Poetry 2013, Windharp: Poems of Ireland Since 1916, Hold Open the Door: A Commemorative Anthology from The Ireland Chair of Poetry, and Queering The Green: Post-2000 Queer Irish Poetry. With Joseph Woods, she co-edited Romance Options: Love Poems for Today (2022) and, most recently, edited Beginnings Over and Over: Four New Poets from Ireland (2025).

Buy Some Lives from Dedalus Press.

“…poems that are challenging, allusive and engagingly mysterious.The heroic lives of others, artist Nano Reid’s paintings, an elegy for her sister and Quinn’s own life in Munich are brought before us in vivid, sensuous poems.” — Niall MacMonagle

Richard Scott was born in London in 1981. His first book Soho (Faber & Faber, 2018), was a Gay’s the Word book of the year and was shortlisted for the T. S. Eliot prize. His second poetry collection, That Broke into Shining Crystals, is from Faber & Faber (February 2025). He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. His poetry has been translated into German and French. He teaches poetry at the Faber Academy and Goldsmiths, University of London.

Buy That Broke into Shining Crystals from Faber & Faber.

“Scott’s project is as political as it is personal, and the kaleidoscopic picture of contemporary queerness he builds through these poems is as surgent as it is alluring … Dark, joyous and as fierce as a love-bite.” — A. K. Blakemore

(Moderator) Pádraig Ó Tuama is an internationally recognised poet, podcaster, and the best-selling anthologist of Poetry Unbound: 50 Poems to Open Your World (Canongate, 2022). His most recent collection is Kitchen Hymns (CHEERIO Publishing) and previous collections include In the Shelter, Sorry for Your Troubles, and Feed the Beasts. He presents the podcast Poetry Unbound with On Being Studios.

Nick Makoha (Uganda/UK) & Nisrine Mbarki (the Netherlands)

10.00pm, Cork Arts Theatre | €5 tickets here

Dr Nick Makoha is a Ugandan poet. His new collection is The New Carthaginians published by Penguin UK. Winner of the 2021 Ivan Juritz Prize and the Poetry London Prize. In 2017, Nick’s debut collection, Kingdom of Gravity, was shortlisted for the Felix Dennis Prize for Best First Collection and was one of The Guardian’s best books of the year. His poems have appeared in the Cambridge Review, The New York Times, Poetry Review, Poetry Wales, Rialto, Poetry London, TriQuarterly Review, 5 Dials, Boston Review, Callaloo Birmingham Lit Journal and Wasafiri. He is a Trustee for the Arvon Foundation and a member of the Malika’s Poetry Kitchen collective.

Buy The New Carthaginians from Penguin and visit the poet's webpage.

“In this book, Nick Makoha has found an otherworldly, visionary voice and diction that arrest you from the first page and never let you go.” — Jason Allen-Paisant

Nisrine Mbarki (she/her), is an Amsterdam based multilingual versatile poet, feminist, writer, curator and literary translator. Her literary work covers different genres like poetry, short stories and theatre. As a literary translator she translates mainly poetry from Arabic and English into Dutch. As a curator she works for different international literary festivals and is a member of several literary juries and boards in the Netherlands. In January 2022 she published her poetry debut oeverloos (shoreless) for which she was nominated for the C.Buddingh prize, a prize for the best Dutch debut of the year and for the Herman De Konickprijs, a prize for the best Belgian and Dutch poetry collection of the year.

Visit the poet's Versopolis page.

“Mooi en helder van taal en internationaal gericht als een veelkleurige diamant.”
“Beautiful and clear in language and internationally oriented like a multi-coloured diamond.” — Brabant Cultureel

Winner of the Good Day Cork Poetry prize, Kemi George Simpson (moderator) walks and follows the curve of tree branches to stop her mind from getting stuck. She is the 2024 Munster Poetry Slam Champion and is published in The Four Faced Liar, Swerve and the Poetry in the Park Collection.

Image credits: Tuğçe Tekhanlı photographed by Kemal Baykallı