An Evening of Poetry

Salmon Poetry 

continues its successful reading series in the gallery,  with a special reading to celebrate 

All Ireland Poetry Day, 

7pm, Thursday 7th October,

 Admission is free. 

The featured readers are:

Rita Ann Higgins - Internationally acclaimed Galway poet Rita Ann Higgins reads from her new book, Hurting God - Part Essay Part Rhyme, just published by Salmon, which includes essays and accompanying poems, drawing us into a childhood world of God, púcas, jiving factory girls and a crocodile-wielding father. Her first five collections were published by Salmon: Goddess on the Mervue Bus (1986); Witch in the Bushes (1988); Goddess and Witch (1990); Philomena's Revenge (1992); and, Higher Purchase (1996). Bloodaxe Books published her next three collections: Sunny Side Plucked (1996); An Awful Racket (2001); and Throw in the Vowels: New & Selected Poems in May 2005 to mark her 50th birthday.

Kevin Higgins is co-organiser of Over The Edge literary events. He facilitates poetry workshops at Galway Arts Centre, teaches creative writing at Galway Technical Institute and on the Brothers of Charity Away With Words programme. He is also Writer-in-Residence at Merlin Park Hospital and the poetry critic of the Galway Advertiser. He has had three books published with Salmon, The Boy With No Face, Time Gentlemen, Please and, earlier this year, Frightening New Furniture.

Susan Millar DuMars is American-born, now living in Galway. Also co-organiser of Galway's Over the Edge events, she works as a teacher of creative writing, and has had two books published with Salmon; Big Pink Umbrella and Dreams for Breakfast. She also writes fiction.

Mary Madec was born and raised in the west of Ireland, and is currently Director of the Villanova Study Abroad Program in Galway. With her husband Claude Madec, she started up a community-writing project, Away with Words, now in its third year. She published her first collection, In Other Words, with Salmon this year.

Mary Mullen, taught memoir writing at Galway Arts Centre, and now tutors writers privately. Mary was born in Anchorage, and raised on her parent's homestead in Soldotna, Alaska. She moved to Ballinderreen, Co. Galway, Ireland in 1996, where she still lives with her daughter Lily, a sparkly Galway girl who was born with Down Syndrome. Her first collection, Zephyr, was published by Salmon this year.

Glenn Shea was born and has lived most of his life in Connecticut. He is living for the moment in an old farmhouse in Uncasville and works with a group of illuminati in a huge used-book shop in Niantic, Connecticut. He has published two chapbooks. Find A Place That Could Pass For Home, his first full-length collection, has just appeared from Salmon.

Jessie Lendennie
Managing Director
Salmon Poetry Ltd.
Knockeven
Cliffs of Moher

http://salmonpoetry.com

http://jessielendennie.com

Domingo Cuatindioy: YACHARUNA / Shaman. Mosaics, paintings, prints and carvings.

“Yacharuna”, an exhibition by indigenous artist Domingo Cuatindioy opened in the Courthouse Gallery on Saturday 11 September at 5pm by poet Brian Mooney, with music by Michael Hynes and Denis Liddy.

Domingo Cuatindioy was born in 1959 into the Ingano tribe, whose homeland in the foothills of the Colombian Andes is a repository of ancient culture and knowledge. It is here the river Putumayo, a major tributary of the Amazon, has its source. The valley itself, known as the “gateway of the Amazon rain forest”, has a powerful and distinct earth energy as well as a strong tradition of natural healers.

Domingo’s people are subsistence farmers and by eight years of age he was already working as a day labourer to help support his family. With only a few months primary education and no artistic training, he suddenly began to draw and paint in his mid-thirties.

His creative inspiration comes from a deep affinity with the natural world, as well as from his experience in the shamanic arts acquired during twenty years with the Siona tribe in the Amazon rain forest of Bajo Putumayo, where he went to live at the age of fifteen.

In the Ingano and Siona cultures the veil between the natural and the supernatural worlds is gossamer thin. Interaction between spirit beings, mortals and animals is part of everyday reality, and dreams are a highly respected source of guidance. For Domingo the unexpected emergence of the artist within, at the age of thirty four and, a year or two later in 1996, his voyage through time and space from the equatorial rain forest to the edge of the Burren in North Clare, were miraculous transformations in his life equal to any in the history of his tribe. The time away from tribal life proved crucial in Domingo’s development as an artist because it allowed him the personal space necessary for his special gift to blossom.

His work, which consists of paintings, carvings, linocuts, wood engravings and, more recently, mosaics on canvas and bone, is characterised by its innate strength of design and loving attention to detail. Above all each piece has a unique and evocative presence.

Since the very positive response to Domingo’s first exhibition in Ennis in 1999, his work has been shown in numerous solo and group exhibitions in Ireland, France, U.K. and Colombia and is to be found in public and private collections in Europe and the Americas.

“Yacharuna”, meaning shaman in the Inga language, is Domingo’s sixth solo exhibition. The show runs until Thursday 7 October.

Domingo Cuatindioy: YACHARUNA / Shaman. Mosaics, paintings, prints and carvings.

Courthouse Gallery, Parliament Street, Ennistymon, Co. Clare. T: 065 707 1630

Opens Sat 11 Sept 5pm, runs until Thurs 7 Oct | Opening Hours  Tues – Sat 12pm - 5pm

Unfolding

Unfolding

by Fiona Woods 

11th September - 7 October

For her exhibition in the Red Couch Space Fiona Woods will convert the area into a studio. Over the course of the exhibition she will develop a new work which has been commissioned for the TULCA festival of Visual Art in Galway, opening in November. The exhibition will take the form of an unfolding, as ideas and images are developed over time, taking on a gradual visual and physical form in the space. The artist will follow her normal work schedule and will be present most weekdays between 10 and 12.


Fiona Woods is a visual artist whose practice includes curating and writing. She has received a number of commissions to make work, including the recent project Collections of mimds #1 www.collectionofminds.net for PS2, Belfast. She is a participant in Rhyzom, a European research network exploring local cultural productions and trans-local disseminations www.rhyzom.net. Woods is a recipient of the Arts Council of Ireland@s 2010Visual Arts Bursary award.