Ennistymon hosts All-Ireland Poetry Day

A SERIES of poetry readings will be delivered at the courthouse gallery in Ennistymon next Thursday to celebrate All-Ireland Poetry Day.

Readings will be given by Joseph Woods and a number of writers who have made North Clare their home such as Knute Skinner, Jean Kavanagh, Isla Thielan and Jessie Lendennie.
Joseph Woods is a poet and director of Poetry Ireland. A winner of the Patrick Kavanagh Award, his latest books are Cargo, which gathers together his first two books in a single volume and Ocean Letters. He has also co-edited Our Shared Japan, an anthology of contemporary Irish poetry concerning Japan.
Knute Skinner was born in St Louis, Missouri. He has had a home in North Clare since 1964. He has taught at the University of Iowa and at Western Washington University, where he was a Professor of English.
Retired from teaching, he lives in Killaspuglonane, between Ennistymon and Liscannor, with his spouse, Edna Faye Kiel. His most recent book of poetry, Fifty Years: Poems 1957-2007, collects 50 years of  published work, beginning with poems which first saw serial publication in 1957 and continuing through 13 books. 
In 2010, he published Help Me to a Getaway, a memoir of his time spent in Europe in the late 50s.
Although Jean Kavanagh was born in Dublin, she is now living in Liscannor. In 2001, she co-founded The Cascades Writing Group in Ennistymon and is now participating in the Advanced Poetry Workshop in The Galway Arts Centre.
She has read her poetry at Clifden Arts Week and the Salthill Arts Festival, amongst other venues. She has twice been shortlisted for Over the Edge New Writer of the Year, most recently in 2011.
Ilsa Thielan studied art and literature in Germany before settling in Clare. She works with photography, tapestry and words. Her poetry and short stories have appeared in many anthologies. Her debut collection, Night Horses, is forthcoming from Salmon Poetry.
Jessie Lendennie was born in Arkansas, USA and after years of travel, she settled in Ireland in 1981. Her previous publications include a book-length prose poem Daughter (1988); reprinted as Daughter and Other Poems in 2001.
She compiled and edited: Salmon: A Journey in Poetry, 1981-2007; Poetry: Reading it, Writing It, Publishing It (2009) and Dogs Singing: A Tribute Anthology (2010).  She is co- founder and managing director of Salmon Poetry and a new collection of her poetry, Walking Here, has just been released. She is currently working on a memoir To Dance Beneath the Diamond Sky.