KRF 2024: His Poetic Life - Dennis O'Driscoll's Personal Anthology
Sat 28 Sep 2024 11:00 - 12:30
Naas Library & Cultural Centre, W91 E1RT
Description
The renowned poet, critic, essayist and reviewer Dennis O’Driscoll lived in Naas for many years, until his untimely death in 2012. Naturally bookish, he won his first poetry competition as a child. He began his working life in Dublin Castle, in the Estate Duty Office, at the age of sixteen. There he contributed to policy papers, acting as Irish delegate at EU working group meetings and arranging Customs training for officers from Eastern Europe, Russia, and the former Soviet Republics. This work was both salutary and sobering, grounding him in everyday experiences and broadening the subject matter and language available to him. He seemed to need the contrast between his working life and artistic pursuits. Ideas for poems would occur at work but his desk at home is where they came to life.
Julie O’Callaghan has been very supportive of Kildare Readers’ Festival's efforts to keep the legacy of Denis O’Driscoll in the public eye and has very kindly accepted our invitation to both speak about Dennis and also present the prestigious Dennis O’Driscoll Literary Bursary Awards to this years awardees for an established writer (John MacKenna) and an emerging writer (Colm McDermott.) Both writers will discuss what this award will mean to their practice and read from their work. This year’s awards were adjudicated by Dr Francesca Bratton, Kildare Writer in Residence 2023-2024, an initiative supported by the Department of English, Maynooth University and Kildare County Council Library and Arts Services.
The poet Julie O’Callaghan was born in Chicago and arrived in Ireland to study at Trinity College in 1974. She went on to work in Trinity College Library, and later met and married the poet Dennis O’Driscoll. She has been awarded bursaries by the Arts Council of Ireland and her work has been published in The Irish Times, The Guardian, The Observer, The Times, Poetry Ireland Review, and The New Statesman. Julie has published eight books of poetry and received The Michael Hartnett Poetry Award in 2001, for poems which are described as seeming ‘effortless and are immediately accessible and achieve great emotional weight by the lightest of means.' In 2020 her book Magnum Mysterium was published. Julie is a member of Aosdána.
Location
Naas Library & Cultural Centre, W91 E1RT