by Rose Rushe
“Poetry makes us ask who we are.. questions us to become more aware and sentient as human beings” – Richard Blanco
Picture: Keith Wiseman
A TRIBUTE to American poets with history here – “we have had quite a number of the years” – made a finely worded welcome for American laureate Richard Blanco when he launched news of CUISLE, Limerick’s International Poetry Festival, October 15-19, 2014.
Blanco is third in line to CUISLE’s embrace over years for laureate predecessors Donald Hall and Robert Hass; Jane Hirshfield was another hit.
He was here on residency with City of Culture’s Visiting Writers Programme. The committee’s Bertha McCullagh spelled out the concept of “cuisle as pulse, as heartbeat.. to keep the pulse of poetry beating loudly and happily in Limerick” to the Cuban-American who read new and familiar works to a rapt attendance at Hunt Museum.
The words of Allan Petersen, Robert Hass, Donald Hall and Hirshfield spoke volumes, issued by Paul Sweeney, Ciaran O’Driscoll, Bertha and Mark Whelan respectively. These are the four horsemen of this 20 year old poetry festival.
Whelan spoke of their will and work “to make Limerick a place of excellence for poetry locally, nationally, internationally”, their “strong and vibrant connections to festivals overseas, with Ciaran O’Driscoll predominantly establishing those links”.
Their guest was open about his conflict with [the idea of] America in being immigrant, Richard Blanco exploring in works themes of exiled longing, nostalgia for youth and place, and overwhelming love for another.
“I was made in Cuba, born in America, raised in Spain,” he says of his upbringing in Miami’s hispanic community. “I always longed to go to that place, to America”, so immersed in Latino culture was his youth.
He made a connection between his nomadic older self and “something in the air in Ireland to do with that, the exile”.
Richard Blanco will publish his memoir shortly.
CUISLE 2014 is headlined by Macdara Woods, Italy’s Antonio Carlo Ponti, Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin, Shedman (John Davies from the UK), Conor O’Callaghan, Iztok Osojnik (Slovenia), Veronika Dintinjana (Slovenia), Sam Riviere and Gerry Dukes. The poets from Slovenia, Italy and the UK are appearing as part of the festival’s exchange programme with sister festivals.
See cuisle.org
