Introduction

How do you write about a city? How do you even define a city? Maybe you don't write about it at all but rather from it, out of it… This talk explores the challenges involved in writing the city of Dublin into poetry. It considers the insights and emotions that emerge from reading the work of these poets as they write to remember, to celebrate and to interrogate Dublin as a place of personal and national significance. Exploring the relationship between private and public spaces in If Ever You Go, this talk engages with a wide range of texts, including poems by Louis MacNeice, Máire Mhac an tSaoi, Thomas Kinsella, Trevor Joyce and Peter Sirr himself.

Peter Sirr

Peter Sirr has published several poetry collections with Gallery Press, the most recent of which is The Thing Is (2009), for which he received the Michael Hartnett Award. A new collection of poems and a novel for children will be published later this year. He lives in Dublin and works as a freelance writer, editor and teacher.