On the Poetry Programme on Sunday 11th December, at 7 pm on RTÉ Radio 1, Olivia O'Leary speaks with the newly-appointed National Poet of Wales, Hanan Issa, and Irish poets Damien B Donnelly and Eilín de Paor collaborate on new work.
Earlier this year, Literature Wales announced that the new National Poet of Wales was Hanan Issa, taking on the role for the next three years. As National Poet of Wales, she represents the diverse cultures and languages of Wales and acts as an ambassador for the people of Wales.
Hanan is a Welsh-Iraqi poet, filmmaker and artist whose recent works include her poetry collection My Body Can House Two Hearts (Burning Eye Books, 2019) and her contribution to Welsh (Plural): Essays on the Future of Wales (Repeater Books, 2022) and The Mab (Unbound, 2022). She co-founded the Cardiff open-mic night Where I'm Coming From and has worked with the Bush Theatre, Channel 4 and Ffilm Cymru/BBC Wales.
Hanan Issa has said: "Poetry exists in the bones of this country. I want people to recognise Wales as a country bursting with creativity: a land of poets and singers with so much to offer the arts. I’d like to continue the great work of my predecessors in promoting Wales, Welshness, and the Welsh language outside of its borders. More than anything, I want to capture the interest and inspiration of the public to see themselves in Welsh poetry and encourage a much more open sense of what Welshness is."
Hanan speaks with Olivia down the line from Cardiff, where she lives, and reads from her collection My Body Can House Two Hearts.
Damien B Donnelly returned to Ireland in 2019 after 23 years living in Paris, London and Amsterdam, working in the fashion industry as a pattern maker for various brands, including Calvin Klein, & Other Stories, Pepe Jeans, Reiss and G-Star. His writing focuses on identity, sexuality, fragility and connection. His debut poetry pamphlet, Eat the Storms, was featured on the Poetry Book Society Winter List 2020/21. He also published a pamphlet called Considering Canvases with Boys in the Stickleback series. Both pamphlets and his first full collection, Enough!, documenting his love affair with Paris, have been published by The Hedgehog Poetry Press. Damien is the host of the Eat the Storms poetry podcast and has also launched The Storms, a journal of poetry, prose and visual arts.
Damien Donnelly and Eilín de Paor published a joint, conversational poetry pamphlet, In the Jitterfritz of Neon, (The Hedgehog Poetry Press) in 2021. Eilín lives in Dublin, works in services for people with disabilities, and is studying towards a PhD in that field. Her poems have appeared in The Stony Thursday Book, Banshee, The Waxed Lemon, Abridged, 14, Raleigh Review, Belfield Literary Review and Dedalus Press's Local Wonders anthology. In 2022, she published In Defence of Bin Wasps, a pamphlet in the Stickleback series published by The Hedgehog Poetry Press.
The Poetry Programme, RTÉ Radio 1, Sundays at 7pm - listen to last week's edition below:
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