The SoundEye Festival of the Arts of the Word is an annual festival of poetry and other related art forms. It is held annually in
Cork City
Cork ( , from , meaning 'marsh') is the second largest city in Ireland and third largest city by population on the island of Ireland. It is located in the south-west of Ireland, in the province of Munster. Following an extension to the city's ...
over several days in either late-June to mid-July, with over 20 poets reading at the 2017 event.
Events take place in venues such as the Guesthouse and
Firkin Crane within the city.
History
The festival was initially directed by poet
Trevor Joyce
Trevor Joyce (born 26 October 1947) is an Irish poet, born in Dublin.
He co-founded New Writers' Press (NWP) in Dublin in 1967 and was a founding editor of NWP's ''The Lace Curtain; A Magazine of Poetry and Criticism'' in 1968.
Joyce was the ...
, who had co-founded
New Writers Press in 1967 along with
Michael Smith.
Joyce (who lives in the
Shandon area of Cork) was invited to a US literary conference in the 1990s, and began planning the first 'Cork Alternative Poetry Festival' shortly afterwards.
In 2005, the festival received
European Capital of Culture funding and collaborated with contiguous arts events through the involvement of Fergal Gaynor, who was then co-curating the
Cork Caucus. In 2010, poets James Cummins and Rachel Warriner, who had programmed a section of the festival linked with their ''Default'' magazine, took over some of the festival's organisational duties.
SoundEye has been associated with
modernist
Modernism is both a philosophy, philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western world, Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new fo ...
and
avant-garde
The avant-garde (; In 'advance guard' or ' vanguard', literally 'fore-guard') is a person or work that is experimental, radical, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, or society.John Picchione, The New Avant-garde in Italy: Theoretical ...
poetry, and now includes elements of video art, performance, sound poetry, and conceptual art. SoundEye has hosted readings by Irish poets, poets from other anglophone countries, and occasionally from non-anglophone nations.
References
External links
Festival website - Soundeye.wordpress.com
{{coord missing, County Cork
Culture in Cork (city)
Poetry festivals in Ireland
Tourist attractions in Cork (city)
Summer events in the Republic of Ireland