Article
Billy Ramsell looks back on PI’s Ireland pages
‘A gourmet of the ungraspable’
February 02, 2016
The Irish domain has been dormant for the past year. But I understand it’s kicking off again in 2016 under a new editor. It seems an opportune time, therefore, to look back at my own contribution. Listed below, then, are the poets I included during my tenure.
Each contributing country gets to update their domain three times a year, adding approximately 12 poets per annum. And looking back now, I’m happy enough-ish with my selection, given this and various other constraints under which I had to operate.
I was careful to maintain gender parity during my tenure. The final list, however, reads – Male: 14, Female: 10. The disparity was mainly due to the four-male-strong update I put together in late 2014. I had a really cool four-woman update in the pipeline, which would have seen parity restored. But my editorship ended before I could execute that plan.
Gender aside, I’m pleased with the list’s variety, that it extended the Irish domain – at least somewhat – into what might be classed as the experimental or modernist poetic traditions. I’m glad, too, that I had the opportunity to present poets writing in the Irish language. But I’m also reminded of constituencies under-served, of poets I longed to include but never quite got around to.
I’m reminded, too, of the professional, exacting central editors I worked with: Sarah Ream, Megen Molé and Mia You. Three extraordinary women. My thanks to them and to the hardworking staff at the Rotterdam headquarters, especially Jan Willem van Hemert for his patience with multifarious formatting and layouts. They are all true servants of the art form! Poets from Ireland added during Ramsell’s tenure:
This essay was previously published on Ramsell’s WordPress website, 18 November 2015.
Read more about Ramsell’s own poetry on his profile on Poetry International, including the poem ‘The connoisseur’, from which we borrowed ‘a gourmet of the ungraspable’.
For three years, poet and educational publisher Billy Ramsell has been expanding our Ireland pages, publishing biographies and poems from writers such as Eleanor Hooker, Máire Mhac an tSaoi, Peter Fallon and Maurice Scully. As a poet, Ramsell has been described as being ‘of a younger generation which finds many of the established themes of Irish poetry thoroughly exhausted’. Patrick Cotter, director of our partner organization, the Munster Literature Centre, writes on Ramsell’s Poetry International poet page: ‘Yet no matter how hard Ramsell may intend to stray from overt expressions of Irishness, a sense of Irish place often asserts itself in his work, organically, unforced’. We’re grateful that this sense of place – in its many forms, voices and languages – also asserts itself in his editorial work and on our pages. Below, we are re-publishing Ramsell’s ‘Poetry Intenational: A look back’, which he previously posted on his personal website. – Poetry International
Between January 2012 and January 2015 I was editor of the Ireland pages [via the Munster Literature Centre] of the Poetry International website. Based in Rotterdam, and arising from the long-running festival of the same name, this website is an extraordinary resource.The Irish domain has been dormant for the past year. But I understand it’s kicking off again in 2016 under a new editor. It seems an opportune time, therefore, to look back at my own contribution. Listed below, then, are the poets I included during my tenure.
Each contributing country gets to update their domain three times a year, adding approximately 12 poets per annum. And looking back now, I’m happy enough-ish with my selection, given this and various other constraints under which I had to operate.
I was careful to maintain gender parity during my tenure. The final list, however, reads – Male: 14, Female: 10. The disparity was mainly due to the four-male-strong update I put together in late 2014. I had a really cool four-woman update in the pipeline, which would have seen parity restored. But my editorship ended before I could execute that plan.
Gender aside, I’m pleased with the list’s variety, that it extended the Irish domain – at least somewhat – into what might be classed as the experimental or modernist poetic traditions. I’m glad, too, that I had the opportunity to present poets writing in the Irish language. But I’m also reminded of constituencies under-served, of poets I longed to include but never quite got around to.
I’m reminded, too, of the professional, exacting central editors I worked with: Sarah Ream, Megen Molé and Mia You. Three extraordinary women. My thanks to them and to the hardworking staff at the Rotterdam headquarters, especially Jan Willem van Hemert for his patience with multifarious formatting and layouts. They are all true servants of the art form! Poets from Ireland added during Ramsell’s tenure:
• Kimberly Campanello
• Brendan Cleary
• Harry Clifton
• James Cummins
• Paula Cunningham
• Peter Fallon
• Miriam Gamble
• Alan Gillis
• Eleanor Hooker
• Joseph Horgan
• Trevor Joyce
• Dave Lordan
• Catherine Phil McCarthy
• John McAuliffe
• Máire Mhac an tSaoÍ
• Alan Jude Moore
• Bríd Ní Mhóráin
• Conor O’Callaghan
• Mary O’Donoghue
• Simon Ó Faoláin
• Derry O’Sullivan
• Paul Perry
• Áine Uí Fhoghlú
• Justin Quinn
• Maurice Scully
• Peter Sirr
• Eileen Sheehan
• Macdara Woods
• Brendan Cleary
• Harry Clifton
• James Cummins
• Paula Cunningham
• Peter Fallon
• Miriam Gamble
• Alan Gillis
• Eleanor Hooker
• Joseph Horgan
• Trevor Joyce
• Dave Lordan
• Catherine Phil McCarthy
• John McAuliffe
• Máire Mhac an tSaoÍ
• Alan Jude Moore
• Bríd Ní Mhóráin
• Conor O’Callaghan
• Mary O’Donoghue
• Simon Ó Faoláin
• Derry O’Sullivan
• Paul Perry
• Áine Uí Fhoghlú
• Justin Quinn
• Maurice Scully
• Peter Sirr
• Eileen Sheehan
• Macdara Woods
This essay was previously published on Ramsell’s WordPress website, 18 November 2015.
Read more about Ramsell’s own poetry on his profile on Poetry International, including the poem ‘The connoisseur’, from which we borrowed ‘a gourmet of the ungraspable’.
© Billy Ramsell
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