Books for Breakfast Peter Sirr and Enda Wyley

Today’s show marks Poetry Day Ireland with readings by the five poets shortlisted for the Strokestown International Poetry Competion, the winner of which will be announced at the Festival over the May Bank Holiday Weekend. And we go the Trinity College Centre for Literary and Cultural Translation to talk to poet Paul Muldoon about his role as Ireland Professor of Poetry and his new collection of poems Joy in Service on Rue Tagore.

Intro/outro music: Colm Mac Con Iomaire, ‘Thou Shalt Not Carry’ from The Hare’s Corner, 2008, with thanks to Colm for permission to use it. Incidental music Wanderlust by Scott Buckley | https://soundcloud.com/scottbuckley
Music promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.com
Artwork by Freya Sirr

To subscribe to Books for Breakfast go to your podcast provider of choice (Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google etc) and search for the podcast then hit subscribe or follow, or simply click the appropriate button above. 
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We’re joined on this morning’s show by Mary Costello, whose new collection of short stories, Barcelona, has just been published by Canongate.

"Barcelona is full of devastating lines … Costello is working in the tradition of her literary heroes [Kafka, Musil, Coetzee]: delivering insights which are painful but also energising because of the beauty with which they're captured … The most impressive collection I've read in some time" 
JOHN SELF 
The Times

"Clear-eyed and provocative, bruised and bruising: these are the stories of a writer at the very top of her game" 
EIMEAR MCBRIDE

"It is rare that a writer of fiction can evoke such depth of feeling and visceral/moral revulsion as Mary Costello … in stories dealing with cruelty to animals, especially the slaughter of farm animals; rare that marital intimacy is so powerfully rendered" 
JOYCE CAROL OATES

"Costello's writing is insistent, precise and unsparing. Everyday acts and ordinary lives are infused with a sense of the skull beneath the skin and of a catastrophe held tautly at bay" 
Observer

Intro/outro music: Colm Mac Con Iomaire, ‘Thou Shalt Not Carry’ from The Hare’s Corner, 2008, with thanks to Colm for permission to use it. Incidental music Wanderlust by Scott Buckley | https://soundcloud.com/scottbuckley
Music promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.com
Artwork by Freya Sirr

To subscribe to Books for Breakfast go to your podcast provider of choice (Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google etc) and search for the podcast then hit subscribe or follow, or simply click the appropriate button above. 
Support the show

On this mornings's show we talk to Victoria Kennefrick about her new collection Egg/Shell, just published by Carcanet, a double album, as she describes it, which explores early motherhood and miscarriage, and the impact of a spouse's gender transition and the dissolution of a marriage. The book is a follow-up to her widely acclaimed first collection  Eat or We Both Starve. Hers had been described as one of the boldest poetic voices to emerge in recent years and Egg/Shell is The Poetry Book Society Spring Choice 2024.
‘It is hard to hurt and then explain the hurt away / so as not to hurt anyone. But have you seen / my life?’ (‘Child of Lir’)
Today also sees the return of the Toaster Challenge, where our guest talks for the length of time it takes to cook up a nicely done slice of toast about a book that has resonated with them. Victoria's choice is Falling Awake by Alice Oswald.

Intro/outro music: Colm Mac Con Iomaire, ‘Thou Shalt Not Carry’ from The Hare’s Corner, 2008, with thanks to Colm for permission to use it. Incidental music Wanderlust by Scott Buckley | https://soundcloud.com/scottbuckley
Music promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.com
Artwork by Freya Sirr

To subscribe to Books for Breakfast go to your podcast provider of choice (Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google etc) and search for the podcast then hit subscribe or follow, or simply click the appropriate button above. 
Support the show

On today's show we discuss Fleur Adcock's Collected Poems, newly published by Bloodaxe Books, and we go to the launch of two more Bloodaxe books in Hodges Figgis, Kerry Hardie's We Go On and Aoife Lyall's The Day Before. We talk to both poets about their work and listen to them reading their poems. So put the kettle on and join us!

Intro/outro music: Colm Mac Con Iomaire, ‘Thou Shalt Not Carry’ from The Hare’s Corner, 2008, with thanks to Colm for permission to use it. Incidental music Wanderlust by Scott Buckley | https://soundcloud.com/scottbuckley
Music promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.com
Artwork by Freya Sirr

To subscribe to Books for Breakfast go to your podcast provider of choice (Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google etc) and search for the podcast then hit subscribe or follow, or simply click the appropriate button above. 
Support the show

We're back with a show dedicated to a book commemorating the life and achievement of a fondly remembered writer: Distant Summers: Remembering Philip Casey, Writer, Fabulist, Friend, edited by Eamonn Wall, Katie Donovan and Michael Considine, Arlen House, 2024. We feature contributions by Katie Donovan, Dermot Bolger and Michael O'Loughlin, and Michael Agustin reading his poem from the book.

We also cover the recently announced winner of the T.S. Eliot Prize and readings of poems by the two Irish shortlisted poets, Jane Clarke and Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin.

Jason Allen-Paisant,  this year's winner of the T.S. Eliot Prize, full video here

Intro/outro music: Colm Mac Con Iomaire, ‘Thou Shalt Not Carry’ from The Hare’s Corner, 2008, with thanks to Colm for permission to use it. Incidental music Wanderlust by Scott Buckley | https://soundcloud.com/scottbuckley
Music promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.com
Artwork by Freya Sirr

To subscribe to Books for Breakfast go to your podcast provider of choice (Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google etc) and search for the podcast then hit subscribe or follow, or simply click the appropriate button above. 
Support the show

Not Books for Breakfast this time but a link to our poetry programme Stanza on RTE Radio 1. 

In conversation with fellow poets, Paula Meehan and Annemarie Ní Churreáin, Enda Wyley and Peter Sirr will discuss why poetry matters. We also visit Poetry Ireland to hear about their big plans for 2024, and hear from viral spoken word poet Mikey Cullen. Produced by Clockwork Productions, producer Fiona Kelly. Additional reporting by Taylor Mooney.



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