Poetry Reading with Rafael Mendes

The Ireland Chair of Poetry, and HOWL New Irish Writing, recently published his work, 'The Migrant Dictionary’, which they described as poems that “reach beyond Ireland to explore – both explicitly and implicitly – our understanding of identities in flux”.

The Migrant Dictionary is a sequence that plays with and troubles the conventional poetic form. Using the dictionary entry as its 'meter' and Ulysses as its protagonist, it challenges assumptions of fixed meanings in an unstable Ireland and world. Entries range in tone and implication ('Arrive', 'Border', 'Home'), but gaps remain, testimony of letters and experiences that cannot be easily grasped. Imagined scenes are interwoven with reported events, challenging assumptions about the limits of racism and the myth of Ireland as an always welcoming place.

We are delighted to host this evening of poetry with Rafael.