It's a few weeks before the 2017 Imram Irish Language Literature Festival opens and I'm in a gloriously sunny Paris, with poets Liam Ó Muirthile and my brother Ciaran. Their versions of Rimbaud – in Irish and English respectively – are part of Imram's show Gadaí na Tine (The Thief of Fire), with musician Seán Mac Erlaine and visual designer Margaret Lonergan. Liam and I talk about the split between poetry in English and Irish that prevails in Ireland now, how the cross-currents of previous times (one thinks of Michael Hartnett) seem to have weakened. But we have Éilís Ní Dhuibhne, an elegant writer at ease in both English and Irish, whose life and work Imram will celebrate at a special homage night. Not to mention bilingual poet and Rooney Prize winner Doireann Ní Ghríofa, who will explore the theme of lost or vanishing sounds at Leabharlann na bhFuaimeanna Caillte to a sonic backdrop by Fergus Kelly. She'll be joined by Máire Dinny Wren, Proinsias Mac a'Bhaird and Marcus MacConghail, whose poem imagines a space-probe listening to the sounds in its memory banks.
Ó Muirthile speaks of the need to experience different literatures other than the Anglophone, of astonishing poetry from Africa. His latest book, Oilthreach Pinn, an account of the Camino de Santiago, features his versions of Galician poet Rosalía de Castro. He enthuses about Apollinaire, and I mention Gabhán Ó Fachtna's translations into Irish of Apollinaire's Baroque short stories. The next day, I buy Apollinaire's Alcools, and find the first poem, Zone.
There's the zone of Tarkovski's film Stalker – a magical place of possibility. Imram aims to take its audiences into that zone by bringing together writers and artists in other fields – music, sound sculpture, puppetry, photography, typography. At the Centre Cultural Irlandais, Ó Muirthile reads An Bád Meisce in memory of poet and storyteller Domhnall Mac Síthigh. The words rise and fall, Seán Mac Erlaine plays the haunting Amhrán na Leabhar, and we enter a zone of elegy and beauty.
Writers in Irish make a conscious choice to enter a very particular zone. Sales will not be spectacular, the reviews will be few. It's a brave artistic decision. But from our beleaguered minority language, there still emerge powerful books every year – recently, Colm Ó Ceallacháin's I dtír mhilis na mbeo, whose stories explore late 20th-century Ireland, their characters taking us on a voyage from childhood to the shadows of dementia; Liam Mac Cóil's otherworldly Arthurian novel An Choill, written in a 15th-century style; or Dáithí Ó Muirí's surreal and slyly funny Litríochtaí, a series of stories about stories, holes, voids, shadow worlds. It came as no surprise to me that he loves Kafka. In Scáthanna ó Phrág (Shadows from Prague), he'll read his versions of Kafka to live music from Mac Erlaine and shadow puppets and live drawing by Púca Puppets.
Biddy Jenkinson is a treasure to our nation, one of our best writers in any language. She deserves to be as widely read as Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill or Paul Muldoon. Her poetry bubbles with word-play, darkness, fun, music. In association with Poetry Ireland, Imram will stage a performance of Mis – her retelling of a dark medieval tale, one of "madness, violence, sex and humour" that critic Caitlín Nic Iómhair has described as "compelling and even strangely alluring". Billy is a mesmerising reader, and will be accompanied by guitarist Enda Reilly.
Poet Celia de Fréine has translated “imram” as odyssey – and I invite lovers of literature and language on our voyage into the zone of words and art.
Liam Carson is director of Imram Féile Litríochta Gaeilge, which runs from October 16th-21st. imram.ie
