Day 1
The Cuirt programme has been out for weeks with a rather forbidding picture of me in it, but the reality that I am going to be a participant in Ireland's biggest annual literary bash doesn't really hit until today. The big question is, what will I wear? I spend hours packing and unpacking. The outfit I finally choose includes a pair of red linen trousers which have to be hemmed so I spend another hour fuming with pins and thread.
I berate myself for such frivolity as I speed towards Heuston Station. I still haven't even decided what poems I'm going to read. I decide that the leisurely two-and-a-half-hour train-ride will afford me plenty of opportunity to decide.
On the train, however, I find myself trying to re-read all five novels by Deirdre Madden, as my other job at Cuirt is to introduce her when she gives her reading. The introduction will have to be short, informative and preferably funny. This task strikes me as, possibly, even more nerve-wracking than giving my own reading.
In Galway the Great Southern Hotel is full of people for the Cuirt launch. Familiar faces swim into view: Jimmy Simmons and Janice Fitzpatrick, who are attending Cuirt with some of their MA students from their new Poets' House in Donegal. Tom Mathews, better known to Irish Times readers as a cartoonist, is also a poet and Cuirt aficionado.
Harold Fish of the British Council gives the opening speech, voicing the belief that cultural exchange has paved the way for the Belfast Agreement. None of us needs to be convinced of the power of literature. It is wonderful to be in a room full of people who all agree on this central point.
Meanwhile I experience a charming taste of what it must be like to be a real celebrity. Photographers want to take my picture. I'm introduced to Adrian Henri, a headline act at this year's Cuirt, best known as one of the Liverpool Three (with Roger McGough and Brian Patten) in the 1960s. He is affable and relaxed. He asks: "I know this sounds terrible, but have you published a book?" We establish that we share the same publisher, and he assures me that he's going to come to my reading. Gulp.
We gather at An Taibhdhearc for the first reading of the Festival. Jeanette Winterson bursts upon us to give a scintillating performance, reading extracts from her latest novel Gut Symmetries, about quantum physics and a triangular relationship between a man and two women. Afterwards, a number of eager young women have questions to ask. Jeanette responds with what sound like fully-shaped poems, but are actually off the cuff replies. I cower in my seat, thinking I should take up woodwork instead of trying to be a poet.
Later over drinks at the Festival Club in the Atlanta Hotel, she is still sparkling with energy. She tells me the secret of her excellent reading technique: "I was trained as a preacher. It helps." I nearly keel over with surprise when it turns out she knows I'm a writer too and has bought a copy of my book. "Please sign it for me," asks Jeanette. Gobsmacked, I try to think of something intelligent to write.
The night wears on. Many pints are consumed. Seats are scarce. I find myself sandwiched between Harold Fish and Adrian Henri. Someone is trying to sing Summertime. Tom Mathews is dancing. Adrian Henri is glowing, because Jeanette Winterson told him he was one of her icons. It is reassuring to know that even someone like him, a Living Legend, still needs to hear this kind of thing. We writers are chronically insecure.
Most people think when writers get together, we talk about deep literary topics. In my experience, this is far from true. Adrian Henri and I warm to a favourite theme of writers: the dreadful necessity of the day job. "I used to teach in an art college," he says (he is also a painter). "They found out I wrote poetry and decided that I couldn't do that and teach at the college. I was forced to resign. Then, 20 years later, they ga0ve me an honorary doctorate!"
I am beginning to fade. I turn my head too quickly and Adrian Henri's nose ends up in my ear. It is time to retire. I earn disdainful looks from the others as I head for my room. It is only 1 a.m. They will stay up much later. But this is only the first night of what will be a long week. How will they be able to last the pace if they burn out after the first night?
Day 2
I spend two hours in the secluded Bridge Mills Cafe, honing my introduction to Deirdre Madden. This is absurd. I still don't know what poems I'm going to read at my own reading. I then go to Kenny's where I spend £100 on books. It's a dangerous place.
The first reading of the day is Donegal poet Moya Cannon and Gabriel Gbadamosi, a London playwright and poet of Irish and Nigerian birth. It is a most effective contrast, something of a Cuirt speciality (I have been paired with a Japanese poet, Kiawo Nomura). Moya reads from her fine new collection, The Parchment Boat, and Gabriel reads poems about his family.
I spend a short time at the launch of the Cuirt Journal, but the room is smoky and absolutely packed. (How do they do it at Cuirt? Every event, even this one at 3 p.m. on a Wednesday afternoon, is full). I escape with Moya Roddy, Galway novelist and screenwriter, and we while away a pleasant hour over coffee.
At 6 p.m. I am on the stage of An Taibhdhearc, wearing a flowery frock and giving the introduction to Deirdre Madden's reading. My nerves are compensated for by this golden opportunity to tell the audience to go and buy her latest novel, One by One in the Darkness, which is a much better tale of a Northern upbringing than Seamus Deane's over-rated and over-written Reading in the Dark (the audience is somewhat shocked by my candour, but every writer has her outspoken side). This reading pairs Deirdre with vivacious Mexican writer Carmen Boullosa and is followed by another two-hander with Scots poet Liz Lochhead and the Northern novelist, Bernard MacLaverty. There is barely time to grab a quick salad at the excellent Nimmo's between the readings. I am beginning to feel it is all too much.
But Liz Lochhead's dramatic monologues are light and witty, and she has a wonderful poem about a baker at a funeral (in contrast to the more usual image of the sweep at a wedding). Bernard MacLaverty reads superbly from his novel Grace Notes, about a woman composer who has had a baby. Later, Galway composer Jane O'Leary (who is also a mother), reassures him that he has got it all amazingly right.
Although severely over-tired, I am dragged off to hear Tom Robinson at the Roisin Dubh. As we enter the packed bar everyone is singing along to his signature tune "Two, four six eight, it's never too late." Tom belts out wonderful songs, most poignantly about being gay and coming out. We all sing along. I get a second wind.
Back at the Atlanta, the bar is crammed. Everyone talks to everyone else. There is no division of writers and punters. People come up and talk to me because they recognise my picture from the programme. A young man tells me my poetry is "steamy and visceral." An elderly lady pokes me in the ribs: "I know you, you write for The Irish Times. I read all of you: Mary Holland, Fintan O'Toole, even Kevin Myers." She collapses into laughter.
About 20 of us stay up talking and singing until we are thrown out of the bar. Undeterred, we keep it up in the foyer. Paul Fahy of the Galway Arts Centre, this year's super-efficient organiser of Cuirt, turns out to be a whizz at singing every Eurovision winner since 1968. Carmen Boullasa regales us with Mexican ballads. I am asked repeatedly to sing but refuse. There are some things best left unheard, and one is my singing voice.
Day 3
Full of a hangover, I drag on my red ensemble and crawl to the Bridge Mills. It is nearly noon. I have half an hour to work out what I'm going to read. I attempt eating a scone. Bad idea. I finally decide on eight poems from my new collection, Entering the Mare. It is divided into two sections, so I choose four poems from each.
At An Taibhdhearc, I meet Kiawo Nomura and his wife. Kiawo and I communicate in broken French. He is feeling just as nervous as me. He will read in Japanese, and there will be English translations. Luckily I'm reading first, so I can get it over with and then enjoy his performance, which will be accompanied by music.
We wait in the wings while the theatre fills up with people. I take deep breaths into my shuddering lungs and wonder for the zillionth time why I do this. Then I am out under the lights and my voice, miraculously not shaking, is introducing and reading the first poem, and I am incomparably sustained by the wonderful silence of a room full of people, all listening.
This, of course, is what makes it all worthwhile, and what makes Frank McCourt, later that night, collapse with giggles, egged on by the audience, at yet another reading he is giving from Angela's Ashes. I have to leave the following morning, gnashing my teeth that I'm missing the likes of Michael Harper, Lavinia Greenlaw, Pat McCabe and Irina Ratushinskaya. Cuirt is just too full of unmissables. Roll on next year.
