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Belfast Book Festival

Featured Poets

John Mee
Heather Richardson
Stephanie Conn
Nessa O’Mahony
Michael Ray
Therese Kieran
Annette Skade
Moyra Donaldson
James Meredith
Attracta Fahy
Paul Jeffcutt
Michael Sheehan
Karen McDonnell
Olive Broderick
Georgi Gill
Daragh Breen
Jane Robinson
Keith Payne
Karen McDonnell
Emma McKervey

Editorial

It’s a bit of a dream and an important landmark for Coast to Coast to Coast to have created this Special Irish Issue. The genesis of the copy you hold here was both in a conversation I had with Maria McManus last autumn, not long after the first issue of the journal was launched, and an idea of collaborative work, coast to coast to coast to coast that Michael and I had when working on some poems together in Liverpool during 2015.

Maria’s support and belief in my stitching and the creation of the journal has been very sustaining and I want to say a special thanks to her and to others like her who have been so encouraging about our publication which lies between a poetry journal and art piece and I think is unique in this.

It’s been a great pleasure for us to bring together the work of so many poets from all over Ireland – in addition to the poetry from Northern Ireland, this issue contains poetry from Cork, Galway, Dublin, Clare, and Meath.

Bringing together this issue is also, I hope, the beginning of a new tributary: Coast to Coast to Coast is travelling beyond its Liverpool home.

We hope you enjoy this issue, that you read and reread the poetry here, maybe look further at the work of poets included, and perhaps think about sharing our journals as gifts of art and poetry for others. Thank you.

Maria and Michael,
Belfast, June 2018