Who by fire...The Ash Sessions returns for a night - March 6, 2024
Poetry is just the evidence of life. If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash…"
Leonard Cohen (1934 –2016)
Leonard Cohen (1934 –2016)
I started off the year in Barcelona, for work. While I was there, I was fortunate enough to find time to reconnect with a dear friend – Davy Lyons, an Irish musician (from Wexford) who moved to Barcelona a few years ago, to play music. Over the years, he’s released two albums (they are both so wonderful!), and it was a delight to not only get to see him when I was in Barcelona, but also to hear him play a few songs in a cocktail bar on a Tuesday night (a couple of months ago now) in Barcelona. The night was really special; I heard 6 acts, all playing 3-4 songs (some in Spanish, most in English), and it was so quiet and all so beautiful, that by the time Davy got up to play, I found myself nostalgic for a certain time, and a certain basement, in some part of the heart of Dublin, where musicians and poets would gather – to play, and perform and listen to each other.
I moved to Dublin in the summer of 2011 to spend a year writing poetry. I didn't know anyone. But every Monday night, I could go to the basement of the International Bar and spend time with a room, with people who were preoccupied with the same things that preoccupied me (making, and re-making, over and over again). So much of my work (from my first collection of poems) had its first run there; it was a pretty special place, in a pretty special time. How fortunate it was then, to be able to stand up in front of a room of people, to read new work, to feel it take up space, and to see how it landed; and then, to take it back – to be worked and re-worked until the thing the poem was did what it was supposed to do. I owe so much to that space, and to other spaces like it, in those, the first years of my time in Dublin. It was special, and formative for my practice as a writer. At some point, I decided to start my own event – an outdoors art and music session, in the environs of what used to be Nick’s Coffee Kiosk (2012-2014) in Ranelagh. I am grateful to Nick, who started it all off one day, when he said to me “Do you see that chalkboard there? It's yours. To write any poem on it you want". From a small offering, big things.
The Ash Sessions takes its name from a Leonard Cohen quotation: “Poetry is just the evidence of life. If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash.” I ran this event for the better part of three years – and all together, there were sessions, and series, and collaborations, and culture nights. It made me happy to do it (and I am indebted to everyone who ever played a song or performed a poem - most of the time in rather freezing cold temperatures; someone said to me once - "Only a Canadian would do an outdoors gig, every month, in Ireland, and think it was a good idea!" (Irish weather is…Irish weather, after all. Still…people came, and people listened, and people played – and it makes me happy to know that for a time, it existed in the world and people liked it.
And so it was then, a couple of months ago, that I sat there, in that cocktail bar in Barcelona (with its velvet curtains) and I listened to these musicians play; that I was part of a group of people who were also there, giving everything their full attention, and it brought me back to all those nights and events…and I came back to Dublin with it all still on my mind.
So…on a whim… I went to the International Bar in early February and I asked if the basement was available – and it was, and so I booked it, to bring back The Ash Sessions, for one night – on Wednesday March 6th. Thank you to everyone who has agreed to participate in the evening – the programme is a lovely mix of music and poetry, and I am looking forward to what is sure to be a beautiful evening all together. Here is the list of performers and the programme for the evening.
Performers
Brendan Carvill (with Ri Dunne)
Phil Lynch
Jessica Foley
Oisín McCole
Erin Fornoff
Muireann Ní Cheannabháin
Hannah McGinn
Anne Tannam
David Maddox
Dimitra Xidous
Ria Czerniak
Karl Parkinson
Stephen James Smith
Maurice Czerniak
About The Ash Sessions
For anyone interested in how it all started – visit https://theashsessions.wordpress.com/ for all the sessions, series, and collaborations.