Writing as a Reader and Reading as a Writer with Christodoulos Makris

Course Summary

As poets and writers we are first and foremost readers mediating external material, text and otherwise, in the process of making new work. And as readers operating in the digital age we are increasingly aware of the creative potential of reading and repurposing. In ‘writing as a reader / reading as a writer’ participants will exercise their capacity to read creatively, critically and intuitively, and to employ source material directly towards literary composition. This is a generative course incorporating regular writing tasks underpinned by carefully selected and targeted contemporary and historical examples, as well as informal and unhierarchical group discussion and exchange.

Course Outline

Week 1: Introductions / Writing the Everyday

Week 2: Sampling, Remixing, and other appropriative techniques

Week 3: Documentary Poetics

Week 4: Translation and Re-writing

Week 5: Intersemiotic (cross-media) translation / audiovisual content

Week 6: Constraints / Transcription / post-Artificial Intelligence

Week 7: Digital poetics / DIY publishing and publishing beyond the page

Week 8: Collaboration

Each session incorporates writing/making exercises.

Course Outcomes

‘writing as a reader / reading as a writer’ is designed to stimulate participants’ engagement with reading as a creative act, and the expanded possibilities of contemporary writing practice. It is designed to operate cumulatively to deepen their understanding of the creative potential of pre-existing material, to provoke experimentation and collaboration, and to grant permissions through example and dialogue.

Christodoulos Makris is “one of Ireland’s foremost avant-garde poets” (The Irish Times). He has published five books of poetry as well as several pamphlets, artists’ books, digital projects, audiovisual works and other poetry objects. His work has appeared in Granta, The Stinging Fly, The Guardian, The Irish Times, Poetry Ireland Review, and elsewhere. His most recent awards include a Curatorial Commission from Museum of Literature Ireland (MoLI), Dublin; an Artist Residency at Irish Arts Center, New York; and a Public Poetry Commission from Cúirt Festival of Literature, Galway. He is the poetry editor at gorse journal.

Booked out? To be added to the waiting list for this course, please email info@irishwriterscentre.ie.