Unmatched for her performative music, Paula Meehan takes us on a journey into the sources and resources of a life in poetry, touching along the way on song, folklore, aisling, memorialization, and the ancient obligations of the poetic vocation.
Amidst the ‘bleak midwinter’ of the Pandemic, Kathleen Jamie strikes an optimistic note, reading great poems on longing and hope; midsummer light; common natural beauties; the search for the miraculous; mother-love; bright memories of parents; and the persistence of an immanent majesty in life.
Virtual Crossways 2021 followed on from the Crossways Festivals of 2018 and 2019, which were staged in Glasgow and which featured writers and performers in Irish, Scottish Gaelic, Scots and English. The particular aim of Crossways is to foster and expand literary links across the North Channel.
In 2021, it brought together Irish writers from across the island of Ireland, together with their Scottish peers, underscoring the longstanding contribution of Irish people, history, language, culture and writing to both Glasgow and the Scottish nation.
Virtual Crossways 2021 was sponsored and organised by Irish Pages/Duillí Éireann. It received financial support from the Government of Ireland Emigrant Support Programme, Foras na Gaeilge, Colmcille, and Bòrd na Gàidhlig.
For more, visit www.crosswaysfestival.org.