#PoetryDayIRL 2017 & LABEL-LIT

Label-Lit is a micro-literature response to the world. The purpose is to share small works of literature, on luggage labels, in public spaces.

Image by kind permission: Bernarde Lynn

The aim is to share the written word, so whether it is poetry, a maxim, a gut response, a shout out, the quiet voice, a comfort, a gentle confrontation, or just the plain truth, Label-Lit is intended to be shared and is intended to encourage people in other places to connect in evocative, gentle, human ways through literary art and poetry.

For Poetry Day in Ireland 2017, I am co-working with more than 20 other poets to bring LabelLit to public space. I’d initially sought 10 others, but when enthusiastic requests came in, I couldn’t help but respond and include a few more people. So, what’s happening?

Who Are The POETS????

We are a group with participants across all of the island of Ireland, but also Portugal, England and South Carolina USA, and one of our poets is in transit between Rostrevor in Co. Down and Budapest, Hungary ,on the day too.

Jess Traynor, Dublin

Margaret O’Driscoll, Cork

Anne McMaster, Garvagh, Co. Derry

Stephanie Conn, Ballyclare

Tory Campbell, Belfast

Maria Ishakova Bennett, Liverpool, England

Ines Lampreia, Lisbon, Portugal

Eibhlinn McAleer, Belfast

Clare McWilliams, Belfast

Emma McKervy, Holywood, Co. Down

Csilla Toldy, Rostrevor & Budapest, Hungary.

Angela Carr, Phibsboro, Dublin

Shelley Tracey, Lisburn

Eva Griffen, Ranelagh, Dublin

Karen Mooney ( Craigavon & Stormont)

Kerrie O’Brien, Cabinteeley, Dublin

John Saunders, Tullamore Co. Offaly

Sean Maguire, Newry

Jessamine O’Connor,  Ballaghedereen, Co. Roscommon

Emily Davis-Fletcher, South Carolina, USA

Lica B. Browne, Dublin

Maria McManus, Belfast & Enniskillen

What happens?

The participating poets choose a quote or a line from their own poetry and they write it on the label. The other side of the label has the hashtags of #PoetryDayIRL and #label-lit, plus the location and signature of the participating poet.

On Thursday 27th April 2017, each poet will leave their house… and go on a walk, a bike, a bus, a train, a tram, a car, a plane, roller-skates or whatever… and cache their poetry labels in places where they will be found and, perhaps, taken home.

Finders keepers – people who find the labels might be inspired to make contact with us, on social media, also using the hashtags – so we hope we might get a little activity going on Facebook and Twitter.

The Process

Documenting the project is a really important thing to me. I think what we are doing is delicate and light-touch, but also really important – making things ‘realer for the deadened’ as Joni Mitchell said, or to ‘catch the heart off-guard’ as Heaney said.

The digital things matter in order to capture the project, but I am also hoping to create a little archive of the labels. So I’m hoping that the poets will post a label to me and I will have a sample of all of them for posterity.

The poets will also send some images to me so I can upload them to the flickr site. Alternatively (or, who knows, perhaps additionally!) we might get some blog posts, which I will happily post to this site.

Previous Label-Lit projects have taken place in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, as well as in in Sweden, Portugal, Turkey, Czech Republic, England and Wales… and later in the year there is a project planned for Spain.

Don’t just Label-Lit – be part of it.

For Blogs about the project, visit here: https://labellit.wordpress.com/2016/07/15/guerrilla-poetry-public-space-and-micro-literature/

For images, visit here: https://m.flickr.com/#/photos/17658320@N05/sets/72157675681071491/