My Cultural Life Carmel Winters' work can be seen at the Dublin Theatre Festival Cork-born Carmel Winters is a playwright and director. For The Maestro and the Mosquita she has teamed up with composer Stephen Warbeck and Theatre Lovett at Project, September 12-15 for Dublin Theatre Festival. POETRY Liz Quirke At a campfire recently under a full moon, a woman recited a poem of her own.
It was about the experience of becoming a mother, but without being the one to give birth. It resonated deeply with me, being myself the partner of a woman who is an “Other Mother”. The woman turned out to be Kerry poet Liz Quirke and I’ve been reading her two collections since.
They’re so dense in meaning and I recognise in them both an urgent need to express and a need to make it only fully available to those who have also looked at life from upside down and inside out. FILM Anatomy of a Fall It’s not often I watch a film and almost immediately watch it again but Anatomy of a Fall prompted me to do just that. I loved how it investigates a marriage from all available perspectives.
Their blind son’s point of view is perhaps the most insightful – he seems to see beyond the appearance of things – but ultimately the film acknowledges there is so much that is unknowable about our relationships. It keeps our relations curious, open and rich in possibility. There are so many ways of joining the dots.
And so many dots that are invisible to the naked eye. AUDIO Lakshmi mantras When Sinéad O’Connor died I leaned in to listen to interviews she’d given in recent years. I was fascinated to hear her say she didn’t listen to ‘music’ anymore but preferred Hindu mantras instead.
My wife and I have been utterly enchanted by Lakshmi mantras in particular ever since. We love their intensely feminine devotional attitude and feel very grateful to Sinéad for continuing to light the way even beyond the grave. In my car I have one music CD: Mamasongue by Camilla Griehsel.
It’s a shamanic journey in celebration of her late mother’s life. It has made so many road trips memorable and meaningful as the miles of time stretch between me and my own mother’s death during lockdown. FESTIVAL West Cork Fit-Up I was pure charmed by Little John Nee’s Nettle Horse recently, staged in a mushroom-shaped tent in Ballydehob.
The setting sun crept along the grass and lit up punk shaman magician Little John’s face as he captivated us all – charmed humans and barking dogs and braying donkeys alike. Favourite theatre destination? Ooh. I live a very modest cultural life and can’t lay claim to having one.
But I do have a fond spot for The Bush Theatre in London. They invited me to act in a play there last year [ Paradise Now! ] and I fell in love with Shepherd’s Bush and the endless achingly beautiful theatre of humanity on the streets there. Join the Irish Independent WhatsApp channel Stay up to date with all the latest news.
