News
In celebration of Poetry Day on Thursday 7 May 2015, Galway University Hospitals Arts Trust in collaboration with the Arts and Health Co-ordinators Ireland (AHCI) and Poetry Ireland has produced a Menu of Poems entitled Flow for circulation to patients, visitors and staff in a range of healthcare settings in Ireland.
Flow features poems by Crystal Zheng, Noel Crook, Leanne O’Sullivan and Suheir Hammad which were selected by AHCI members based on a long list of poems compiled by internationally renowned Palestinian-American poet Naomi Shihab Nye. Naomi will visit Ireland for the Cúirt International Festival of Literature in April 2015. She states: “no matter their topics or styles, [they] have a beautiful power to pull in our meandering thoughts and soothe. It is a gift to discover poems sometimes where we are not expecting to find them – in a subway – a newspaper – even hand-printed on a wall”.
The Menu of Poems will be distributed to over 9,000 people this year as an integral part of the arts programmes of Galway University Hospitals Arts Trust and all hospitals in the Saolta University Health Care Group; Waterford Healing Arts Trust; The Twilight Programme, St. Patrick’s Mental Health Services; Naas General Hospital Arts Committee; Arts in Health at Cork University Hospital; St. Luke’s General Hospital, Kilkenny; Wexford General Hospital; Arts Initiative in Mental Health Sligo Leitrim; West Cork Mental Health Services Arts and Health Programme; Arts for Health, West Cork; South Tipperary General Hospital facilitated by Beehouse Arts; the Kildare Arts and Wellbeing Specialist and University Hospital Limerick.
Since its conception in 2009, the Menu of Poems has been a cherished and positive development in the lives of both patients and those who work in healthcare settings across Ireland. The Menu is available to anyone working in a healthcare facility to print and distribute in their own locations (and is A4 compatible).
The organisers invite those working in healthcare environments to host their own poetry reading event of these and other well-loved poems. If you would like to comment or be included in the 2016 Menu please email menuofpoems2015@gmail.com
To download a copy click here.
For media information, please contact: Margaret Flannery, Arts Director, Galway University Hospitals Arts Trust.
Phone: 091 544979 or 087 1250461| E-mail: guhartstrust@hse.ie
