Stanzas Festival is rocking the city with words

Stanzas is an event for emerging writers to express themselves, develop their craft, and meet interesting, like-minded people.

Stanzas Festival is rocking the city with words

This weekend, Limerick City will be heated up by rhythm and words as a “rock concert for poetry”, Stanza is rolling in Limerick from July 19 to 22.

Stanzas is an event for emerging writers to express themselves, develop their craft, and meet interesting, like-minded people. 

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Each July, Stanzas holds a free event, as a birthday bash named ‘A Weekend of Words’. The event will be full of poems, live music, and films.

“We are hoping to make a splash with locals. There are loads of events for everyone, even those who claim not to like poetry!” Shane Vaughan, member of the Stanzas team said,  “ Limerick is home. If everyone else can do it, why can’t we?”

Aisling O’Connor, a poetry performer at the Culture & Croissants section in Ormston House on Friday, said that Limerick has become much more facilitating for arts and culture over the past years so there will be a promotion for poetry.

Aisling has a strong interest in poetry which motivates her to read at Stanzas events and open mics. “I hope there is a good turn out at the event, mostly I hope people react well to my work, and I’m glad I get to pay tribute to Sylvia Plath because my poem is based off Poppies in July,” she said.

There will be two venues for the event, Ormston House, and the Record Room. The highlight for this event should be Friday night, as Shane said. “At 7 pm in Ormston House, we have two great guests, The Horse and John W Sexton. But also we have the open mic which for us is the main attraction. You never know what you’ll get with an open mic but you also get something wonderful!”

Shane told ilovelimerick that Stanzas has been going for four years.“We wanted somewhere safe and open to sharing our work, and so we made it ourselves. We just keep trying to grow the fruit of our labor and stay true to our mission: let the poets speak!”

This event is funded by both the Limerick Arts office and the Arts Council. The Stanzas team is looking forward to the interdisciplinary events; poetry films with Paul Casey and poetry dance with Lucy Dawson.

For more information on Stanzas, go here

For more stories on poetry, go here