TERRY MCDONAGH Terry McDonagh, Irish poet and dramatist has worked in Europe, Asia and Australia. He’s taught creative writing at Hamburg University and was Drama Director at Hamburg International School. Published eleven poetry collections, letters, drama, prose and poetry for young people. In March 2022, he was poet in residence and Grand Marshal as part of the Saint Patrick’s Day celebrations in Brussels. His work has been translated into German and Indonesian. His poem, ‘UCG by Degrees’ is included in the Galway Poetry Trail on Galway University campus. In 2020, Two Notes for Home – a two-part radio documentary, compiled and presented by Werner Lewon, on The Life and Work of Terry McDonagh, The Modern Bard of Cill Aodáin. His latest poetry collection, ‘Two Notes for Home’ – published by Arlen House – September 2022. He returned to live in County Mayo in 2019. www.terry-mcdonagh.com
Terry McDonagh
Secrets in Word and Music A writer in a café sipping a coffee might be a cliché, but a writer in a café sipping a coffee on a floor above a bookshop is a joy worthy of several cups. And this pleasure is all mine as I sit with my coffee on the first floor of The Bookshop in Castlebar, County Mayo. Even the stairs up to the café from the floor below, is a step to an adventure. I’m gathering thoughts for a Live Encounters editorial. Moments like these are special – a time of waiting for something to happen – pondering on this and that, taking notes and ordering a second coffee. I think of the term, tabula rasa – of Peter Brook’s The Empty Space, where we are presented with a theatre space to fill with something exciting, interesting – enthralling even. My head is the empty space but I have five senses as well as memory, colour and daily experiences to draw on. It’s a tingling time.
Just recently, I’ve been working quite a lot in schools with children of all ages. I love this work with young people, as, in most instances, they are unspoiled – full of lovely nonsense and, unlike us adults, they, usually, don’t have a literary or theatrical reputation to defend. Thankfully, there are grown-ups of all ages that have remained childlike. As part of my work, I’ve had the pleasure of working with groups of young teenagers of varied cultural and linguistic backgrounds. I asked them to greet each other in their native tongue which led one student to suggest that language was music – and when people spoke in their native tongue – most of us couldn’t understand even though we were on the same topic – but we could listen to the music in the language. We ended up trying to guess what ‘others’ were saying. We, then, wrote in our own language and translated back and forth. On the one hand, this was a lot of fun, but, on the other hand, I was conscious of the importance of mother tongue as identity and enrichment. I lived in Germany for more than half my life where I learned to value being able to converse and communicate in more than one language. © Terry McDonagh 2024 March POETRY & WRITING © liveencounters.net
