ABCDublin

Over 26 weeks from July 2020, Catherine Ann and Poetry Ireland highlighted one letter every Wednesday with an illustrated #ABCDublin prompt on Twitter and Facebook. People used social media, email or snail mail to submit a rhyme or response for just one letter or for the whole alphabet.

Individuals, community groups, schools and many more took part in the weekly Alphabet Blitz and we were been bowled over by everyone getting involved and the amazing contributions. Here a few comments from people who took part in the project.

“Oh, love Wednesday now with the wonderful #ABCDublin #PoetryPrompt project created by the equally wonderful and inspiring #PoetInResidence” - Damien Donnelly on Twitter

“Thanks Catherine Ann and fellow poetry tweeters – it has been a wonderful experience to write and read and to join in the poetry community – a fabulous captain and such good fun and support during tough times”
- Maura McDonnell on Twitter

“Catherine Ann, a sincere thank you for your initiative and imagination. You got me back to the writing table!”
- TheresaWriter on Twitter

Here are a few of Catherine Ann’s suggestions for #ABCDublin prompts that got people’s imaginations going:

A’s for the Abbey with actors galore
Attracting admirers since 1904

B is for Busarus, with buses by the horde, 
For Bantry or Balbriggan, why don’t you jump on board?

All of the Alphabet Blitz submissions so far are curated over at www.abcdublin.org so make sure to check them out but here are just a few examples from contributors to give a flavour of the project:

D is for Dirty Old Town
but we found

clean silhouettes
of buildings

silver sky
and street lights

guiding our feet
to the concert.

-K.S. Moore

 

Glasnevin

Visitors tread
near ancient dead
in a necropolis
of purple blaze
and yew trees.

Seeking bones
beneath half-buried
stones and in
upright funerary
monuments.

-Theresa Donnelly

 

Parnell and Poetry

Parnell Square and Street
named after our famous parliamentarian,
a man of wise words
and political feats
immortalized on a pillar pedestal,
overseer of the city
bronze arm pointing the way

to Poetry Ireland,
where many a poet sets their sights
feet deep in autumn leaves
head in clouds, chasing a poem
above bumper-beeping traffic
along Georgian redbrick facades
up where the pigeons roost
and the ghost of Parnell broods.

-Siobhán McLaughlin

 

Sun soaked Skerries by the sea,
Sucking on icepops with glee.
Swimsuit on, sweat drippin’,
I’m ready to sashay my way in.

-Áine Hayden