Climate in a Bottle – Poetry Project

Deadline: 31 Mar 2023

Inspired by the message in a bottle theme set by Martina Evans for Poetry Day Ireland, 27th April, 2023, and worried by the climate change situation, we invite poets to place their climate wishes (or a symbolic element from the climate of their home place) in a glass bottle, seal the bottle and write a poem. Selected climates in a bottle and associated poems will be transiently exhibited during a reading to be held at the National Maritime Museum of Ireland in Dún Laoghaire on Thursday 27th April 2023 from 3 to 4pm. This will be a free event, open to the public.

Further details for writers:

Find a glass bottle and place inside it: 

a)  some materials that represent your local climate (sand from the desert, seeds from a garden, ice from the Arctic, smog from a city...)    

or 

b)   something that represents the poet's ceremonial wish for humans to stop causing so much damage to earth's climate and biodiversity.  

– Use the process of making your ‘Climate in a Bottle’ to inspire you to write a new poem. 

Print and sign your poem and send it along with your sealed glass bottle, to arrive during the month of March 2023. The curator, Jane Robinson, plans to select both Irish and International poems for the public reading – contributions from geographically-distant poets will be read at the event by designated local poets alongside their own work.  

 

Address packages to:

Jane Robinson
Climate in a Bottle – Poetry Project
c/o    The National Maritime Museum of Ireland
Haigh Terrace
Dún Laoghaire
Co. Dublin
A96 C8X7

 

Don’t forget to include a cover letter with your email address, location and a short biographical note – receipt will be acknowledged by email.  Selected poets will be contacted and invited to read their poem (or consent for their poem to be read by a local poet) and have their ‘Climate in a Bottle’ displayed in a transient exhibition on the afternoon of Poetry Day Ireland, 27th April 2023. The reading and exhibition will take place from 3 to 4pm at the beautiful National Maritime Museum of Ireland (https://www.mariner.ie/) in Dún Laoghaire, County Dublin.

This is a family-friendly event, so please send materials appropriate for all ages. Please don’t send any items of physical value: most of the contributions will be respectfully recycled after the reading, unless an archive takes an interest in the project. It is conceived as a live reading event and will not be broadcast or recorded.