Poetry in time of pandemic

In the Galway University Hospital framed POEMS hanging for years.

Once, when we went to the Emergency Department with my husband, we were sitting in this waiting room with poetry around. And I remember that this little help of poems broke away us from the tension of fears.

At the moment we could cross the borders without moving.

So I strongly believe, that POETRY can be caring for us during a pandemic.

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“Sound of silence”

In my hut this spring,

There is nothing –

There is everything!

/Haiku, Jamaguchi Sodo/

Soft steps on the carpet, breathing, swallowing saliva, birds chirping, rain knocking on the window. I hear it when I sit down in meditation. My thoughts flow like boats on a rough ocean. Silence slowly measure an existence.

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Umbrella Orphanage

When the next month is still terribly grey and the ocean is pouring on your head. Do you wonder if the Irish winter consisted of the same Blue Mondays?

On top of it people in Galway still hope it rains. Yes, HOPE it RAINS – SOINEANN nó DOINEANN this is the project, as part of the European Capital of Culture Galway 2020, dedicated especially to Galway – the rainiest city in Europe.

The authors of this activity prove that rainy and blowing weather can bring people closer to each other and wake up creativity.

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“Life is beautiful because of the people we meet”

Have you ever had the situation that hostile weather thwarted your plans, just like a storm stopped the opening ceremony of the European Capital of Culture at 8 th February 2020, in Galway, Ireland and overturned the plans of 50,000 enthusiasts?

Nothing replaces the performance prepared by the Wonder Works class-world company. However, even a pressing storm can not stop what was born between people in the rainy city.

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One day in Dublin – take your time

Dublin is a city of colourful doors, poetic quotes even on urban electric boxes, surreal bridges crossing the river Liffey, double-decker buses, songs, grunge style, parks, retro dresses, people’s gestures above law, idyllic cafes, giant windows and diverse cultures shaking hands every day.

So if you visit Dublin only for one day – relax and let to experience yourself this character.

The famous monuments leave for the future.

I promise you that even half a day in Dublin is enough to make you feel like on the meeting with peculiar friend.

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Stormy weather dress

Until recently I was sporadically wearing dresses, but thanks to the stormy weather that is raging in Galway day by day and also a gale in my head I discovered that if I put on a colourful dress, I can feel the spring even in the middle of winter.

You probably noticed that the weather often appears in my articles. Eh, it’s impossible to hide, that in Ireland meteorological conditions can be really depressing. Through the months of grey clouds, I have been dizzy since morning and often I don’t  want to go outside.

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Theatre as a mirror

Theatre is complicated because is about our everyday moods, emotions and fears

– so said Emmauel Demarcy-Mota, director of one of the stage in Paris during the press conference in Sibiu, Romania which I have attended.

If you follow my blog you know that last summer, I spent almost a month as a volunteer at the Sibiu International Theatre Festival, the biggest theatre festival on the world.  Where I have been writing reports about volunteers work and I helped the artists to organise shows on the main square. During this time I met so many charismatic people from cultural field, but I wrote almost nothing about theatre. I wondered why?

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African sun in Ireland

These are not just colourful fabrics, this is my identity, the country I come from, the taste of my childhood.

-so Virtue Shine told me, a fashion designer from Ghana who now sews brightly colored clothes in Galway.

January in Ireland over the wild Atlantic is a burden. Heavy rain, gales, hail, grey colour skies. Meanwhile I enter Virtue’s studio and there I can see hundreds of special fabrics around, each with different patterns and colours. On the hangers are dresses, skirts, jackets, scarves, bags and birds.

Working with colours here in Galway, where the sky is clouded so often is a great privilege, because the colour is a mood lifter and can preset my day

says Virtue.

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