Amergin
What the hell WAS this anyway?
I haven’t written anything here for a while, but after a hectic and difficult start to the year, I’m back with a few updates. If you’ve been reading previous posts you know that I recently co-produced a short poetry film with artist/brother Jonathan Brennan. It is called Amergin and is inspired by ‘Tamaulipas Amergin’, a sequence in my book Let the Dead (Banshee Press, 2023). This is what Morgan Ventura Leathem wrote about ‘Tamaulipas Amergin’ in Cyphers: ‘Tamaulipas Amergin’, […] is as historical as it is speculative, as grievous as it is wondrous. In almost Dantesque cantos, Brennan illuminates moments where Ireland met – and still mingles with – Mexico, unveiling relations that exist but often remain enshrouded. […] the collection’s crowning jewel, with its excavation of emotion, charged imagery and raw sense of displacement’. And here is David Morgan O’Connor in Poetry Ireland Review: ‘Perhaps the finest example of this cultivated cornucopia is the long-sequenced poem ‘Tamaulipas Amergin’. By meshing a state in Mexico with a mythic Milesian bard, the page is ploughed to explore St. Patrick’s Battalion, a group of Irish soldiers that famously switched sides to fight for Mexico against the invading U.S. forces in the mid-nineteenth century. Scratch the surface a little, wade into the river, keep your focus on nature, and the poem could easily be layered into an insight on poverty and migration’. Our short film, all shot in Northeastern Mexico, was made with no budget, no actors, no drones, no costumes etc. We filmed in ghost towns, dry riverbeds, graveyards and other places. Not an audiovisual replica of the written words, the film is more focused on representing the themes of displacement, estrangement, ecological concerns, in new ways, adding, I hope, new dimensions to the poem. Poetry Film Festivals often want films that are very short, around ten minutes, so we’ve had to make a few different versions. We were delighted that a shortened version of Amergin was part of the official selection for the Los Angeles International Poetry Film Festival and hope that we’ll get other chances to screen throughout the year before eventually making it accessible online for everyone.
In other news, I will soon be heading to Honduras to participate in the Festival Internacional de PoesÃa Los Confines. The festival takes place in the town of Gracias and also at the Copán ruins, one of the most important sites of ancient Maya civilization. The festival has just started to reveal the lineup and I’m excited to hear from poets such as Forrest Gander, Maria Baranda and to see who else will be participating. Many thanks to Culture Ireland for providing a grant that will cover my journey to Honduras. If you squint you can make out the Culture Ireland logo on the poster.
My last post was on a (probably) inexistent island named Isla Bermeja. Thanks to those who got in touch. The idea was to write a series of posts on one of my many obsessions: islands. I had to put it on pause but ready to do a few more now, so expect Islomania (2) soon.
Lastly, as always, the best way to support me is by buying a copy of Let the Dead (available here or on Kindle) for yourself or for someone else, or by simply recommending it to others. I’d very much appreciate if you did any of that but if you can’t then please just share and like this post and subscribe for more! All the best, Dylan.