How do you facilitate, nurture, maintain a poetry scene? What are the experiences of those who have done so by setting up poetry readings, workshops, performances, collaborations over several 'generations’ of poets? How do such projects interact with the specific environments of the three port cities of Liverpool, Cork and A Coruña?

Questions such as these were explored in an online round table debate held as part of the ó Bhéal Winter Warmer festival, on 28th November. Dave Ward from The Windows Project in Liverpool, Paul Casey from ó Bhéal in Cork, and Yolanda Castaño from the Residencia 1863 and the events series Poetas Di(n)versos explored these questions in a conversation chaired by Cornelia Gräbner (Lancaster University). The round table was followed by a poetry reading of eight poets whose trajectories were marked by these projects: Lucía Aldao and Emma Pedreira from A Coruña, Nathalie Linh Bolderstone, Eleanor Rees and Bene Sebuyange from Liverpool, and Molly Twomey, George Harding and Julie Goo from Cork. María del Pilar Cáceres Casillas (Lancaster University) translated poems by Lucía Aldao especially for the occasion.

The event was sponsored by the research project “POEPOLIT II – Contemporary Poetry and Politics: Social Conflicts and Poetic Dialogisms (uvigo.es)", funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities (PID2019-105709RB-I00, 2020-2023) at the University of Vigo (Galicia/Spain) with the support of the Internacional José Saramago Chair.

The Round Table Debate can be viewed here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gb0PhmbQDkI

The Poetry Reading can be viewed here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PnumwrgZ5U