Major Irish poet Trevor Joyce will read from his work on Tuesday, October 23, 2007, at 7 pm at Pierre Menard Gallery.

Trevor Joyce has been publishing some of the most interesting poems coming out of Ireland for many years; he is a poet whose work has expanded the possibilities not only of Irish poetry but of poetry itself. With Michael Smith, Joyce co–founded in 1967 New Writers’ Press, which did much to bring attention to a neglected tradition of Irish modernist writing including the work of Brian Coffey, Thomas MacGreevey, and others. Joyce is the co–founder and director since 1997 of SoundEye, The Cork International Poetry Festival. A volume of Joyce’s collected poems to 2000 was published as With the First Dream of Fire They Hunt the Cold. Another volume, What’s in Store, a collection of more recent poems and workings from poetry in Irish, Chinese, and other languages is to be published by The Gig (Toronto).

Robert Archambeau has written that “Joyce has put himself to school in the techniques of many poetic traditions, and the results are often beautiful and subtly complex.” Fanny Howe writes that Joyce is “one of my favorite poets anywhere. His poems have the clear, austere and impersonal ring of great translations. They are archetypal, they are strange.” Joyce has been a Fulbright scholar and is a member of Aosdána.

The gallery is located at 10 Arrow Street in Harvard Square, up Arrow St. from Cafe Pamplona. Admission is free and a reception will follow, with books available for purchase and signing.