Seeking Geopark Poetry Map Submissions

Poetry Month is coming to a close, but there will be opportunities to share you poetry year round.. Currently, I am curating a project for Marble Arch Caves UNESCO Global Geopark where we will be mapping sites across the geopark poem by poem. This digital poetry map is being funded by the Geological Survey Ireland’s Geoheritage Fund. Poets will have their text on the poetry, as well as recited by professional actors so that there is both a visual and aural experience of the poem.  Poets will also receive a payment for the reproduction rights to the chosen poems. Five established poets have been commissioned to create new work for the digital poetry map and a dozen new and emerging poets will have their work published alongside these writers. The commissioned poets were officially announced on Poetry Day Ireland this 29th April. (https://www.marblearchcavesgeopark.com/2021/04/open-call-for-poems-to-map-sites-in-marble-arch-caves-unesco-global-geopark-this-poetry-day-ireland/)

So can you write a site specific poem that includes a geoheritage theme? Not sure what geoheritage actually is? This blog might help concentrate your mind…https://sojourningsmith.blog/2021/05/11/what-is-geoheritage/

To get full details, as well as support material from the Geopark, email GeoparkPoetryMap@gmail.com.

The digital poetry map will go live on the MAC Geopark’s website this October 2021. Will one of your poems be highlighting one of these sites pictured above?

Submissions are being sought now until 15th June 2021. You may write the poem in Irish, but please provide an English translation. We are a Global Geopark, so authors could potentially be from anywhere in the world. The geoheritage theme is paramount and the poems must be pinned to a specific site within MACGeopark. You can check out the Visitor Map on their website here: https://www.marblearchcavesgeopark.com/resource/geopark-visitor-map/