Close your eyes and think of Ireland, and three things come to mind: lush countryside, Guinness stout and literature. The last one - unlike Guinness, which has been in Moscow for some time - makes its first official visit to town this week.
The Irish Poetry Festival, which runs through Nov. 9, started Thursday at the Gramophone club.
Sponsored by the British Council and the Irish Embassy, the festival brings six poets and a wealth of literary tradition to Moscow for six days of readings and educational workshops. Of the poets, Paul Muldoon, Tom Paulin and Frank Ormsby are from Northern Ireland. Nuala Ni Dhomhnaill, John Montague and Thomas McCarthy are from the Republic of Ireland.
"It's an opportunity to show creativity from both sides of the border," Sasha Dugdale, assistant director of arts at the British Council, said, of the often sensitive question of Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.
Two of the poets, Paul Muldoon and John Montague, have won international acclaim.
Paul Muldoon, winner of the 1994 T.S. Eliot Prize for his "The Annals of China" and the Irish Times' 1997 Irish Literature Prize for Poetry, is one of Ireland's best-known contemporary poets. He is employed as a professor at both Oxford University and Princeton University.
Montague has published several books of poetry, two novels and a book of essays. He currently holds the very first Ireland Chair of Poetry.
The poems of Dublin's Nuala Ni Dhomhnaill are written in Gaelic and translated into English by a veritable who's who of contemporary Irish poets, including Seamus Heaney, Derek Mahon and Muldoon.
All of the poems to be read at the festival have been translated into Russian. Each reading will include a bilingual performance by both the poet and the translator of his or her work.
"It's wonderful that they were able to obtain such professional translators," said Yuly Gugolev, who translated Tom Paulin's poems.
Festival organizers say they will publish an anthology containing the festival's poems and their translations in December, but anyone interested in hearing the poets read their own work can visit one of the many readings planned for the week at the Russian Culture Fund (6 Gogolevsky Bulvar, Metro Kurskaya. Tel. 202-6984), the Anglia book shop (2/3 Khlebny Pereulok, Metro Arbatskaya. Tel. 203-5802.) and the Coffee Bean (18 Pokrovka Ulitsa, Metro Chistiye Prudy. Tel. 923-9793.).
For poetry lovers who have tired of these urban settings, a poetry reading and tea will be held at Boris Pasternak's dacha in the Moscow suburb of Peredelkino on Saturday at 3 p.m.
On Sunday, Russian poetry will take its turn. Paulin, Ormsby and McCarthy will read with Dmitry Prigov, a witty poet extremely popular among Russian Generation X'ers, Viktor Koval, Lev Rubinstein, Sergei Gandlevsky, Timur Kibirov and Gugolev. The poetry will be accompanied by a short Irish film and a folk music performance. The readings start at 7 p.m. at the DOM culture center at 24 Bolshoi Ovchinnikovsky Pereulok, Bldg. 4. Metro Tretyakovskaya. Tel. 953 7236.
Admission to the readings is free. For a more complete festival schedule, contact the British Council at 234-0215.
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