The featured readers at the first Poetry Lobby of the new year in the city’s Menlo Park Hotel are Alan McMonagle, Eleanor Hooker, Amy Abdullah Barry and Marion Moynihan.

Supported by Poetry Ireland, it will take place this Sunday, January 25, from 3pm to 5pm and will be hosted as usual by local poet Anne Donnellan, followed by an open mic.

Anne promises a treat of verses for all who venture to the Menlo Park for this free, winter-warming literary experience.

City resident Alan McMonagle has written for radio and stage, and has published two collections of short stories, Psychotic Episodes and Liar Liar. Ithaca, his first novel, was published by Picador in 2017, and his second, Laura Cassidy’s Walk Of Fame, in 2020. His poetry has appeared in a wide variety of publications.

Eleanor Hooker’s third collection, Of Ochre and Ash, won the 2022 Michael Hartnett Award. Her 2023 book Where Memory Lies received the Markievicz Award. Her chapbook, Traces, is forthcoming from Salvage Press.

A new collection, Propagating Honesty, is also forthcoming. A helm for the Lough Derg RNLI, she has a PhD from the University of Limerick.

Award-winning writer Amy Abdullah Barry has been published widely, including in Cyphers, Southword and RTÉ. Her poetry collection, Flirting with Tigers, published by Dedalus Press in 2023, received warm reviews in the Irish Independent, Irish Examiner and The High Window. She was a Poetry Ireland Introduction Series 2022 awardee and has been a guest poet at home and abroad.

Originally from County Cork, Marion Moynihan now lives in Ennis. A member of the Ennis Writers and Ennis Poetry Collective, she has published The Moon’s Daughter with Doghouse, and has won the Firewords Award.  Marion has a BA from Mary Immaculate College and a Master’s in Writing from NUIG.

All are welcome to this reading.

Pictured: Alan McMonagle.