Poetry Arrives By Train

The DART (Dublin Area Rapid Transit) has marked its 25 anniversary with different events, including a poem competition.

During more than 20 years, the Dublin public transport has had a special relation with the literature, which has been demonstrated again with the organization of this competition called 'DART 25 Poetry in Motion'.

The initiative encouraged members of the public to submit a poem in English or in Irish about any railway journey and the success has been great: around 400 entries were received.

The winners' names are Cecilia McGovern (Dublin) for her poem 'It is dangerous to lean out', Eamonn Bonner (Letterkenny, Co. Donegal) for 'Climbing out the window' and John O'Donnell (Dublin) for 'The Blue Man'.

Now, their pieces are displayed in carriages and station platforms to be viewed by interested readers.

In fact, for 23 years, thousands of passengers that use every day the DART have enjoyed the Poets' Corner placed in trains and at stations.

The DART 25 judges, Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin, Moya Cannon and Louis de Paor, were also in attendance at the National Gallery of Ireland for the event, with Chuilleanain considering that railway transport was "a wonderful subject".

She said: "It was striking, reading the entries, how many different approaches the writers took, capturing the ordinary and the exotic, how the train threads itself through places and moves people together and apart."

Cannon agreed and added: "In the ordinariness of our lives' journeys there are illuminating moments when our perspective, our consciousness, shifts subtly to embrace a new reality".

According to her, art can honor all these moments, translating them from the private to the public sphere.

The Awards ceremony delivered the three prizes of €500 each to the winners, and mark the end of the DART anniversary's celebrations.

(CL/BMcC)