On Saturday, 5 September, the creative group “Grannies on the Island” (Omītes uz salas) gathered in Dublin, at the Avila Carmelite Centre, at the home of our welcoming “granny” Zaiga Greivule. In the flower kingdom she tends, together with other friends of poetry and song, we celebrated Poetry Days.
This year’s motto was “Poetry Sings!” – and that afternoon poetry truly did sing, both in readings and in songs.
We were delighted to discover the poetry of Gunita Barscauska, a member of the Irish Latvian literary club “Zaļā Spalva”. Her poems were heard in two voices: in the author’s own heartfelt readings and performed by Viktorija Klavina, a pupil of the Latvian school in Tullow. Viktorija was the youngest voice of poetry that day.
Noel and I had been invited by Inga Zvirgzdina, leader of the creative group “Grannies on the Island”, to present our trilingual book Balsis uz tilta / Voices on The Bridge / Glórtha ar an nDroichead. Our programme of more than ten songs and poems also came from the book: poetry by beloved Latvian authors, songs by well-known composers and our own original work in Latvian and English. Noel also sang a Latvian folk song in English, in his own interpretation, and it was remarkable to hear a folk song find its way into another language. We gave one copy of the book to Inga Zvirgzdina and another to Viktorija Klavina.
A real surprise came from Irish philatelist Denis Fahey, who brought his collection of countless stamps about Latvia, dating back to 1918 – a small history of Latvia in little paper squares.
Thank you to everyone who was with us for the warm atmosphere!
Source: baltic-ireland.ie (in Latvian) · Photo: the Grannies on the Island creative group
