FLARE
FLARE 13 IS NOW ON SALE!
Entering Our Fourth Year!
CONTRIBUTORS: Amanda Bell, BeRn, Roisín Browne, Paul Casey, Rob Cross, Berni Dwan, James Falconer, Orla Grant-Donoghue, Gillian Hamill, Helen Harrison, Benjamin Keatinge, Rafael Mendes, Shaiyon Merkel, Giuliano Nistri, Evi Numen, Michael Pardy, Robyn Rowland, Tiziana Soverino, Kasey Shelley, Ben Simmons, Stephen L. Smith, Breda Wall Ryan, and Michael J. Whelan COVER SOURCE: Detail from a street art image by Smug (instagram @smugone) photographed in Waterford by Declan McLoughlin Buy FLARE here at our online shop, at any Sunflower Sessions reading, or at Books Upstairs and The Winding Stair in Dublin city centre, The Village Bookshop in Terenure, Charlie Byrne's in Galway, or Liber book shop in Sligo.
Who or what is FLARE?
FLARE is a quarterly publication dedicated exclusively to poets and poems heard at The Sunflower Sessions. Readings happen from 7.30pm on the last Wednesday of every month (January–November) at the top of The Lord Edward at Christchurch in Dublin.
FLARE is a narrowsheet. That's like a broadsheet, only not so ... broad. The pages are folded tall and narrow, each creating a more intimate space to showcase individual poems better than a broadsheet would. That's the official theory: all according to plan. Alternatively there is a rumour that an A4 document, with all the poems for the first issue lined up in two columns, happened to get folded in half and stuffed in the editor's jeans back pocket on the way to a meeting about formatting with the publisher and just came out folded like that, causing the editor and publisher to nod and say ‘Sure that‘ll do grand!’, saving us the effort of thinking further about a format. The accidental theory of evolution.
FLARE is edited by Éamon Mag Uidhir and its publisher on behalf of The Sunflower Sessions is Declan McLoughlin. When he's not fretting about deadlines and such, Declan wears another hat as the provider of photographs of exciting street art, which are then cropped to create the publication's distinctive covers. Among the well-known Irish and International muralists so far featured have been Eddie Colla, C215, Pawel Iljin, Kathrina Rupit, DMC, DANK, Solus and now Smug. But Declan wears yet another hat, as MC of the Sunflower Sessions readings, which he invariably executes with aplomb, elan, erudition, eclecticism, enthusiasm, even alliteration. The consummate Renaissance man.
Dear to FLARE's heart is the implementation of gender balance among the contributors. As of FLARE 06, all issues have had at least 50:50 female-to-male ratio.
That’s probably enough of that foundation myth guff. Now see our Single copies and back issues, Subscriptions, and Bundles and spend, spend, spend and read, read, read!