Poetry and art in aid of Pink Ribbon

CROSSING the Sound, a collaboration between poet Gerald Dawe and artist Padraic Reaney, will be launched at The Creel Restaurant in Westport tomorrow (Wednesday, June 13) at 8 p.m. in aid of Mayo cancer charity, Pink Ribbon.

The book, a limited edition of just 200 copies, features poems written over 40 years by distinguished poet Gerald Dawe, alongside Connemara-based artist Padraic Reaney.

It celebrates and illuminates the beauty and history of the west of Ireland landscape through a curated selection of work inspired by and connected to the region and introduced by Hugo Hamilton.

Dawe and Reaney met in the mid-1970s in Galway, where Gerald had moved from Belfast to study at UCG, as it then was, and eventually settle down and spend the next 20 years before moving to Dublin.

Said Dawe: “This is a project we’ve been talking about for years. We’re delighted to see it finally in place in such as beautiful edition.

“It’s an apt way of offering a helping hand to the Pink Ribbon charity in Mayo. Finding ways of overcoming cancer is the big picture; this is just a small step.”

Gerald Dawe is a distinguished poet, with over 20 books published over four decades of writing. Padraic Reaney is one of Ireland’s most distinctive visual artists and his paintings are in numerous individual and institutional collections and art galleries throughout Ireland, Europe and the US.

All profits from the sale of the book will be donated to Mayo Pink Ribbon.