To ‘sweeten Ireland’s wrong’: Contemporary Performance Poetry and Digital Activism in Ireland

This paper investigates the relationship between the activism
associated with contemporary performance poetry in Ireland and its
existence in a digital and internet culture. One of the most prominent
concerns of contemporary performers is the ever-challenged Irish identity.
In this respect the works of Stephen James Smith, Jess Kavanaugh, and
Adam Mohamed are of particular interest. Moreover, concepts surrounding
gender and motherhood are grappled with by performers such as Emmet
Kirwan and Kimberly Campanello. This paper focuses only on two broad
and interrelated concerns of performance poets in Ireland over the past
decade: 1) the notion of Irishness or the making of the Irish self in the
context of nationality and race and 2) motherhood, womanhood, and
sexism in Ireland.