You have become known for posting videos of your poetry on Tik Tok. How did that come about?
When I finished college, I went to film school in New York because I had always had an interest in telling stories through images. I’m a Drama teacher, so I suppose it’s natural that I really enjoy performing my work.
The Tik Tok videos allow me to combine an interest in moving image with a love of performance. Mostly I do Tik Tok because it is fun. I don’t take it too seriously.
When I was writing the novel, I really had to battle perfectionism. With social media, for some reason, I don’t hold myself to such exacting standards. I don’t feel like the videos have to be perfect. What is important to me is that they feel authentic. I love making the videos. I find the whole process light-hearted and fun.
Do you feel you can build an audience through Tik Tok?
I’m certainly not posting daily, or posting in a strategic way to widen my audience. I’m not disciplined enough for that. There isn’t a schedule or a plan, it’s all very spontaneous. I absolutely love connecting with people through social media and hearing about their response to the poems.
Where to now?
I am working on a sequence of poems on the legend of the Lough Neagh mermaid, Lí Ban. It’s a captivating local story that has so much to say to a modern audience about cultural supremacy, freedom and mortality. I would also like to use the poems to explore current concerns over the levels of blue-green algae in the lough.
I’m writing the poems so that they work on paper, and can also be performed as a piece of theatre. I would imagine they will be performed to music, and I would also love to work with a dancer on the project and create a really interesting, cross-disciplinary piece of theatre.
I have written another sequence of poems over the summer about the love lives of different gods and goddesses. The epic nature of the stories allowed me such freedom to be wonderfully expansive, even grandiose, with language and form. I used a lot of experimental shapes and forms in this sequence.
Beyond that, I have just recorded some poetry for the Poetry People show on RTÉ, and I read on the International Page and Stage 3rd anniversary event alongside some incredible poets from around the world.
Things are going well. My intention is simply to keep writing the poems, and discovering where they want to take me.
To see more of Michelle Dennehy’s work visit the links below
