In May, the fifth gathering of the symposium Poetry Bridging Continents where poets from China, the United States, and Ireland will take place in Gort, promising a cultural exchange of workshops, readings, and community activities. The symposium runs from 16 May to 18 May and will take place at Thoor Ballylee and in other sites in Gort.
The symposium will include workshops on calligraphy, traditional music, and tea culture, poetry writing and translation, and poetry readings in Mandarin, Irish, and English. Events will be open to the public.

Poet/Calligrahpher Zi chuan creates a poem at Atelier Laforest Gallery in Dennysville, Maine (background: 3rd from left Melinda Jacques (gallery owner), poets Rodger Martin and Yue Qi.) Photo: Rodger Martin

The featured poets include: Zi Chuan, Bu Lanchen, Yihai Chen, Sinan, and Cao Maoliang (China); Susan Roney-O’Brien, Claire Golding, Maura MacNeil, Meg Kearney, Jackson Caffrey, and Rodger Martin (USA); and Anna O’Donnell, Patrick Hynes, Anthony Coppinger, and members of the Ploughed Field Collective (Ireland).
A special exhibition of Chinese calligraphy by poet and master calligrapher Zi Chuan will be on display at The Studio at Thoor Ballylee during the symposium.
The symposium is being organised by the Yeats Thoor Ballylee Society and the Monadnock Pastoral Poets of New Hampshire, USA.
The concept of Poetry Bridging Continents began in the 1980s when American scholar Professor Michael True of Assumption University (USA) and translator Prof. Zhang Ziqing of Nanjing University (China) started an exchange of poets between Nanjing University and Worcester, Massachusetts.

Formal Tea Ceremony at Hongqiao School of Poetry and Music, Slender West Lake, Jiangsu Province, China (Poet Claire Golding, back to camera; scholar Mark Long, poet Rodger Martin, poet Zi Chuan). Photo: Rodger Martin

In 2015, the first symposium was organised in Jiangsu Province in China. And since then, the symposia have alternated between Jiangsu Province and New England with a hiatus due to the COVID pandemic.
In 2025, symposium organisers, poet Rodger Martin and archivist Rodney Obien, realised the unlikelihood of hosting a programme in China or USA in the foreseeable future. The two had travelled previously to Ireland, Martin to Sligo and Obien to Gort, tracing the footsteps of WB Yeats.
Their travels inspired the idea of holding the symposium in Gort with its literary and historical ties to Yeats, Lady Augusta Gregory, and the Irish Literary Revival.
Poetry Bridging Continents V will take place from 16 May to 18 May at Thoor Ballylee and in other sites in Gort. Full programme to be announced soon…