Date and Time: August 3rd 7- 8:30pm
If the River is Hidden
A poetry performance by Cherry Smyth & Craig Jordan-Baker
With Niamh Varian-Barry on violin
If the River is Hidden (Epoque Press, 2022) charts the journey of two writers from the source to the mouth of the Bann, Northern Ireland’s longest river. Through a dialogue of prose and poetry the history, landscape and divisions that have come to define the North are explored and challenged.
With backgrounds from each side of the sectarian divide, Smyth and Jordan-Baker explore their very different relationships with the North to uncover a sense of place and to reshape their own memories and expectations. During the journey, the Bann becomes a metaphor for longing, belonging and letting go of grief. The road north stands not only for the frequent inaccessibility of the river, but for the path of writing and friendship, which creates a flow that does not depend on water or a specific landscape.
In both form and content If the River is Hidden explores that hybrid third space beyond Republicanism and Unionism; the threat to the health of the river; and the joy carried by conversation sifted in a beautiful and rapidly changing environment.
‘Smyth and Jordan-Baker remedy such disregard (for the River Bann) in this innovative, deeply imagined and delicately wrought book.’ Neil Hegarty, the Irish Times, December 17, 2022
If the River is Hidden will also be launched as an audio book by Spiracle Books, June 2023.