A Poet in Lockdown: Q&A with Conor Quinlan

Melissa Ridge speaks with Galway spoken word artist and script writer Conor Quinlan about his experience under lockdown working with poets around the country and the Bard Yard Poetry Open Mic he set up online with Claire VanValkenburg.

Originally from Barna in Galway, Conor Quinlan is the 2019 All-Connacht poetry Slam Champion. His experience and training in acting and drama has made him one to watch in the Irish Spoken Word Scene.
His theatre credits include, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf and Angels in America (ThereisBear), One Last Drop (Skytache), The Boys (Smock Alley), How To Stop the Sea (Galway Theatre Festival), The Spinning Heart (Articulate Anatomy), Marty Moncrieff: The Teddy Bear Thief and Cry of the Curlew (Beluga Theatre) and King Of The Castle (Druid Theatre Company).
Quinlan's screen credits include Jack Taylor (Telegael) and The Siege of Jadotville (Netflix/Parallel). He was also a co-writer for Project Spatula for their debut feature film, Sooner or Later, which was shown in the Galway Film Fleadh and now streaming on Amazon Prime. Quinlan also wrote and starred in the short film Connection Interrupted, which was shown at numerous festivals including the Galway Film Fleadh, and won Best Film at the Little Cinema/Galway City of Film 48hour Challenge 2018.

Melissa Ridge: Was the lockdown a help or a hindrance to you?

Conor Quinlan: I mean, immediately Beau [Williams] got onto me about doing the Virtual Marketplace. And it was great to do that. And that kind of kept me going for maybe two or three weeks. But then when I was trying to do stuff for myself when I was trying to write poetry, I write scripts, and lots of the film scripts and theatre scripts I wasn't able to do.

I'm not able to sit in one place and work, you know, I need to go to a cafe or I need to go somewhere. And so I was getting down. I just stopped. I stopped trying for a while, you know, so I definitely went through about six weeks of just being completely unproductive, unmotivated and just not putting pressure on myself to be like that.

Beau is the most supportive person outside my family that I've ever had, you know, and he’s great for sending me things to do, but there was definitely the time when I was like getting those moments when I just didn't have it in me. It will come back. I know. But, the more I try to force it. The more it's going to affect me, you know, and the work... I just, I don't care about the work either.

MR: What was your experience like with the Virtual Poetry Marketplace? Did you get many commissions? Was it successful for you?

CQ: Yeah, it was. I wrote about 20 poems, and I was delighted with that. I loved it, like the range of prompts that I got was amazing. Some people were sending me their favorite painting, you know, and so I was writing about that, and then someone asked me to write a poem about Mark Wahlberg, so that was kind of the spectrum of the work. I loved doing it, I really did. A couple of the poems I wrote ended up quite personal as well, which I wasn't expecting but I was happy with that.

MR: Did you know the other poets involved?

CQ: Beau is great for bringing people together like that. You know, he really is, like even when I went to Electric Picnic and saw him perform last year and I met the other poets. I hadn't properly started writing or performing spoken word other than at the open mic Beau works at in Galway. I was meeting all these people, and it was just like let’s see what you could do. Like, you know how there's no rules, no rules when it comes to it, I love that.

MR: Have you built an online fan base or following since becoming the All-Connacht Slam Champion?

CQ: I haven't tried because I'm still learning about all this. What I've done, myself and Claire VanValkenburg, we've started the Bard Yard Poetry Open Mic. We were hoping and planning to have this actual open mic in Galway. The first one was supposed to be the 16th of March or something like that. That's when everything went crazy. So we just started online.

I think we've done four maybe five online open mics now, and that's kind of the most I've kind of done with that, you know. And there was another job, which I can't really say what it was for, but it would have been a good job that I was going to be using the title for. But that also fell apart. I haven't really had a chance to give it a go.

MR: Can you see who logs on and watches the Bard Yard Poetry Open Mic online?

CQ: Yeah, I think we can see how many people watch. The great thing about Facebook is that you know, you put it up, maybe thirty people are watching it live, and it's there afterwards and you get to see how many views it gets. Bard Yard is still very young and I think it's every month where you're getting more views and everything.

I think since lockdown eased we had a bit of a drop because people aren't in their homes every evening, you know. We're getting some really interesting artists like sending us messages. There was one artist, [Elizabeth McGowan], I remember performing against her in the All Ireland's last year. So she messaged us wondering if she could be a featured artist and so I’m pretty sure we're gonna have her next month, so it's gonna be great.

MR: If you had the choice, would you do online shows? Or would you do live shows and why?

CQ: Live. Oh, always live. Part of the reason why I do poetry is just for the experience of having an audience. My actual profession is an actor. I've trained in the Gaiety School. So I love doing theatre shows and poetry is the best way to keep consistently performing, and it’s just the buzz of the room. All my poems are a bit tongue in cheek, so it’s just getting a bit of laughter out of people. And that's it. doing it online, It's great to keep you working I suppose. But, I'd be lying if I said I got the same amount of enjoyment, the same buzz, out of doing it. It’s just not the same.

MR: When did you start performing spoken word officially?

CQ: I wrote my first poem in March 2019. It's quite quick and, and I’d just been listening to Beau for close on a year, I'd say before that. And he was always going on ‘come on and do something, come on and do something’ and so I finally did. You know, when I look back at the poems I first did, you know, I kind of cringe because there’s a lot of ‘oh don't do that’ and all that. You just learn more, you get more honest and you get more comfortable with being honest, I think. And yeah, so it's been a very short career so far. I’m willing to keep going and to see what happens.

MR: What elements of your actor training can you see in your spoken word? Do you think you can credit your actor training for your confidence on stage?

CQ: Yes, definitely confidence, like I don't really get nervous before going up to do a poem, unless it's a personal one, unless it's particularly personal, I get worried. But in the Gaiety School of Acting there's one module called Manifesto, where it's all about trying to find your voice as an artist. So every couple of weeks we'd have to put on a five minute piece of theatre that we devise ourselves and that was terrifying. I've never felt more nervous than just doing that in front of my class But that has really helped when it came to poetry because it thought me what honesty can really do and then you translate that into poetry. It's kind of seamless. So yeah, definitely owe a lot to the Gaiety School.

MR: Do you think that there is going to be more of a digital interaction when it comes to spoken word now that everything is online?

CQ: I do think we have an opportunity but I think it depends on each artist. It depends on how they want their voice to be brought across because I know some artists who have no interest in just a video of whatever, of abstracts, images and all that. I know that. And then other artists do it for personal audience connection.

I work with a lot of filmmakers. My brother is a filmmaker, and filmmakers are great for collaborating with poets and coming up with different ideas and being very good at it as well. And so the opportunity is there. I just think it’s up to whether the poet wants to do it themselves, so let's see. I love what’s online. There are a load of poetry videos and short films and I’d love if that starts happening but I'm definitely waiting to go back to the pub and perform there.

MR: Do you have any videos online?

CQ: Not yet. I'm kind of, out of all my poems, I'm kind of waiting for one that I really want to do. So far all of them are very much performative. I'm ready to see what we can do next.

MR: How do you know which poem will be the right one to film?

CQ: I have no idea. I'm waiting. That's the truth. I kind of every now and again finish a poem and go ‘that's gonna hit people hard’. That's gonna be relatable. But with video, I think it needs to be more ethereal.

MR: If you were to do a video, what way would you like to do it?

CQ: I saw a video last year by Sarah Richardson. I saw one of her videos and thought it was absolutely amazing. It was about a woman being in a bar and men being horrible, basically. For me, I've always been very literal with poetry and imagery, but I definitely want to break out of that and just challenge myself. So, yeah, I'd say if I were going to do something now, it would be with people, just people. I want to see people. It would be something to do with that and not necessarily my voice the whole time, using other people’s voices as well. It would be great to collaborate with so many other poets.

MR: What have you got going on at the moment?

CQ: I’m working on a film script at the moment with my brother. It's in very early stages. So if I'm writing scenes at the moment, they're all like ‘say what you think’. And then the process of that is just stripping it back, what can we show instead of say? I still don't know how to work that into poetry. So I'm still figuring that out myself.

The next Bard Yard Poetry Open Mic takes place Wednesday 19th August at 8.00 GMT.

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Boundless & BareAugust 18, 2020