With performances at Glastonbury, Electric Picnic, Indiependence and more under her belt, it’s safe to say that MIC’s Dr Lauren McNamara is no stranger to the world of spoken and slam poetry. However, Quarter Life Crisis, Lauren’s debut collection, marks her first published foray into the world of poetry on paper. She describes the book as a culmination of stories and experiences that she captured during her time working at MIC over the past number of years. We spoke with Lauren following the launch of her book, to chat about her passion for the media of written and spoken poetry and to trace the path that brought her to where she is today.
Lauren currently works as an International Relations Executive (Outbound Student Officer) in MIC’s International Office. She also studied at MIC from undergraduate level right up to doctoral degree level, being awarded her PhD in English in 2021.
Like many of those who would go on to great fame and success, Lauren’s first time in the spotlight occurred when she got to perform for Limerick’s got Talent. This, however, she is quick to point out, might be considered a somewhat unconventional start for a poet: ‘‘It’s a funny story; starting off, my first ever performance was signing up for Limerick’s Got Talent; that massive, gigantic, wonderful talent competition in Limerick. I ended up going to the semifinals; then immediately getting knocked out. Then, getting brought back in as the Wild Card vote and ending up in the Lime Treaty Theatre in front of 500 people on my second ever time performing! Then, winning the best variety act… then, realising I was the only variety act. Then winning best overall at the end of the night! It's funny, these small moments in your life then end up leading to big things.’’
While Lauren has harboured a passion for the medium of poetry since she was a child, it was upon immersing herself in the world of acting, theatre and performance during her time studying as an undergraduate at MIC that she decided to combine the two:
‘‘I got really into writing and poetry when I was about five and I never really stopped. I just love writing. I love telling stories. When I started college in MIC though, that was when I started doing some acting between MIDAS, the writer society and a lot of the other societies in college. Then, when I came to the end of my undergrad, I decided that I really liked performing, that I really liked poetry, and I could sort of put these two things together. From there I started performing poetry on stage. I just think it's a wonderful experience to get in front of an audience and tell stories and make people laugh and make people have an enjoyable experience. It's something that's been a part of my life for as long as I can remember at this point.’’
Lauren’s list of inspirations is near endless, and though Lauren she can wax lyrical about her love for the work of spoken word poets like Buddy Wakefield and Shane Koyczan, a lot of her inspiration instead came from where Lauren spent each day: her place of work.
‘‘I think a lot of it actually came from when I worked in the Lime Tree Theatre. I got to see oftentimes two to three different shows a week. Just getting these brilliant, often one-person plays, or small group plays even, and seeing them command the audience. Seeing local writers like Anne Blake, Joanne Ryan, and like even other companies coming through like Fishamble. Seeing and being surrounded by art makes you want to feel part of it. Seeing these great writers do their thing and tell their stories of what's happening today, stories that people can relate to and have fun with. So, I think if anyone wants to get into writing, get a job as front of house at a theatre; it's the best way to learn!’’
On mixing the world of the written with the world of performance, she says: ‘‘For me, it kind of happened organically. So much of my work is spoken word performance poetry, or slam poetry, which, if anybody hasn't come across that before, it's usually just poetry that's written with an aim to be performed in front of an audience. Really, though, the lines are quite blurred, in a sense, anything can be spoken word poetry, anything can be ‘page’ poetry.’’
Despite the reputation that slam poetry has as being a more modern take on the older art of spoken word, Lauren instead sees her work as something of a continuation of an equally time-honoured, but distinctly Irish tradition. She describes her love for poetry as coming from a place of community and identity, as something owing to, and inspired by the longstanding tradition of storytelling that has formed such a backbone of Irish culture in our communities for generations.
‘‘I just love that flexibility of being in front of an audience telling stories but being able to kind of interact with the audience a lot as well with some fun, some back and forth, it gives a lot of flexibility. I love the rhythm and rhyme, and in that way, it comes from Irish culture. We've always had storytellers, the seanchaí, so it's nice to build on that tradition with your own little modern twists added along the way too. In that sense, I love being able to tell my own stories and those of people in my community. Just Irishness, in general. To show people that poetry and literature can be fun and silly and above all modern and enjoyable.’’
Musing on the collection’s titular poem, Lauren says: ‘‘Some people might think I’m getting a bit old for quarter life crisis at this point! I actually originally wrote the poem when I had just finished my undergraduate degree. I was about 21 or 22 years old and it was about this idea of coming to a point in your life where a lot of things are changing. You're coming out of that time in college where you’ve had such great support and such great structure and then everything is a little bit more hectic, more chaotic for a little while. Quarter Life Crisis is trying to capture that moment, which I think so many people go through. It's a part of everyone's lives, where you just have this change and you have this excitement and everything is new and different and crazy, but crazy in a good way. It's laughing at ourselves a little bit and finding fun in that experience, knowing that everyone else is going through it too, that you're not alone in it.’’
Throughout her writing in this book, Lauren also touches on a theme familiar to anyone as they take their first steps in the real world after college (or, in Lauren’s case, upon returning to college in a new capacity)—impostor syndrome.
‘‘There’s a part of the poem (Quarter Life Crisis) actually, which is about the idea that I don't think anybody ever really knows what's going on fully. It's more so about embracing that and having fun with it, knowing that you don't have to have all the answers. You can just enjoy the journey, and once you're happy where you are and with the people around you; you can't ask for much more after that.’’
Looking to the future, Lauren remains modest in what she hopes to achieve: ‘‘I hope just to keep writing. To keep telling stories. I love teaching as well. I've gotten to bring that into my role in MIC quite a bit, by getting to teach storytelling workshops and writing workshops to some of our students. I just hope I get to keep performing too. I love performing, whether it be in front of 10 people or 500 people. To me, having the chance to connect to someone in that moment is the best feeling in the world. So, my hope for the future is to just keep on doing it for as long as I can.’’
Finally, reflecting on what she hopes to accomplish with her first published collection, Lauren told us: ‘‘I don't want to have too high expectations of what the book can do, but I think maybe sometimes it's just about telling your own story, and hopefully that might give someone else the confidence to tell their story too.’’
‘‘With a lot of this book, I just want people to be able to have fun and laugh at ourselves sometimes and know that, you know, even though there's a lot of things going on in the world, but we can enjoy the good things about ourselves too. When it comes to poetry, I think it gives you confidence, to some extent. I used to do a lot of workshops in schools and a lot of it was just trying to convince kids and older people that your story matters. If you put those into how you tell your story, you'll be surprised by how many people want to hear it. I think everybody's story matters, no matter who you are, you've done something, you've had your own experiences that no one else has had and it's really about finding your voice, using it and knowing that what you have to say is important and people want to hear it.’’
