Poet Erin Fornoff releases video for “Home”

Dublin-by-way-of-Asheville poet Erin Fornoff captures the ache and wonder of leaving familiar territory in search of creative inspiration.

From a press release:

The work, filmed between Harold’s Cross and airports in Dublin, New York, Charlotte, and finally at Fornoff’s child hood home in Asheville, North Carolina, contrasts the excitement of going home with the mixed melancholy of returning. It captures the long lonely slog in between.

Fornoff says, ‘After ten years here, I’ve recently become an Irish citizen. After praying for the letter it felt like a huge privilege, but also brought up a lot of feelings about what home means — Ireland or America? It took me three weeks to tell my parents, because I worried they’d think I was gone forever.’

Fornoff continued, ‘I’ve performed this poem often, and I can tell every person who is from somewhere else by the look on their face. You can always tell the homesick ones in the crowd.”

Fornoff, who became a writer after moving to Ireland, hopes the poem will be the centre of a larger piece on home and immigration: “a kind of manual for making a home from scratch in a new place.’ She has performed across Ireland and UK, including twice at Glastonbury, Electric Picnic, All Together Now, Dublin Castle, and on BBC3 and RTE. She was co-founder of Lingo Festival. Her debut collection, Hymn to the Reckless, was published in 2017 by Dedalus Press.

The film is shot and directed by David Knox of NoName Video and PushPull Media.