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Talks
James gives poetry readings, as well as seminars and talks on poetry, imagination, spirituality, myth, art and history at literary festivals and conferences, and for societies, libraries, colleges and schools.
Learned, fascinating, entertaining, witty. Eva Bourke, author
of Seeing Yellow, on James s talk on St Columba and the Poetic
Imagination .
The best talk I can remember hearing at the Strokestown festival since it
began 20 years ago.
Michael De Jong on Harpur s talk on WB Yeats
Venues have included: Trinity College Dublin; Temenos Institute; Trinity College, Cambridge; Association of Franco-Irish Studies (Caen); Kilkenny Liberal Studies; Strokestown International Poetry Festival; West Cork Literary Festival, NUI Galway, UCC (Cork), St Paul’s Girls’ School (UK), Geelong Grammar School (Australia) and Melbourne University.
In 2025-26 he initiated the Dr John Dee Talks at the Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies at Trinity College Dublin and is continuing the talks in 2027. He has also been invited to give three talks for the Loyola Institute, TCD, on the Arts and Theology Module.
In 2025-26 he initiated the Dr John Dee Talks at the Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies at Trinity College Dublin and is continuing the talks in 2027. He has also been invited to give three talks for the Loyola Institute, TCD, on the Arts and Theology Module..
Example talks include:
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A Vision of Water: poetry, water and the imagination (for the
Strokestown Poetry Festival)
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Imagining Kells: a poetic exploration of the Book of Kells (for the
Fintry Trust, UK)
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The Wind Bloweth Where It Listeth: poetry and inspiration (for the John
Moriarty Memorial Lecture, Clifden Arts Festival)
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Tom and Gerard: the inverse lives of T.S.
Eliot and G.M.
Hopkins (for the Monasterevin Hopkins Society) click
here
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Drinking at the Fountains: an exploration of the roots of poetry
(for the Temenos Institute)
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The Way Up and the Way Down: two paths to poetry, art and divinity (Bill
Casey Lecture Series, TCD), click
here
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'In the Seven Woods': an exploration of the outer and inner worlds of W.B. Yeats.
(Strokestown Poetry Festival)
Dr John Dee Talks, 2026, TCD:
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'What Mystery Pervades a Well!': water as a sacred mystery, or a secular dumping ground?
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'Becket's Glassy Bones': does sacred art lead to God or distract us from him? Two approaches to art, life, and the divine.
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'Drinking at the Fountains': reflections on the Muse and the magical imagination and whether they are still central to art.
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The Lost, or Last, Messiah? An introduction to the extraordinary life of J Krishnamurti, his teachings and Theosophy.
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Polycarp's Bones: the story of Christian pilgrimage and the cult of relics.
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Slaughter of the Innocents: can sacred vision and the poetic imagination stop the felling of ancient and locally beloved trees?
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Yeats's 'The Wanderings of Oisin': mythic saga, allegory, or shamanic initiation poem?
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