Divas at the Festival of the Fires

The Poetry Divas ride out again into the Festival of the Fires tomorrow at the Hill of Uisneach. This is located in the very centre of Ireland, quite near Mullingar, where traditionally the five provinces of Ireland met (yes, five, you read right!). I'm thinking I'll be airing some of my 'Celtic' poems, and perhaps any to do with fires. Incidentally, I'm a fire sign, so perhaps that's a Good Thing.

Take a look at their website; there are some stunning photographs from last year's festival. If you're in the area, come along and take a look-see at the Spoken Word stage around about 3pm tomorrow and say hello to the Divas.

Spring into Poetry, London

Don Share signing a book

Me and Malika Booker

Our genial host talking to Emma Jones - & his wife

Malika Booker and Amy

Amy & Anne Stevenson

I'm just back from the reading at Oxfam Marylebone, last night. Phew what a sweat to get there in time: flight delayed into Gatwick, train to Victoria, tube to Russell Square, and up the stairs to the Penn Club, flung on my reading outfit and lippy, and into a cab to arrive, just before the main guests arrived. Talk about seat of the pants!

The readers were terrific: I really enjoyed the variety of voices. After I went first - which allowed me to chill out and relax (and stop sweating - sheesh, beginning to think there's something awry there!) - there was the gorgeous voice of Malika Booker. Her work is steeped in her Grenadian background, with a Caribbean lilt and she read very well. I bought her Breadfruit pamphlet later on, which I've already peeked into. Malika also made off with a copy of my 'Cattle Crush' poem, about cattle being castrated, which she is going to use to teach poetry to Year 8s - yay.

Closing the first half of the readers was Anne Stevenson: I watched this diminutive figure command the entire room with her wonderful reading. She gives each word its total and correct weight, without it seeming ponderous. I have her voice now in my head and am looking forward to re-reading her mammoth Collected Poems 1955 - 1995, which I brought over and asked her to sign for me. She said something very nice about my reading afterwards which I shall treasure: that she could 'hear where my lines ended.'

After a quick sup and a chat - hi to Chris Bazalgette, so nice to meet you after all the years corresponding on the Open University message boards - the second half kicked off with another prize-winning poet: Emma Jones, Dr Jones to me and you. An Australian by birth and accent, she read from her collection The Striped World, from Faber, which was a Forward Prize winner for Best First Collection in 2009. Very imaginative and surprising work, I shall be searching out her work.

Then came Jacquelyn Pope, from the US, whose work has a lovely measured pace and is quite beautiful in a really understated way. Her collection Watermark literally walked out the door afterwards - before I managed to get my hands on it - boo hoo. I was too busy talking to poets and audience members!

Lastly, came Don Share, also from Chicago in the US, whose warm, witty but poignant poems were a thoughtful point to end the evening on. I also got his collection Squandermania from Salt - and weirdly, when I got back to the hotel, the current book I'm reading, a history of the Irish state during the second world war, That Neutral Island, by Clair Wills had that very word on the following page I was reading, where Fine Gael were giving out about the 'political codology' the 'squandermania' of the idea of Ireland being able to defend itself during the war (p.90). Wow, I thought: isn't that cool!

Todd Swift could give a masterclass in the art of hosting and introducing poets: his tone is so relaxed it sounds conversational - very intimate and draws in the audience.

What a great evening - it seemed to be over far too soon, but I heard so much and came home with some lovely lines in my head.

Spring, Sprong, Sprung

The clocks go forward tonight, giving that extra hour of daylight and making everyone all summery again. It's about time, I've been waking up so early in the mornings, because of the angle of the sun being that little bit higher, and I've been paying close attention to the daffodils that I planted in the garden last autumn - I hadn't any bulbs planted in the garden, and it's nice to watch them growing, from the green budding tips to the blowsy yellow trumpets that sway in the wind, announcing that SPRING IS HERE!

I'm back from France, which was a really interesting trip away. While the ceremony and burial were poignant, the French way of carrying out these rituals was very interesting to observe - so dignified and respectful, and yes even elegant - so French! I've also met a whole load of new relations, cousins two and three times removed, and there are some interesting times ahead as we will all forge new connections through the children in families on both sides. I reckon that my lot now have a very valid reason to pay more attention in their French classes at school, and hopefully we will see some exchanges happen between the families, over the coming years. It's all about family in the long run :¬)

So, it's back to normal, until Wednesday when I fly to London to take part in that exciting poetry reading in the wonderful bookshop at Oxfam Marylebone. Anne Stevenson has an extra long slot, so I can't wait to hear her wonderful poetry in person, as well as the others which include Malika Booker, Emma Jones, Jacquelyn Pope, and Don Share. Busy, busy, busy! Now, back to the garden to make the most of this fine spell we're having.

That London Reading

I was supposed to be going to Prague next week, wiv' the hub, but family commitments mean going to France to a funeral instead. I'll be helping to lay to rest the last direct French connection we have: a Gran-aunt, who was just six months shy of her 100th birthday. She slipped away quietly ... always a very modest and unassuming, but hugely supportive person.

But I'm still up for the end of month reading in London, at the Oxfam Bookshop, Marylebone. Details as follows:

Wednesday 30th March

OXFAM SPRING CARNIVAL
POETRY NIGHT
FEATURING

Anne Stevenson
Barbara Smith
Don Share
Emma Jones
Jacquelyn Pope
and
Malika Booker

7.30 pm
OXFAM BOOKS AND MUSIC
91 Marylebone High Street
London W1
Nearest tube Baker Street

Admision: £5; concession £3.

Hosted by Todd Swift

ALL PROFITS TO OXFAM - Make sure to book the tickets if you're coming!

International Wimmin's Day

We have a whole day to ourselves - and where does it start? On the first day of lent, Ash Wednesday!

In our house there's lots of talk of giving things up - but funnily enough it's things that people don't like anyway. One of the nearly-wimmin of the house said 'I'm giving up smoking and drinking for lent.' I replied that she didn't smoke or drink anyway, and she said that made it all the easier.

One of the mini-wimmin here said she was giving up broccoli, to which I said that she didn't like it anyway, so not much hardship there either. You have to hand it to them for thinking outside the box - whose children are they anyway..?

It's not like years ago, when you gave up your sweeties and saved them in a tin until Easter Sunday - with a quick detour on St. Patrick's Day, yum yum.

Anyway, later on I am teaching a Leaving Cert class the finer points of creating a character, so I'm having fun in my own writerly way on IWD. How about you, anything exciting? Drop a note in the comments and let us know!

Prufrocks in Dublin

The Prufrocks read again, this time in Dublin on Saturday 5th at 8pm in La Catedral Studios. The last time some of us read together, was at Flatlake, back in August 2009. We had a bigger reading crew that time, and a very full tent (Cillian Murphy was there - swoon). This time we are three: Nuala Ni Chonchuir, Mary Mullen and my good self.

Mary is from Alaska, originally and her poems are often set there, which makes them interesting and haunting in their own right. Mary has a book out from Salmon, Zephyr, which I can't wait to hear poems from. Mary is also a successful memoirist, and takes classes teaching people how to write memoir.

Nuala, from Dublin originally, now living in Galway county, is an award-winning writer of many years standing. A fiction writer, as well as poet, her debut novel You, launched last year and is still getting good notices. She has a collection, The Juno Charm, forthcoming from Salmon Poetry later this year.

So, if you're round and about in Dublin at the Book Festival, do drop over to La Catedral Studios 7/11 Saint Augustine Street Dublin 8 on Saturday at 8pm. We promise not to disappoint!

Election Day

Never has an election been more anticipated that the current one here in Ireland, and thanks be to Jaysus the run-up to it wasn't any longer than it has been.

I swear the election posters here in Dundalk were multiplying over night. There's a roundabout near us that, four weeks ago had just four or five posters attached to the iron railings that protect pedestrians from the traffic.

Going through it today, I counted (periphally, of course, I was driving) about twenty. I have to laugh at Fine Gael's 'Five Point Plan - go to wubblywubblywubbly to read all about it'. As if!

Last week, I was up in Donegal for the weekend, a trip which necessitated travelling through Norn Iron twice - it was nice not to be visually assailed by election images for the time it took to go through the north. A visual break, I guess.

Anyhoo, at this stage of the day the deed is done. I have exercised my right to vote, placing preferences all the way down from 1 -16 (I'm old-fashioned and feel the need to vote from last to first - just to make sure I express myself most emphatically!). I feel sorry for anyone in a constituency that has more candidates than that - I hear one of Galway's constituencies has 35 candidates!

One thing for sure: the intricacies of the Proportional Representation Single Transferable Vote make the day after, Saturday, the most interesting day, when we see what it is the Irish people may have actually said. I'll be tuning in around lunchtime, when hopefully all the ballot boxes will have been opened.

March Date for the Diary

More about that reading in London: *edited in: Weds, 30th March*

OXFAM SPRING CARNIVAL
POETRY NIGHT
FEATURING

Anne Stevenson
Barbara Smith
Don Share
Emma Jones
Jacquelyn Pope
and
Malika Booker

7.30 pm
OXFAM BOOKS AND MUSIC
91 Marylebone High Street
London W1
Nearest tube Baker Street

Admision: £5; concession £3.

Hosted by Todd Swift

ALL PROFITS TO OXFAM.

I can't believe the line-up! Anne Stevenson! Almost this time last year, I was holed up in the Tyrone Guthrie Centre, where they have a terrific library of books. There, I found her collected, which I devoured. Poems which I still remember: Granny Scarecrow and Poem for a Daughter. Guess what I've just pulled off my bookshelf to read?

Nothing to Say - So Don't Say Nothing

Sorry, I've been absent for a while, whilst life got on with itself. January was a tough month for many, not just getting over the expenses of Christmas, but the cold weather we experienced really seems to have impacted on people very hard, between burst pipes and trying to stay warm.

Now, it's February, spring feels like it's coming, the days are just starting to push out a little, and I hear myself going around saying, 'It's like November, only backwards.' If it were only that simple.

Still, some things to look forward to: a trip to visit Prague; a reading in London at the close of March - to make up for the one I didn't get to read at ... and Easter is later this year - maybe the weather will be kinder?

So, it's all to look forward to. Wonder what great poetry this year has in store for us then...?

What are you looking forward to? - go on, tell us!

Shh, don't mention the C word

My word, is it that time of year already?

Well, here's wishing you a very warm and happy time with your families and friends, and may 2011 be not only the first year of a brand new decade, but the start of many great things.

I will be glad to see the back of 2010, having spent a good deal of it in me bed.

Normal-ish service has since resumed, in the last three months - sure I'm even writing again! Shhh - lets not jinx it :)

In the meantime, I leave with a little something about critic/poet Randall Jarrell's book of reviews/critiques/ essays: Kipling, Auden & Co.: Essays and Reviews, 1935-1964. NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1979.

Jarrell (hadn't he a fab name? He gave good photos too - every ounce old-school beard going on there!), had a great facility in writing about the poets he wished were better than they were, and praising (without sycophancy) the poets whose work he admired(Bishop, Stevens, Auden, Yeats and of course, Frost). There's a really brilliant essay on what made Yeats write the way he did, in the book, which I am looking forward to re-reading. I think he's right on the money, with his approach on Yeats. I want more of his work!

Reading with the benefit of fifty-sixty + years later, you recognise the writers whose work has endured, and the writers whose work was not as good - well, guess what? You've never heard them... or you may have but in a very slight sense (ooh, he was harsh on Stephen Spender). Makes you think about today's writers quite carefully, as well as what went into Jarrell's close reading of poetry.

Poets do say it better

Colm Keegan features nicely in the end of an article in this week's Sunday Times Culture magazine (no url, I'm afraid, they've gone subscription). The commentary, written by Harry Browne, offers a broad survey of how Irish culture has responded to the economic times we live in.

Theatre, says Browne, a more immediate medium, seems to have turned to re-interpretations of old classics to try and help re-define ourselves, with plays such as Phaedra, or Ibsen's John Gabriel Borkman. Cultural commentators, in the form of writers, haven't had the same impact - perhaps not having the economic nous to deliver pronouncements - I love the line about 'Irish intellectuals mak[ing] a good case for being the world's leading blatherers'!

So, Browne turns to the spoken word piece by Clondalkin poet Colm (and his cohorts of the Unruly Trinity) for some lovely quotes: 'Ireland is a Glock pointed at someone's son. Or a Christian Brother. Or it's own mother because she won't move into a nursing home.'

Nearly - Never Made It..

Just home after trying to get to London today, to do the Oxfam reading.

Guess where I was trying to fly to? London Gatwick.

Guess where is closed until who knows when? London Gatwick.

There are some things you just have to console yourself with: that your home is still warm, and you have a nice warm curry waiting for you and that in the grand scheme of things, you're actually quite lucky, compared to some poor buggers caught out in the snow.

And there's always next year :)

Reading Reminder

Brr, it's cold here this afternoon. To add to the state of our nation, in these hangdog days, it's snowing quite hard outside - and it's sticking. The papers are full of 'nuclear winter' analogies about the way things are going in Ireland, while everyone is pretty sick of the misery, doom and gloom on all media outlets. 50, 000 protested in Dublin yesterday to show their annoyance. I'm trying to tell myself that the wintry scenes outside look pretty, but you know how it is.

Anyhoo, a little reminder of Wednesday's impending reading. If you're thinking of going, be sure and book a place, so you can be sure of a seat!

Oxfam Christmas Poetry Night
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
7.30 pm

Oxfam Books and Music Shop
91 Marylebone High Street, London W1
near Baker Street tube.

The Oxfam Poetry Reading in Marylebone series ends its 7th year of events on
a high note with six guest poets - including two coming especially from
Scotland for the occasion - TS Eliot Prize winning Bloodaxe poet Jen
Hadfield and Picador poet John Glenday whose recent collection Grain has
been shortlisted for the 2010 Ted Hughes Award for New Work In Poetry.

This internationally-minded series will also be featuring a poet from
Ireland (Barbara Smith), reading on her birthday, two prize-winning American
poets, Dante Micheaux and Michelle Boisseau and England's own Sheila
Hillier, whose recent collection was shortlisted for this year's Aldeburgh
Prize.

The host for the evening will be Todd Swift.

The event is supported by Kingston University. Tickets are £5 / £3
concession (students) in advance or at the door (if seats remain). Do call
or email the shop to buy or book tickets:

Telephone : 020 7487 3570.

Email: oxfammarylebone@hotmail.com

Now, all I have to worry about is whether the weather be cold or not, making sure I get there!

Reading for Oxfam, London

Readings don't get any better than this one coming up in London, in support of Oxfam on the 1st of December (my birthday!) - just under three weeks away:

Oxfam Christmas Poetry Reading hosted by Todd Swift.
Oxfam is very pleased to be featuring six fine poets, from America, England, Ireland, and Scotland, with special guests Bloodaxe poet Jen Hadfield (TS Eliot Prize winner) and Picador poet John Glenday (Grain) headlining. Other poets reading are: Barbara Smith (Ireland); Sheila Hillier (England) and two visiting Americans, Dante Micheaux and Michelle Boisseau. This event will be ticketed. Tickets £5, concessions £3. Tickets available in advance from the shop or by phone: 020 7487 3570.

The observant among you might have noticed something a wee bit 'odd' about the line-up... :)

All Ireland Poetry Day...countdown

On LMFM tomorrow at 12.15pm talking about the events lined up for Louth county this year. I'll also be talking a little about myself, The Poetry Divas, and other diverse poetry related things.

You can listen on the web live at the time - if you're local, LMFM broadcast on 95.8FM.

Hey ho, the addy oh!

Now, where did I leave that feather boa... The Divas fly again tomorrow e'en in McGeough's Bar, Roden Place, Dundalk as part of the Open Mic night - woohoo!

All Ireland Poetry Day

I'm really excited this year by All Ireland Poetry Day, which this year falls on Thursday 7th October - the same day as in the UK, so ye'll be having it every which way this year.

I've been busy putting together the programme for Louth county, on behalf of the Louth Arts Services (and Poetry Ireland, too) since the mid-summer and it's a real cracker this year.

At Lunchtime, there are two readings in Louth - Drogheda Library host Marie McSweeney at 1.30pm, where Marie will be reading from her recent work. Marie has won many prizes for her short stories and poetry, including the Francis MacManus award. DkIT Library host a reading in the library's rooftop atrium garden, where people can come and listen to poets, past and present.

Later that evening in Drogheda, the Viaduct Bards host a poetry session in Drogheda Library from 6.30 - 7.30pm, whilst in Carlingford, Jaki McCarrick reads at 7.30pm in the Holy Trinity Heritage Centre. Jaki was a featured poet at the Poetry Ireland Introduction series last year, and her plays and short stories have been winning prizes galore lately.

Finally, and I'm really excited by this one, Meitheal, is a new open mic session launching in McGeough's Bar in Roden Place, Dundalk from 8pm onwards. Featured readers on the night are The Poetry Divas collective. Run what ya brung!

New Review

My review of An Anthology of Modern Irish Poetry, edited by Wes Davis, from Harvard University Press is now online at Eyewear!

Another Year On

Back to school time... and back to college for one as well! Trying to overcome the tiredness is proving a challenge, as I try to meter out the jobs that need to be done: the uniforms, the tracksuits, the contents of pencil cases, the trousers that need hemming, the books that need ticking off. This year, I won't moan about the price of all that stuff that has to be got - for me, it's worth spending on!

But I do it all with a slight of glee - there's no escaping that feeling that mammies up and down the country must be feeling: the feckers are going to be back at school and my house will be my own - to bathe in the peaceful silence (well as silent as a housing estate will get with all known children between the ages of 4 and 17 away being edumucated) of my CLEAN house.

What will I do with all that silence - hopefully a bit of what Nuala Ni is doing - some writing! Now, if I can only manage two hours, I'll be doing well :)

Poems in Southword

We interrupt this illness to bring you some poems in the latest, brand-spanking new Southword 18.

You will find me just underneath Matthew Sweeney - not figuratively (helas!) - with five poems that belong to a much longer sonnet sequence about George Mallory, the British mountaineer who died attempting Everest in 1924, with his co-climber, Andrew Irvine.

James Harpur retires as Poetry Editor at Southword, to be replaced by Leanne O'Sullivan, and Tania Hershman is taking up Fiction Editor-ship there too. All good stuff. Check out the other poems, stories and reviews, it's a meaty issue.

Waiting results from tests...

Back after this short break - I hope!

It's been quiet here for a good reason. Apart from three days in Donegal, during which the rain rained like a rainy thing (did-ya-know it's been the wettest July since, er, last year?), I've been trying to get over various chest-related things which have been leaving me drained and... er... well... still unwell.

Some of you might remember me moaning (Feb) about general unwellness long before the pneumonia (Apr) episode. If not, a quick recap: pain in abdomen, pain in chest, general fatigue etc. etc. hospital, home, bed, hospital, home, more bed, back to work ya-di-da-da.

I returned recently to the doctor after diagnosed pleurisy seemed to be refusing to go away. Conversation went like something this:

Me: The pain is still there.
Doc: Well, your chest is clear.
But, the pain is still there - it's tender to touch under my tight armpit; exactly where I had the pneumonia. In fact I've had this pain there since before I had the pneumonia. Me and this pain know each other so well, we could be bosom buddies.
Is that so?
Yes.
Maybe it's not pleurisy.
Then what is it?
It might be costochondroitis.
Huh?
Could be caused by pneumonia. Here's a prescription for some heavy-duty painkillers and some prednisone. Go home and go to bed.

Again? Sheesh...