Tuesday, August 27, 2013

Voice from 1889 - Robert Browning

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English poet, Robert Browning (1812 – 1889)  reciting his poem 'How They Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix' on  April 7th, 188...
Thursday, August 22, 2013

Which is my face?

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First published in Prairie Schooner, Volume 85, Number 4, Winter 2011 Mary Byrne Old Mary Byrne posed for the camera holding a photogr...
Monday, August 19, 2013

Famine: Media Coverage

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A Brief Note on an Imminent Famine. Everyone here will starve: each bone will be a stripe, each hand a bowl, each leg a stick. Then there’ll...
Tuesday, August 13, 2013

At One End of a Bench

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  At one end of a bench an old man wearing Winter clothes regards the fountains and Summer through melt-water irises.   This ma...
Saturday, August 10, 2013

The Old Men

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  The breed of old men I’m remembering is gone now. I remember them out from the county home, on walks into town or sitting on the low s...
Tuesday, August 6, 2013

The Fall

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When apples fall like pocket watches among the trees and leaves like closing old hands, the fog is rising, old souls over ...
Tuesday, July 30, 2013

The Irish Curse

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The Irish language is famous, from bardic times, for its curses; a poor host  got a verbal flaying. Likewise praise can be most eloquent an ...
Tuesday, July 23, 2013

Dylan Thomas Reading "A Refusal to Mourn the Death, by Fire, of a Child in London "

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What an amazing resource the Poetry Archive is! Here Dylan Thomas introduces his poetry in that high-blown way that was the fashion. At the ...
Monday, July 22, 2013

The Day Room

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  This is where the old men sit, sacks of coal against a wall; time to dream and all their dreams defunct. A slant of sunlight t...
Monday, July 15, 2013

An Interview with Harold Bloom

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Vincent Woods interviewing Harold Bloom for RTE's Arts Tonight. Absorbing listening; Bloom's encyclopedic knowledge of literature is...
Wednesday, July 10, 2013

Flesh and Stone

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This painting by Andrea Mantegna was reproduced in our family Bible. As a boy, I used to look at it and marvel. I still marvel.     It i...
Saturday, July 6, 2013

Life is short

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The River Took Me was first published in the Prairie Schooner, Irish Number, December 2011.   The River Took Me   Once, in a sodde...
Tuesday, July 2, 2013

Pub Yap

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First published in THE SHOp Poetry Magazine: Mrs Clancy Mrs Clancy pulling a pint, asking John Quinn about Kate Nealon’s accident t...
Friday, June 28, 2013

Billy Collins Makes You Want to Write a Poem

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This TED talk by Billy Collins is essential viewing for poets who are drying up, school-goers who need to be convinced that poetry means any...
Tuesday, June 25, 2013

Jesus The Aviator

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Jesus the fighter pilot has served in Iraq and Afghanistan: 6,000 flight hours; 1,800 combat hours.   Described as cool-headed, agg...