Dom Bernard O'Dea

Writing about Dysert brings Dom Bernard to mind. He was my father’s first cousin and, of course, chaplain to the O’Dea clan for many years. We always looked forward to Bernard’s all too rare visits. When he came, he brought his stories, his regard for children and his great bright smile.

For a commeration of his death, James O’Dea asked me to write something. I could have written a eulogy but decided instead to recall that childhood impression of his visits. This is the poem with some alterations

In Memory of Dom Bernard.


We were coming home at night,
children in the back, you out front,
the colored lights on the dashboard;
up hills, down valleys,
the whole car singing.

But there were neither hills nor valleys,
it was the wild careering over and around
your songs and stories.
Close my eyes, we’re skittering on still
snug in the warm blanket of your gentleness.

Artists with Poetry in their Hearts

I have been told more than once that I have a tendency towards melancholy. It shows in the writing and it shows in my choices when I go searching for inspiration. Edward Hopper and Andrew Wyeth are two american artists that never fail to stir that mood in me.If I allow myself to wallow in their art, invariably a poem will begin to form in my head.On this side of the water Martin Gale sometimes evokes similar moods and his work has echoes of both american artists.


Old Man


The tyre hanging in the garden
is proof that children used to play there;
but in the breeze it’s a shaking head.

Today snowflakes flying by
leave the sycamore white on its northern side.
The garden is still: no snowman, no footprints.

The tyre is an old man;
with an old voice he explains
“I cannot remember names, truth is

I hung too close to the trunk to be of use;
the sycamore branches bolted upwards,
to this day they’ve never spread out.”

from "Turn Your Head" published by Dedalus Press



Anyway it's nice to be able to include some examples of this art in the following presentations from Youtube; Wyeth on top, Hopper below.

Rathmines Festival Information

DANCE, DHARMA & GOOD KARMA!!!!!!!





THIS YEAR’S 6th RATHMINES FESTIVAL TAKES PLACE FROM 17th to 20th April. The festival boasts even more events than ever at venues dotted around Rathmines – most free of charge.



DANCE workshops with the Dance Theatre of Ireland, Siamsa Tire and Fluxusdance means this is your chance to experience and enjoy tango, hip hop and contemporary.



Emer McDonagh, world-renowned flautist, will enchant you. Nightly Festival Clubs in local pubs will offer a diverse feast of music that is sure to please everyone.



We are adding a touch of Bollywood spice to proceedings with film showings in D.I.T. The very popular guided tours of the historic Cathal Brugha Barracks will also feature this year. The enthusiastic Eanna Ni Lamhna will inform and entertain you with a lively canal bank nature walk.



DHARMA: Talks and workshops on mind body and spirit. Anne Sweeney will lift you to a higher plane with her Angel workshops and Mary Tuohy will relax you with the ancient Japanese art of Reiki. There is Tai Chi in the Park.



Younger participants will be able to enjoy free readings in some of the local bookshops from well-known authors as well as competitions, Batik art displays, street art and performers, musical storytellers and a Party at Portobello.



Tommy O’Neill of Fair City has written a one-man show. Shirley Temple Bar will deliver another custom-made show, Transition, sure to titillate. As gaeilge, the Fibin Theatre Company will perform An Trial.



For the Francophiles: “Pays Blanc Pays Noir” is a choir from St Nazaire made up of 12 singers and a pianist. The group dress in black and white and the choir conjures up images of la Brière, the Guérande and Saint-Nazaire.



Seamus Hosey chairs the Forum, Trial by Media, featuring John Cooney and other prominent journalists.

Rathmines Festival 2008

Some of the events from the upcoming festival:
Fri 18th April

Performance by French Choir, “Pays Blanc, Pays Noir” from St Nazaire, France and music Youth Orchestral Pops Orchestra. 19.00 – 21.00 in Rathmines Parish Church (Free)

Festival Drama – World premier of the “The Mines Dublin 6” specially written and peformed by Tommy O’Neill of Fair City. 20.00 – 21.00 in St Mary’s Junior School Hall €10

Saturday 19th April

Guided Tour: Cathal Brugha Barracks. 14.00 – 16.00 Free

Anthony Cronin: reads from and talks about his work. 14.00 – 15.30 in Town Hall €5

Medieval Dublin interactive DVD and film. 14.00- 15.00 in Town Hall (Free)

Forum with Seamus Hosey and panellists: Trial By Media Town Hall 16.30 – 18.00 in Town Hall (Free)

Fete Mélange – with Master of Ceremonies Promises O’Ferfaille and the Bugle Babes and Shirley Temple Bar. 20.30 – 22.30 in Town Hall €10

Dublin Writers Workshop

Great credit is due to Nessa O’Mahony for her website “Dublin Writers Workshop Online” see < http://dublinwritersworkshop.wordpress.com/ >.

It all goes back to the well-known Dublin Writers Workshop that met for years in a range of venues around Dublin and attracted many writers that have since become familiar names e.g. Sheila O’Hagan, Jean O’Brien, Ted McNulty and many others. I was a regular in the early nineties but have often argued against the notion of workshops, mainly on account of the very mixed ability of writers that attended.Now I have to give credit to that workshop in particular; a disproportionate number of the members have gone on to be widely published and award winners.

Anyway Nessa O’Mahony who definitely falls into the category of successful past members, facilitates this website; she does writers, poets in particular, a great service and this is a great resource.

What's in a Title

Occasionally a combination of words grabs you, opens up a new space in your mind, new possibilities. Mary O’Gorman’s title “I am Horses, I am Swallows” is a title that does just that. I came across it at Southward, newsletter of the Munster Literature Centre, Sullivans Quay, Cork; http://www.munsterlit.ie/Southword4/Poetry/poetry.html#still. On same page poems from Pearse Hutchinson, Paddy Bushe, Fred Johnston and others. Worth mentioning by the way Paddy Bushe, who I have a lot of time for; he has a new collection: To Ring in Silence: New and Selected Poems (The Dedalus Press, 2008).

Ireland and Newfoundland

A wave of emigration from Ireland to Newfoundland, particularly from the south-east of Ireland, occurred in the early 1800’s even before the famine. Today a great number of the Newfoundland population have Irish roots.

The strength of poetry in Ireland is well known, but many here would have been unaware of the strength of poetry in Newfoundland and Labrador at least up to the publication of The Backyards of Heaven An Anthology of Contemporary Poetry from Ireland and Newfoundland & Labrador (eds. Stephanie McKenzie and John Ennis Scop Productions, 2003). The book was a celebration of our common heritage. I was glad to be included.

I mention it by way of introducing a video from Youtube.Can you believe this is not a video from Wexford?

Interest in Poetry

The new ESRI Report, In the Frame or Out of the Picture?, analyses current involvement in the Arts in Ireland in terms of participation in the arts, attendance at arts events and reading habits.
It comes up with some interesting statistics relating to poetry:

Women are more than twice as likely to read poetry than men

Age, gender, educational attainment are among other factors that impinge on the readership of poetry but not social class. Interestingly social class is a factor in other categories of reading choice.

Age is (surprise surprise) a major factor in readership of poetry with over 65’s over six times more likely to read it than 35 – 44 year olds

Poetry reading is strongly related to educational attainment; the post-grad holder figure is over 3 times the figure of those without third level qualifications.

It would be nice to see an analysis of interest in poetry in all its guises undertaken under the auspices of Poetry Ireland, an organization that would have the influence to implement a strategy to deal with the findings. In particular, I would be interested to learn how the colossal exposure of second level students in Ireland translates into such low levels of manifest interest and appreciation.

Surely there is an urgent need for a move to be made in this direction?

Stop the Next War

I came across this on YouTube. It's a very poignant and striking statement against all war-making.

Bio-energy

I normally don’t say anything about Kay’s business but recently she has had some spectacular results healing through Bio-energy. You can learn more about bio-energy at her website . Catherine O’Dea’s Bio-energy for Health is based like myself in Dublin and Donegal. There's a link to her site below.

Rathmines Festival

My role with Rathmines Festival is peripheral this year; I’m no longer part of the organising committee. I'm enjoying the relaxation that comes with that but do miss the excitement and, to some extent, the anxiety. Good luck to my successor James Casey. The Festival will take place over the weekend April 18th - 20th. Over the years we’ve (surprise surprise) had a strong literary component. I hope it continues. Mention was made of an event involving Anthony Cronin, but I’m not sure if this is definite. I’ll post events as they become known.

Writing From Within

Notice of Writing From Within, Haiku and the Spiritual Dimension, comes from Maeve O’Sullivan. This is a workshop with Maeve O’Sullivan and Kim Richardson that will take place from Sat 12th to Sat 19th July 2008 in Anam Cara, Writers and Artists Retreat, in the Beara Peninsula. "This workshop is designed to help develope paths to our own inner inspiration." It combines " the haiku work with meditation, breath and light practices......... ". Further information can be got from Sue Booth Forbes at anamcararetreat@eircom.net.

Caccini's Ave Maria

This is exquisite. Don't bother about the pictures, turn it up, close your eyes and savor

Pádraig J Daly and RS Thomas

Pádraig J Daly is a poet I have great time for. I find his poetry thought-provoking and persuasive. He does not roar his presence, for many he had to be found but once found he leaves a lasting impression. Some of his poetry is reminiscent of the poems of another clergyman, RS Thomas. “Clinging to the Myth” (Dedalus Press, 2007) is his most recent collection and you can get a sampler of these poems by following the links on the Dedalus Press website. He can also be heard in the Dedalus Press Audio Room. A selection of poems by RS Thomas can be found at
< http://www.eliteskills.com/a/R.S.+Thomas>; his poem “The Bright Field” can be found in a number of places on the net, but I think you might enjoy it most at the following address < http://www.panhala.net/Archive/The_Bright_Field.html>

Tuol Sleng Still

In 1999 I wrote a series of poems called Tuol Sleng Still. They were inspired by the gut-wrenching photographs of the inmates of Tuol Sleng, S-21, a Khmer Rouge death-camp in Phnom Penh. Between 1975 and 1979, 14,000 were tortured and died there. 7 survived. Inmates were photographed with numbered tags, and they were photographed again after their deaths.

Anyone who has experienced such horrors would probably consider my poems from the comfort of 1999 Ireland wryly. I was horrified by my ignorance: during those years I was enjoying a carefree college life. But to see the fear in faces that are little different to those that fill my everyday; I immediately felt immense sadness and felt I should, at least, inform myself. And by researching, writing and publishing the poems I could at least make the experience more real to me and contribute in a minute way to the calls against the wars and barbarism that seem to me to exemplify the pitiful limitations of us humans.

I chose Tuol Sleng because the photographs that inspired me were from there. There is a danger that I will suggest that people from far-off lands with different features to ours are barbaric, however I consider the vacuum-pack cleanliness of American mass-murder by air-strike at least as obscene, if not more so. I consider the war in the Middle East carried out and supported by governments in our name to be abhorrent. That era in the seventies is and isn’t history: unfortunately, for too many around the world it is Tuol Sleng still.

I looked at him,
Cambodian like myself,
similar in height and age.
He was handing out the tags;
I was bare to the waist.

I held the tag in my hand,
holding it up to be seen;
feeling awkward, conspicuous.
“Pin it onto your chest”
he said and waited.

I pinned it into my skin;
the humiliation delighted him.
Before the camera I stood erect
like I was proud to wear it,
like it was made of gold.