THE SEA-WASH never ends. The sea-wash repeats, repeats. Only old songs? Is that all the sea knows? Only the old strong songs? Is that all? The sea-wash repeats, repeats.
The sea at Murvagh outside Donegal sings its songs very gently. The beach is beautiful, sandy and mostly empty. So it is a good choice for sulky racing. The skyscapes in the west are stunning probably because of the changeability of the Irish weather. Kay took this in december.
Spectacular Ireland is down the west coast and most spectacular of all is Skellig Michael. As the boat travels towards it, the gannets drifting to and fro in the foreground give it an air of enchantment. By the time you get there you are prepared for the magic and it doesn’t disappoint. See it in July before the puffins leave. Thanks to harniq for posting this on YouTube.
I was taking a trawl through movies about the islands off the west thinking it’s high time I went back when this caught my eye. There is some disagreement as to whether the Aran Mór island cliffs or those at Slieve League in Donegal are the highest in North West Europe. Either way the nerve needed to do this is mind-boggling.
Strokestown, Co Roscommon, will host two literary festivals in 2009. The annual Strokestown International Poetry Festival will take place from 1st to 3rd May 2009 while the SiarScéal festival will happen from April 3rd to the 5th. Irish Bilingual Poet Collette Nic Aodha and myself will read on the Saturday night.
It will be nice to be back in Strokestown. I read there in 2006 when Seamus Heaney headed up the list of guest poets, but more especially because I used to go there on Sunday afternoons as a child to visit my uncle and aunt. On fine afternoons that often involved a boating trip on the Kilglass lakes. Rounded off with a drink in their beautiful old pub, Gearty’s, and home with a pike for the pan. Beautiful.
Chuir Nuala N Gallachóir as na Doire Beaga an gaeilge ar an dán seo agus 's é mo thuairim go bhfuil sé i bhfad nios fearr sa gaeilge.Tá brón orm go bhfuil na fadai as lathair sa piosa seo.
GEANTRAI TRATHNONA BEAG
Solas min nona Ag cimilt an uisce; Mise agus tusa Ag imeacht thar bhraid Faoi scathlan na gcrann Ar phreamhaigh cois abhann, Eala, Go h-uaisneach Ag cosaint a criche: Eiti mall triallach na gcorrghlas Ar leathadh na speir; Noin bheag agus deire lae - Cach anachta faoi choim na h-oiche.
I think Irish skies are stunning. The combination of bogland, mountain, lake and sky in our part of Donegal is frequently breathtaking. These were taken just north of Barnesmore Gap, Kay took the third near Lough Mourne.
Here are 2 scenes from Baraka. Made in 1992, directed by Ron Fricke, it traces a downward spiral from a spectacular planet set in a wondrous universe to man living in harmony with the planet to the current, appalling, (and escalating), abuse by man of everything around him.
If you haven’t seen it, you have missed a masterpiece. If you have, it’s probably time to be reminded again of the damage we’re doing.
Top of my wish-list this year is Filíocht Ghrá na Gaeilge/Love Poems in Irish edited by Ciaran Mac Murchaidh with artwork by Anna Nielsen and published by Cois Life in October 2008. It is an anthology of Irish love poems and songs (with English translations) spanning more than 1000 years. An Arts Programme interview with MacMurchaidh, aired on the 29th of October, can be downloaded from the RTE website.
I wrote "I Give You" a number of years ago.It is part a series of love poems I had plans to dramatize under the title "Under an Apple Blue Sky".
When things don't go for me at first they tend to get buried under subsequent initiatives. Later I find them and warm to the idea again. I have a number of long-time items sitting in the 'out tray' but this one does deserve a bit of consideration.
I Give You
This tree's dripping fruit to place in your mouth to ripen your tongue.
The water guttering down these green leaves to be a trellis of fingers about you.
This soft drizzle of sunlight to fall gentle as the petals of meadowsweet on your cheeks.
This bindweed and all tendrils to hook and bind our desires together.
I was sorry to hear that Sydney Bernard Smith died a fortnight ago, he did me a great service.
He published some very early poems of mine in a broadsheet published in association with Sligo Arts Festival and later took some time to criticise my poetry. I think he was disappointed with what he saw.
We met up in the International Bar where he took a red biro to my efforts. By the time he finished there were red lines through most of it. Initially discouraging, (he said that my only saving grace was that I was so new to writing), it turned out to be the most valuable few hours tuition I ever got.
His criticisms were crisp, accurate and flawlessly observed; he left me with a clear understanding of the need to be concise and efficient, to avoid waffle and pointless adornment. He left me with an insight into the value of ruthless editing. He did this with authority but without superiority.
You can download 2 of his books from the Irish Literary Revival website http://www.irishliteraryrevival.com/
Glen Colquhoun’s most recent collection, How we fell: A Love Story (Steele Roberts, 2006),is the beautiful and evocative telling of how the relationship with his former wife was and went.
The poems go beyond what words can describe like garlic on the breath. Understanding might depend on recognizing the territory; it’s like feeling for solidity in cloud, but you will feel; and there is a universe to feel. Their relationship, as he describes it, was passionate and spiritual; consumate. The title is interesting: there’s clearly the fall, and there’s the fall in love; but the second (phrase) is unfinished.
Is it possible that after love has crashed through like a meteorite, we remain, carried forever (our atoms just) suspended in its brilliant tail.
Today is WET. The world is full of running water and stiffling greyness; as Leo Sayer says it’s raining in my heart. It started with a nightmare last night. Sleeping past the alarm this morning. And now a cloud stuck over the city like an elastoplast. It reminded me of one of the first poems I had published, but without the slightly romantic note:
Damp and Drizzle.
Damp wet, wet, wet. Grim drizzle Leaning against the wall All day.
If I could hum the mood In your ear You'd know what I mean; You'd remember.
The mood may be connected to my annoyance yesterday at discovering I been done out of maybe €4 a week (or more) for over a year. Having registered for a quiz last year I kept receiving questions by text on my mobile. I never replied to them, but still was charged €2 for receiving each of them.
No doubt I missed some very fine print at the outset and I wasn’t keeping an eye on my costs, but surely this type of scam, though legal, is obviously an unfair lure to take your money. Is it not time the legal loop-holes that allow these sort of practices were closed.
And Walt Whitman’s voice, ( believed to be), at The Walt Whitman Archive: http://www.whitmanarchive.org/multimedia/index.html
I love the upbeat mood and rhythm in Whitman’s ‘songs’ and other poetry; it would be difficult to avoid being infected with the celebration that starts with ( shout it if you can)
I CELEBRATE myself, and sing myself, And what I assume you shall assume, For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.
I loafe and invite my soul, I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.
My tongue, every atom of my blood, form'd from this soil, this air, Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and their parents the same, I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin, Hoping to cease not till death.
