Submissions, Deadlines, Votes and a little bit of Appalachian Goodness

2017 Strokestown International Poetry Festival Competitions

Closing date:  2nd December, 2016

·         The 2017 Strokestown International Poetry Festival Competitions are now open for entries. The closing date for the competitions has been brought forward, to facilitate the publication of a festival anthology in which poems from shortlisted entrants for the two main competitions, English and Irish, will feature alongside the work of the well known judges and other poets who will read at the 2017 festival. Maura Dooley and Paddy Bushe will judge the Strokestown International Poetry Prize for a poem in English, which carries a prize of €2000. Duais de hÍde, which carries a prize of €500 for a poem in Irish, will be judged by Cathal Ó Searcaigh. Shortlisted poets for each of these competitions will also be asked to read a selection of their poems as part of the festival, and will receive a reading fee of €200. The Percy French Prize for humorous poetry will be judged by Margaret Hickey, and the Roscommon Poets’ Prize by Jessamine O’Connor. For details, rules and entry forms see www.strokestownpoetry.org

Irish Poem of the Year’ 2016

·      There are 4 days left to vote for winner of The inaugural ‘Bord Gais Energy Irish Book Awards Irish Poem of the Year’ 2016. I am pleased to see Jane Clarke among the four short-listed poets.

              

You might like to read 4 finalists and vote for your winner. Here are the poems http://writersweek.ie/the-listowel-writers-week-irish-poem-of-the-year-2016-winners/

and here's where to vote  http://www.irishbookawards.irish/vote2016/

·      

       Avant Appal(achia)

       Submission Deadline

      A reminder from Sabne Raznik that the deadline for submissions to Issue 2 of Avant Appal(achia) ezine is November 30, 2016. They are looking for poetry, short stories, and visual art; your wildest, most experimental.  (Issue) 2 will go live on December 15, 2016. Details at www.avantappalachia.com

Waiting for the One

Homo Sapiens

They were anxious to put as many genera between us and ape

as possible; so each new jaw-bone, each different skull,

each new femur became a new genus.

Gradually then, all these rungs were being discovered.

Then someone said " Hey, where’s the cut-off !"

No one knew, it hadn't been discovered,

or had but wasn't recognized.

So we're still waiting for him who'll come to announce:

"Hallelujah, this is The Bone,

 the One that'll divide the fossil record into b.b. and a.b.

(before and after bone).”

Farmland in Meath

Hill of Tara

                                                 

                                               From up here, this landscape is a cubist composition ─

    a shattered windscreen.

                      Closer: traces of ancient earthworks ─

                                  pre-historic worm spirals beneath the skin.

                            Closer: tumuli, eyes fixed to the cosmos ─

birthmarks of science.

                     Closer: chevrons, spirals, sunbursts ─

birthmarks of art.

3 poems: audio

The Climb

    As I watched,

a mother and child climbed

the steep summit of Croagh Patrick;

stopping, starting, stopping, starting.

While tourists were passing like traffic,

two flies, clinging to scree,

scrambled upward, pulling

the universe’s blue cloak tighter about them.

He Fishes With Cormorants.

An idea from a beautiful documentary I saw many years  ago: 'He Dances for his Cormorants'.

He fishes with Cormorants

Man on a raft

tray wafer   ̶

a jabbering macaw  ̶

sprinkles

cormorants

into the river.

Cliffs,

rocks, teeth

witness all:

silver purses

leaping backwards,

their gullets full.

See YouTube clip at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7l6Pe0CKsg

Remembering Pearse Hutchinson

No Detail Too Small 

No detail too small, you balanced it on your pen.

Watchmaker with magnified eye,

you admired the exquisiteness in small things.

When a gentian is a match for the Matterhorn,

an everyday kindness is treasure, humility dazzles,

and universal courteousness is a longed for revolution.   

Door hanging from its hinges,

breakfast things on the table,

newspapers neat in a corner,

armchair facing the television.

In the bedroom, make-up bottles,

4711, dresses in the wardrobe,
night-gown thrown onto the bed.

.  

Calendar stopped: July 1984,

a pair of slippers still awaiting her feet;

feet  silent as air.

Phonecall

One afternoon, long after, I call her.

I imagine the phone’s ring-tone

streaming through the air

of her sitting room;

above her writing desk,

wallets of holiday photos,

saucer of earrings,

a broken watch.

And now full sail over the carpet,

leaving behind

a mess of Sunday papers,

empty wine bottle on the couch.

Into the hall,

above floor-boards,

raincoat on the banister,

umbrella fallen onto the first step.

To the landing,

boxes of books,

the standard lamp forever

on its way to the bin.

My calling her: smoke

curling in a square of sunlight,

a cloud of silver smidgens

with nowhere to go.

The Dog

A dog built around his snarling teeth   

demonstrates human instincts

when I cross his ground.

Glass stare, no, spikes from his face,

his crew cut spines speared,

snarl or smile, legs set in concrete:

stance consciousness.              

The considered setting of his growl:

natural resonance of nerves.

The chosen time for a step:

psychology of closing, removing space,

building a crescendo of presence.

Then the howling with muscle release:

snap of dogs, snap of men.

Final Breath

in memory of Pearse Hutchinson

In that last moment your breath halted in your mouth;

the  air teetered on your tongue; one last taste perhaps.

Death flew across the room, your eyes followed it,

leaving us, exiting through the walls.

Vivaldi played on,

emerged from behind  your troubled  breathing.

For that few moments,

baroque splendour  was your breath condensing around us.

Not normal

Outsider

I was born in a tree.

Before words rustled,

thoughts rustled.

Caught, netted in November; 

the leaves fallen,

I had my ten fingers fast around a branch. 

They felled the tree

rather than see me in it.

After that, they stuck their words into my mouth.

Where The Poetry Comes From

Fathomless blue;

Blue sky.

Two swallows proclaiming it

Are extravagant

Dancers in an empty ballroom.

A church bell chimes

Two, three, five o’clock;

No matter.

Tracing curves to unending time;

A route to south Africa ?

Fathomed true;

Blue sky.

Artur Widak Exhibition in Rathmines College's Culture Night Programme

Artur Widak  is a Polish photojournalist, currently based in Dublin. His striking images have been highly acclaimed and published internationally; publications include The Guardian, The Huffington Post, The Independent (UK) and many more. This Friday, Sept 16th, Culture Night in Ireland, his moving and thought-provoking exhibition 'The Path to Freedom: pictures illustrating the journey refugees are taking from war-torn countries to Europe' can be seen in Rathmines Town Hall between 5 and 9pm.

Artur Widak and budding photographer

  

The Tide's High Blood Mark

  

                 (Before The Firing Squad)

Ready

           

            The sun's tide

            is licking me.

           

Aim

            In one eye-full I have examined every brick,

            seen the crack in that window,     

       `   the wasp on the flag

            and still felt the sun

            and heard the voice right down

            to a bubble on his vocal cords.                                        

Fire

            The sun travelled its 93 million miles.

            Threw my shadow against the bricks.

            My shadow stretched

            My shadow stretched

            My shadow stretched

            And the sun said

            That my shadow was as tall and slender

            As any wave that ever rose

            That ever rose out of the full tide

            Climbed and stretched its arms

            Over the bricks of this barracks wall.