SiarScéal Festival 2009

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.

http://siarsceal.com/festival.htm
http://www.strokestownpoetry.org/

Translation

Hi Sabne, Geantrai is an Irish translation of a very early and very undercooked poem by myself. It went more or less like this.

River Dusk


When the evening light
Was a soft touch on the water,
The trees stood kneedeep
watching us go by.

A swan was streaking his area
With a scowl;
Ahead the cranes flapped
their carpet wings.

Then night arrived to claim all.


Nuala's translation makes some notable alterations eg the swan is kneedeep and is protecting his area nobly.Hope you’re good. M

GEANTRAI TRATHNONA BEAG

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.

Sky, Bog, Mountain

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.

Let’s hope God’s not a hen.

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.

Balinese Monkey Chant

Mass Production of Chickens


Can't wait for the future!

My Poetry Choice for Christmas

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 Give You

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.

Rathmines Writers Book Launch

The Rathmines Writers group celebrate the launching a new book in Rathmines Town Hall (Rathmines College)on 27th Nov approx 7.30pm.

Sydney Bernard Smith

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/

How We Fell

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.

Wonderful.

Panda Sneeze

Not poetry in the usual sense but I got a great laugh when I was shown this today. So thanks to jimvwmoss for posting this on YouTube

Rain and Phone Scams

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.

Favourite Poems and Poets Online

What a wonderful thing the internet is. My favourite poem is Fern Hill; I search and find


Thanks to CSteierNKU for posting this on YouTube.

Among my favourite Irish poems are Patrick Kavanagh’s; hear his voice at Poetry Archive: http://www.poetryarchive.org/poetryarchive/singlePoet.do?poetId=7871
And find a generous selection of his works at poemhunter.com: http://www.poemhunter.com/patrick-kavanagh

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.

Lucky Thirteen

One of the best pieces of news for Irish poetry this year is the return of Force 10; Issue 13 is out now.

In the past I always enjoyed its mix of the written and the visual, local and national, its non-pretentiousness and liveliness, its generous size (the new issue has 160 pages).

So thanks to those that have made it possible and good luck to Dermot Healy and all involved, I hope the force remains with us for a long time.

All -Ireland Poetry Day

How do I know I need to mix more? When just about every poet I’ve ever heard of has a gig but myself.

And that’s close enough the case on the Poetry Ireland supported all-Ireland poetry day on Oct 2nd. They are supporting a reading in every county in Ireland. It’s very impressive. A huge number of poets are involved and that’s great to see.

I especially like the poetry of John F Deane (reading in Dublin), Ger Reidy (Mayo), Gabriel Rosenstock (Roscommon), but there are numerous poets worth hearing all around the country and looking at the list I see that I am out of touch with some of the newcomers to the scene. Co Donegal is hosting an Oíche fhílíochta as is Leabharlann na Ceathrún Ruaidh, agus beidh fílí Chiarraí ag léamh san Daingean. The big Galway event includes mayors of city and county reading personal favourites and a particularly strong musical component with Judith Mock and John Feeley performing.

All in all it’s a tremendous effort. Lets hope the events are well advertised and the suppport they deserve arrives.