HeadStuff

 

The Snake Charmer, Henri Rousseau

As part of the Revolution Now series on HeadStuff , my poem, The Lure of Love , has been published. Thanks to the poetry editor at HeadStuff, Angela Carr. The poem is based on a painting by Rousseau whose work is currently being exhibited by Musee d'Orsay in Paris.

The Poetry Porch

 

The Poetry Porch is an online literary magazine which has been available since 1997. It is edited by Joyce Wilson. I'm happy to have two sonnets accepted by Joyce who wrote: 'We are completely taken with the intricate meter and rhyme in your heartfelt sonnets', for the magazine's feature The Sonnet Scroll.  Both forthcoming poems were written in January this year.

I've learned to take more time with the sonnet and to choose words more carefully and I find that it's always good to do a refresher on iambic pentameter.

This line has 5 feet, so it’s written in pentameter. And the stressing pattern is all iambs:
if YOU | would PUT | the KEY | inSIDE | the LOCK
da DUM | da DUM | da DUM | da DUM | da DUM

unstressed, stressed

(I have to admit that this is still an afterthought but I am very careful to count syllables)

Spring Storm

Spring Storm

by Jim Wayne Miller

He comes gusting out of the house,
the screen door a thunderclap behind him. 

He moves like a black cloud
over the lawn and---stops. 

A hand in his mind grabs
a purple crayon of anger
and messes the clean sky.

He sits on the steps, his eye drawing
 a mustache on the face in the tree.

As his weather clears, 
his rage dripping away,

wisecracks and wonderment 
spring up like dandelions. 

Poetry Ireland Day, Thursday, 28th April

The Boyne Writers will read at Maguire's on The Hill of Tara next Thursday from 7 p.m. to celebrate Poetry Day Ireland

Join the Boyne Writers as they read from their commemorative edition of Boyne Berries, Boyne Berries 1916.

This is a free event and all are welcome to come along on the night to listen and participate in the open mic event. Read your own work or your favourite poem on this special day celebrating poetry in Ireland. Drop in and join in!

Chords

I've spent the past hour and a half teaching myself D,G and A on the guitar. It was immensely satisfying but who knows if I'll ever be able to play an actual song!? I suppose I should try and write a poem today. I have ideas for two. Looking up guitar poems I found this.

The Black Guitar - Poem by Paul Henry.

Clearing out ten years from a wardrobe
I opened its lid and saw Joe
written twice in its dust, in a child's hand,
then a squiggled seagull or two.

Joe, Joe

a man's tears are worth nothing,
but a child's name in the dust, or in the sand
of a darkening beach, that's a life's work.

I touched two strings, to hear how much
two lives can slip out of tune

then I left it,
brought down the night on it, for fear, Joe
of hearing your unbroken voice, or the sea
if I played it.

The Death of Adonis

The Death of Adonis - Auguste Rodin

Adonis

1.

Each of us like you
has died once,
has passed through drift of wood-leaves,
cracked and bent
and tortured and unbent
in the winter-frost,
the burnt into gold points,
lighted afresh,
crisp amber, scales of gold-leaf,
gold turned and re-welded
in the sun;

each of us like you
has died once,
each of us has crossed an old wood-path
and found the winter-leaves
so golden in the sun-fire
that even the live wood-flowers
were dark.

2.

Not the gold on the temple-front
where you stand
is as gold as this,
not the gold that fastens your sandals,
nor thee gold reft
through your chiselled locks,
is as gold as this last year's leaf,
not all the gold hammered and wrought
and beaten
on your lover's face.
brow and bare breast
is as golden as this:

each of us like you
has died once,
each of us like you
stands apart, like you
fit to be worshipped.
 

Hilda Doolittle

Comments by Poet Tom French on Boyne Berries 1916

Bird Cage Jean-Michel Folon

Tom French's comments delivered at the launch of Boyne Berries 1916 are now available on the Boyne Berries BlogSpot. They're an interesting read. It's also interesting to learn that Seamus Heaney's translation of Book VI of Virgil's Aeneid has been published. A review can be found in The Irish Times by clicking this link http://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/aeneid-book-vi-seamus-heaney-s-miraculous-return-from-literary-afterlife-1.2548521

Boyne Berries 1916 Launched

 

Tom French

 

It was a special night in Trim on Thursday as poet Tom French launched Boyne Berries 1916. Twenty four contributors read and attended on the night, while poet Deirdre Hines was present in the form of an MP3 recording of her poem The Letter Read as Pond. Mick McGann-Jones recited his poem Bullets and he also treated the audience to a piece called Mna na hEireann on his fiddle.

 

Thank you to everyone who came from near and far to make the night a success. For his decade of service as secretary of the Boyne Writers' Group Michael Farry was presented with a copy of an illustration by C. E Brock for Gulliver's Travels called 'Three Great Scholars'.