Dodging the Snow 2021

 

A Schoolboy Sleeping on his Book Jean-Baptiste Greuze

I'm delighted once again to be included in Dodging the Rain's 12 poems of Christmas, aka Dodging the Snow. Thanks to editor Neil Slevin for including 5 poems, written late last year, all on a festive theme. The poems can be read here, while The Christmas Book is posted below too. 

The Christmas Book

Treasure Island, Black Beauty, Heidi,

Lorna Doone, Oliver Twist, Huckleberry Finn

all populated Christmases past

(I can hear Marley’s chains rattling).

Their names are reeling spools, 

a child’s cinema on a dark winter morning, 

a galloping horse, a raft on a wide river, 

a high mountain top.

Under a duvet sky I ran by the moon 

of the torch with The Famous Five across moors.

I watched Anne’s dreams unfurl on Prince Edward Island,

realise her courage in those journeys to family and love.

You could never be lonely with a window 

to a wider world, another’s passion processed,

a transfer of energy, a most sincere communication,

a leaving for foreign places, and always a coming home.

Books are the real fairy tales.

Orla Fay

Happy Christmas 2021

 

Happy Christmas to the readers of the post. I've written this poem in the last couple of hours while pondering The Three Wise Men and some images I collected today on a walk. I couldn't help hearing T.S. Eliots's Prufrock telling me earlier,

There will be time, there will be time

To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;

There will be time to murder and create,

And time for all the works and days of hands

That lift and drop a question on your plate;

Time for you and time for me,

And time yet for a hundred indecisions,

And for a hundred visions and revisions,

Before the taking of a toast and tea.

Last week I saw a shooting star, and hence the title of the poem. 

A Falling Star

Two millennia ago, it was a Middle Eastern town

that they visited with gold, frankincense, and myrrh,

not an Irish village dappled with rain and more blurry rain.

None of the white stuff this year, except in a snow globe,

a shaken, shook thing, a genie’s lamp, a spirit conduit,

transport to the past, a future, dreamland. 

Before the fall of night, (that great, black citadel)

the curtain draws shut, hush of Christmas Eve 

descending while light rises colourful, myriad, 

blue bulbs swaying on a penned tree, window sparkle,

twinkling phials and canisters carried on camels

across sand, hourglass, windswept dunes by Magi.

What of them, these shadowy, bronze-skinned men?

Balthasar, Melchior, and Caspar, in transit from Parthia,

astrologers chasing the sun, Star of Bethlehem, 

lost in their alchemy, Jerusalem bound, where they asked,

Where is He who has been born King of the Jews? 

For we have seen His star in the east and have come to worship Him.*

Where would they go now, following primitive instruments?

Wise still to believe in dreams, to be guided by the heart

and faith? Would they be led to a place of the faithless

to think that among the very mortal, the fallen meteors,

grace and humility could be born? When they arrive at the river

that carries the sorrow of the people,

will they recognise the child of the city?

Orla Fay

*Matthew 2:1-2

Crow of Minerva

 

Joos de Momper (II) - Helicon or Minerva's Visit to the Muses c. 1600

Huge thanks to Crow of Minerva editor Roisin Ní Neactain for including a poem poet Maeve McKenna and I collaborated on. The piece has been through several drafts and was initially formed over a year ago. Auto-da-fé can be read here. 

On the subject of Minerva (associated with the Greek Athena), the story goes that when Perseus beheaded Medusa, Pegasus grew from some spilt blood. Minerva tamed the winged horse and gave him to the Muses. It was a kick from Pegasus' hoof that created the spring of Hippocrene. It was said that if one drank from this fountain poetic inspiration would follow.

Ovid recounts in the Metamorphoses Minerva speaking:

“Fame has given to me

the knowledge of a new-made fountain—gift

of Pegasus, that fleet steed, from the blood

of dread Medusa sprung—it opened when

his hard hoof struck the ground.—It is the cause

that brought me.—For my longing to have seen

this fount, miraculous and wonderful,

grows not the less in that myself did see

the swift steed, nascent from maternal blood.”

Diwali Festival of Lights

 

Meath Writers' Circle 7th Annual Magazine

 

Congratulations to Meath Writers' Circle for once again coming up with the goods, and after a tough year. I'd like to express my gratitude to editor Frank Murphy for including my poem. One of the themes of the magazine is WW1. Other areas covered are the American Civil War, the Meath War Dead, and COVID. The magazine is really interesting as a book of local knowledge and history. There are lots of fine Meath writers included. The magazine can be bought in some local shops, or by contacting Frank Murphy and William Hodgins of the Circle. Be sure to pick up a copy.

Drawn to the Light Press Issue 4

 

Issue 4 of Drawn to the Light Press is now live and can be viewed as a flipbook or as a word document download here. 

Until the Harvest Comes, Dunderry Park

 

I'm very happy to be doing a bonfire reading this Saturday night in Dunderry Park as part of Until the Harvest Comes, and to celebrate the autumn equinox, with thanks to Sofft Productions. I was Queen of the Bonfires as a child (and camp fires).

A few years ago I was passing the house on the Dunderry to Robinstown Road when I had a vision of a warrior with streaming hair and his hound racing past the poplar trees that grow there. I wrote this poem in response, which I will read on Saturday night.

The Park

 

Poplars stand poker straight

and silver as the light would have been

bouncing off spears

 

two millennia ago.  Those carriers

were Fianna, warriors who ran

the length of the coast

 

to defend territories from invaders.

I see them with their hounds,

shadows flickering

 

through the trees.  Blonde, ragged, long

hair flows and brown, matted rat ends

dart past.

 

Preternatural, it is only for an instant.

The oak stands alone when once

it was lost in the woods

 

and cattle are foddered by a red feeder,

freshly painted,

withstanding rust and frost.

 

When I pause by the big black gates

opening up the road inside

I dare not enter,

 

not in deference to the private property sign

but from foreboding of entrance

to another realm

 

where my ancestors call me

to renunciate my worldly goods

and to commune with a universal soul.

 

With broken vision I move forward

from calling these figments out

into the light of day. In such clear skies

 

a plane leaves a wispy trail.

 

Orla Fay

 

Dunshaughlin, Now and Again

Dunshaughlin, Now and Again

 

On Main Street, wide and welcoming, we walk,

engaged in daily routine, the buying of groceries,

a coffee-shop-stop, a commute to work on the 109,

M3 connecting once sleeping satellite to Dublin’s star.

 

These are the fine school days of Indian Summer

of the child’s treasure-trove leaves and blackberries,

of the teenager returned to uniform, a gangly swan

barely plumed learning to fly above shedding earth.

 

Queen Maeve of Tara arrives at harvest,

her skirt a moon-gown, from Kilmessan to Ratoath wide,

bodice cut of Slane, Navan and Trim,

a seasoned silk, a matrimony of now and then.

 

Peggy Murphy writes here of Derrickstown Hill,

while Tom Englishby crosses the Irish Sea in ballad,

the passage a lamentation for his Dunshaughlin,

a rowing back of black waters, a honeyed vision.

 

The bell of Patrick and Seachnall rings the Angelus,

day ending with clanging heard on the breeze

by Kings of Lagore tending crannóg stone, and wood

of home, Domhnach Seachlainn, a settled and holy place.

 

Foley’s Forge relays this din of heartbeats, anvil struck,

shoed horse clip-clopping from faded farms to mart,

and colourful years, green and gold banners,

Sam Maguire a boat on the crest of a wave.

 

Time ebbs and flows, ripples veined in villages and lore,

exhumed in the shadow of the famine land,

footstones raised like shields across the Boyne Valley

past Norman castles, Celtic Tiger, lingering pandemic.

 

Orla Fay

It's wonderful to share my poem written under commission by Poetry Ireland for Poetry Town 2021. A recording of the poem and other pieces performed for Poetry Town and Culture Night can be found on Meath County Council's Youtube Channel here. 

Congratulations to all the other artists and thanks again to Poetry Ireland, Meath County Council Arts Office and Meath Library Service for the opportunity. Thanks to Margaret McCann, local co-ordinator for Dunshaughlin Poetry Town, for her time and support. 

Dunshaughlin Poetry Town Events 10th - 18th September

 Dunshaughlin 

September 16: Dunshaughlin Poetry Town Laureate Orla Fay will facilitate a fun and open workshop on poetry exploration and critique (7-9pm).

September 17: Aloud: Voices from Dunshaughlin & Beyond: Join Orla Fay, Dunshaughlin’s Poet Laureate, and a selection of other performers in a special online event, where Orla will unveil her commissioned Town Poem for the first time.

10 – 18 September

Poetry Underfoot: Around the town.

Café & Chemist Poems: Around the town.

Words that Move Me: Imelda Breen of IB Health and Fitness brings her Pilates in the Park to a new level of wellbeing. Teaming up with Kieran Rushe.

Dunshaughlin Brownies: The group create more sparkle by bringing us their very own poems and sharing a photographic account of their twinkling adventures with words and the world around them.

Addictedtodance: Aisling Toher and her energetic and talented young dancers collaborate with Dunshaughlin Poet Laureate Orla Fay in performing a contemporary and stylish dance interpretation of one of Orla’s poems 'A Thaw in Time’; wonderfully captured on video in the grounds of the Civic Offices.

Literary Pickings: Dunshaughlin Players and guests bring their huge talent and energy to verse and the village; fitting poems have been chosen and performed at well-known sites in the neighbourhood where the Players and Dunshaughlin Tidy Towns have collaborated to showcase familiar spots in a way never previously seen.

Decades of Devotion: The Dunshaughlin Friday Club, in the company of friends, brings us the Rosary from St Patrick and St Seachnall’s Church; a video recording of this almost lost tradition of religious contemplation which celebrates the beauty and poise of its centuries-old words and rhythm.

Schools’ Competition: Check out https://www.poetryireland.ie/poetry-town/dunshaughlin

Poetry Exploration and Critique Workshop

 

As part of Dunshaughlin Poetry Town laureateship I will be facilitating an online workshop on poetry exploration and critique. The event will take place on Thursday 16th September, from 7 pm to 9 pm. Tickets can be booked on Eventbrite, here.

Anyone with an interest in poetry, budding or more advanced, is invited to attend.

Later in the week I will unveil a list of 5 poems to be discussed during the workshop. 

Congratulations to the Meath Senior Ladies Gaelic football team who won the All Ireland today in some style, and were a joy to watch.

I heard on the radio earlier that it would have been Dolores O'Riordan's 50th birthday tomorrow so I've edited a poem I wrote in her memory, when she passed in 2018. 

RIP Sarah Harding of Girls Aloud too. 

Fade-out Bittersweet

IM Dolores O’Riordan, 1971-2018

The soul of Éireann

gathered as a storm on water

summoned to her voice,

released in a yearning of rain.

 

Flowers grew, imbued with

rock ‘n’ roll tie-dyed grace,

teenagers by stereos,

without mobiles or WIFI

 

before Celtic Tiger’s roar,

when life was new.

The first snow drop

reaches up on a day of death.

 

When stars shine am I looking on you?

Or are you looking on me?

Is this great divide of selves

a pool untouchable?

 

When I think of her going

it is the recoiling of the heart I fear,

the fading into nothingness of original song

when we cannot press repeat.

 

Orla Fay

Poetry of Place Part Two

Round Bales, Meath

A trip to Westmeath today brought more awareness of place. How did all these areas get their names? Churches, graveyards, village pumps and even fields full of round bales of hay seemed miraculous. My friend explained to me that an area called "Clondalee More" means the "The Meadow of the Two Big Calves". In Mullingar I heard a man busking outside a shopping centre

Óró, sé do bheatha bhaile
óró, sé do bheatha bhaile
óró, sé do bheatha bhaile
anois ar theacht an tsamhraidh.
Tá Gráinne Mhaol ag teacht thar sáile
óglaigh armtha léi mar gharda,
Gaeil iad féin is ní Francaigh ná Spáinnigh
's cuirfidh siad ruaig ar Ghallaibh.

Oh-ro, welcome home
Oh-ro, welcome home
Oh-ro, welcome home
Now that summer's coming!
Grace O'Malley is coming over the sea,
Armed warriors as her guard,
Only Gaels are they, not French nor Spanish...
and they will rout the foreigners!

Harking back to the previous post's conquest and battle in defending territory and homeland, why are peoples always being transposed? Does naming a place grant ownership? There is great power in language. Is the pen mightier than the sword? In the end hearts and minds are only won in communication. Language is the great bridge between minds, at least until thought becomes readable.

A most interesting site I have found is poetryatlas.com which maps the world in poetry. If you search for Meath you will find locations of some famous poems about the county. In his essay A Shifting Sense of Place Jeremy Richards wonders where is the poet's sense of place today?

"In their anthologized visions of place, classic poets could stroll through an orchid garden, stumble past a church, or kneel in the grass and feel sated and grounded. But today, where is the poet’s sense of place? Itinerant, polluted, untethered? Tweeted and Foursquared? Or is it still Romantic, still finding solace in nature, tripping over the transcendent on every morning stroll?"

The rise of digital humanities has led the poet online, and especially during the pandemic. But that could be a discussion for another day. I've ended up here in this place, where I never intended on going. Eureka! Or something like that! Not all who wander are lost.

Poetry of Place

 

Tintern Abbey, JMW Turner, 1794

I'm very grateful to be able to spend time with my thoughts, a candle and the blog tonight. It's been a really warm, sunny day so the coolness of the night is most welcome as it slips in through the window with the light of some stars. I've been considering the poetry of place as I have been commissioned by Poetry Ireland to write a poem about Dunshaughlin as its Poetry Town Laureate. The poem is nearing completion thanks to a few dawn rises earlier in the week but I want to challenge myself to go just a little deeper, and further into context.

Nature and place have innately informed my work, be it the land as home, or the sea as something more alien or exotic. The county of Meath can hardly be removed from the ancient and its ruins, which continually try to tell their story. Ireland as an island has a sense of otherness, and connection with Great Britain, Europe and the rest of the World. A metaphor for emigration that has remained with me is that of a plant being uprooted and replanted in different soil. That plant must really want to survive. Roots, we must have our roots. Whole histories and cultures have been written on this attachment to the homeland; the transplantation of the African Amercican slave, penal colonies in Australia, the conquistadors, the empires of Europe, war. These sea-changes seem somewhat aberrations in hindsight, but what is mankind's nature but to explore and it should be the human quest to not lose the essence of goodness.

Heidegger posited that "...Poetically Man Dwells...", that creation and thought become a kind of building. He continues in an essay 

"But when there is still room left in today's dwelling for the poetic, and time is still set aside, what comes to pass is at best a preoccupation with aestheticizing, whether in writing or on the air. Poetry is either rejected as a frivolous mooning and vaporizing into the unknown, and a flight into dreamland, or is counted as a part of literature. And the validity of literature is assessed by the latest prevailing standard."

I would say that this is when poetry becomes an act of faith. To not have some kind of faith is to be too soon annihilated. Heidegger based some of his essay on a poem by Friedrich Holderlin called In Lovely Blue.

In any case these are some thoughts on place in poetry tonight. I am reminded of a project carried out by Maria Isakova Bennett for her Coast to Coast to Coast magazine. For the Aldeburgh issue poets connected through the element and space of water to join around the UK. This entwining of people and place through poetry is what makes Poetry Town such a special event. My poem from the Aldeburgh issue, below. 

Trim, The Banks of The Boyne, 28/07/19, 2 pm

Twenty years have passed since I bought this copy

of Wordsworth’s collected poems, 

a thick volume used in assignment. 

How the words of Tintern Abbey mean more to me now,

in their depths are rocks worn by the river of time.

- But the water asks me to not dwell

in looking on the turbulent, frothing current

the Oilliphéist bound for the even wilder ocean,

on muffled sirens calling me back – 

These sacred waters of home glisten,

golden-like pools collect by the banks, coil reeds and grasses.

Quiet cattle stoop to drink past the abbey where I have known

cormorants to rest. It is the heron who offers his wisdom today,

long-legged, once noted by F.R. Higgins in Father and Son.

Orla Fay

The Oilliphéist (from Irish oll, meaning 'great', and péist, meaning 'worm, fabulous beast, monster, reptile') is a dragon-like monster in Irish mythology. The Scottish Gaelic form is Uilepheist. – Wikipedia 

REM at Slane Castle

There has been a lot of coverage in the papers about the 40th anniversary of concerts at Slane Castle. The first was held in August 1981 when Thin Lizzy headlined and a young U2 performed. I remember the motorbikes roaring to Slane on the Trim to Navan road to see Bruce Springsteen and Queen in the 1980s. My first concert was REM in July 1995. I wrote this poem about it a couple of years ago and edited it tonight.

REM at Slane Castle, July 1995

 

I danced around the hill triumphantly

to Losing my Religion, 

sang the lyrics with conviction.

When darkness came fireworks fizzed.

Earlier Oasis had left their microphones on, 

Liam Gallagher exiting the stage 

a classic villain,

to blaring, screeching, 

drum piercing scratches.

Belly played Feed the Tree

which I loved from some grunge

compilation album my older brother owned.

It had been a year since Kurt died.

I sewed patches adorned 

with his face to my denim schoolbag.

I thought I knew everything.

Nightswimming was yet to deserve

a quiet night, and everybody would hurt.

Orla Fay 

Ledwidge Day 2021 at Islandbridge

 

It was a beautiful morning in The War Memorial Gardens where Inchicore Ledwidge Society hosted last year's postponed Francis Ledwidge Poetry Award ceremony. It was a new experience for me and I loved the rose garden setting. Afterwards Liam O'Meara laid a wreath in honour of poet Francis Ledwidge and those lost to war. 

A short video of some pictures taken above.

The Francis Ledwidge Poetry Award has gone from strength to strength and details of how to enter this year's prize are below. 

Submissions Call for Issue 4 of Drawn to the Light Press

The Harvester (oil on canvas), Vincent van Gogh (1853-90)

Lughnasa blessings to all readers, a candle is lit here to welcome the season in. I learned that autumn began in August. 

August Lúnasa

September Meán Fómhair (Middle of autumn)

October Deireadh Fómhair (End of autumn)

June, July, August. Every day, we hear their laughter. I

think of the painting by van Gogh, the man in the chair.

Everything wrong, and nowhere to go. His hands over

his eyes.

from August by Mary Oliver 

The submission period for issue 4 of Drawn to the Light Press opens on Sunday, 1st August and closes on Tuesday, 31st August at midnight. Please send up to 3 poems of 40 lines or less using Times New Roman 12 font. Poems should be single spaced.

Submissions of art and photography are very welcome.

There is no set theme for submissions.

All work should be sent to orla.a.fay@gmail.com

Contributors should be 18 or older. If you have been published in the previous issue please do not submit to this issue.

#4 will be published in October 2021.

The Stairway to Heaven

Stairway to Heaven

Hello bloggers, it's been a while since I last had a heart to heart, but it's been a tough couple of months. Last week's heatwave was amazing and yesterday I climbed Cuilcagh Boardwalk Trail in Fermanagh with a good friend. It would have been easy to give up a couple of times but with endeavour and encouragement we made it to the top. It was a sweltering 26 degrees for us Irish ladies as the sun beamed down.

Today I thought of Fermanagh poets and came across an Enniskillen poem by Tadhg Dall Ó hUiginn on research. He was reacaire to the Maguire chieftains of Enniskillen. 

"The role of the poet was a unique position in Gaelic medieval society. Highly regarded, well paid, and extremely learned, they were employed by chieftains and the aristocracy. 

Court poets (ollamhs) composed poems praising their patron’s beauty, strength, hospitality and success in love and war. The poems were usually written for special occasions such as Christmas, Easter, a wedding or funeral. 

Poems were written in Classical Gaelic according to traditional rules and set imagery. They were composed in a darkened room. The poet shut himself off to draft a complete poem in his head. Only once the whole poem had been memorised, could it then be written down."

 from Enniskillen Poem...

Long ere ever I came to the white-walled rampart amongst

the blue hillocks it seemed to me if I could reach that house

 I should lack nothing. 

I heard, alas for me that heard it, such repute of the fairy

 castle of surpassing treasure, and how my beguilement was

in store, that it was impossible to turn me back from it.

 I proceed on my way, I reach Enniskillen of the overhanging

 oaks; through the fair plain of bending, fruit-laden stems I

 was in no wise loth to approach it.

 Tadhg Dall Ó hUiginn (1550 - 1591)

On a completely separate note, I thought I'd give a shout out to the Spice Girls whose single Wannabe went to number 1 in July 1996, 25 years ago! My next task is to distinguish between the 'file' and 'reacaire', 'poet' and 'reciter'...apparently there's a lady who knows...

Southword 41

 

I was recently delighted to have a poem accepted for Southword 41, to be published in October. I've wanted to have a poem in Southword for many years. Thanks to Patrick Cotter and the Munster Literature Centre. 

New Poetry Chapbook Project

 

Sincere thanks to Meath County Council Arts Office and Creative Ireland for recently awarding me a professional artists development fund for the production of a new poetry chapbook. It has a working title of What Became of the Horses? I hope to release it towards the end of the year.

Two Haiku for May

 

What does the sea know?

Journeys do not end,

Life is the present river.

The apple blossoms of May

Make such tender poems,

Preludes to autumn.

The Forgotten Farm

Another ekphrastic poem based on a Greg Hasting's drawing, and memory. More of  Greg's work featuring poetry from Michael Farry, Marian Kilcoyne, Maureen Gallagher and Luke Power can be seen on his Instagram page @greghastings1066, here.

The Forgotten Farm

 

Birds chatter, a thrush jumps

up to peck raspberries,

later alighting on the flowerbed,

quickly poops yellow shit,

eyes me slyly like an alligator,

then flits away.

 

Some children play in grey distance,

calling, shouting, as we did.

A tractor pauses in throttle,

chugs on into the evening.

Roses are eruptions, impressive

by the white-washed shed.

 

The milking parlour’s gable window

is black as the universe.

I see my father through it, thirty years ago.

The Friesians are lined up

with pumps on their udders.

I pat their black and white hide.

 

They swish tails, swat flies away, chew the cud.

Milk churns in the tank, cooling.

A bee settles on a barren rose.

The children are outside again.

As the sun sets, dreadful loneliness,

like a strangling weed, grips my throat

 

before a million silver stars appear.

 

Orla Fay

The Wormwood Doll

Once again I was delighted to collaborate with Greg Hasting, this time on a piece of magical realism. Greg can be found on Instagram @greghastings1066.  

Sketch of Wood Greg Hastings

The Wormwood Doll

 

There is a glitch in time, a slicing of space,

from which she pulls the dancer – ballerina pirouettes

on the music box to Brahms, then retires

to the forest-floor-lullaby, sleeping beauty.

 

Only the full moon can rouse her from this realm,

opaline cuts through fern canopy, splices ground,

quickens a dawn, blush veins and the earth’s vines

relax, release, return the nymph to the glowing path.

 

She flickers between worlds. Dreamt. Real.

An act of manifestation. Deeper the journey

to come out the other side, where on waking

she will dress, brush her teeth, comb her hair.

 

Orla Fay

Poetry Day Ireland Boyne Writers Instapoetry Competition

 

Boyne Writers over on Instagram (@boyne_writers) will celebrate #poetrydayirl with an Instapoetry competition. Poets can enter from Monday, 19th April until Poetry Day Ireland, Thursday 29th April. The theme this year is ‘New Directions: Maps & Journeys’.

Competition poems should be an original, unpublished work of 4 lines or less with an original background. Think haiku, couplet or free verse on variations of maps, journeys, the local and beyond. Let loose with your camera, and embolden your imagination! Embrace the technological, the creativity in social media. 

Prizes for the best 5 pieces will be announced on Poetry Day. 

Tag Boyne Writers, @boyne_writers, to enter and look out for the hashtag to include too at the weekend. 

More at https://www.poetryireland.ie/poetry-day/whats-on/spinning-the-wheel-mapping-the-familiar-and-beyond-boyne-writers-group-instapoetry-competition

Submissions Invited for Drawn to the Light Press Issue 3

 

Aurora Deirdre McKernan

Deadline: 30 Apr 2021

The submission period for issue 3 will open on Thursday 1 April, and close on Friday 30 April at midnight. This issue will be published in June.

Please send up to 3 poems of 40 lines or less, each. Work should be previously unpublished. Please use Times New Roman font, size 12. Send poetry in the body of the email and as a word document attachment. Those submitting should be over 18. Poets or artists can expect a response in May (a 4-6 week turnaround).

Submissions of artwork and photography are also invited.

Send submissions to orla.a.fay@gmail.com

If your work has been included in the previous issue (issue 2), then do not submit to #3. 

All submissions are seen, read and valued.

More here 

A Trio of Publications

 

Recently I had three poems published. Crannóg included Optimism Dressed as Joy in issue 54, spring 2021, and they will have an online launch next Friday, April 9th at 6.30 pm. 

Impossible Archetype gave a home to La Dolce Pantera Nera in issue #9 which can be read here. This poem arose in January while I was doing a writing challenge and dreamt of a black panther.

Lastly thanks to Abridged for including Serket Speaks in the Trivia issue. Trivia was the Roman goddess of sorcery and witchcraft, haunting crossroads and graveyards. Serket was an Egyptian goddess of nature, medicine, and magic associated with the scorpion. The poem is paired with an image by photographer Kevin Fletcher from a series called 'Avenue of Roses'. The goddess is speaking here.

Huge thanks to the editors of these wonderful magazines. 

Days of Clear Light from Salmon Poetry

A celebration of Salmon Poetry at 40, and a Festschrift in honour of Jessie Lendennie Days of Clear Light contains a foreword by President Michael D. Higgins. 

Edited by Alan Hayes and Nessa O'Mahony, it is a beautiful anthology of poetry and it can found here. Congratulations to Jessie who is so warmly appreciated in the book, and to all the wonderful Salmon poets involved. 

There's also an article in The Irish Times about Jessie which can be read here.

Trim Poetry Festival 2021 and Open Mic

Trim Poetry Festival takes place tomorrow, Saturday, 13 March 2021. 

Viewers can watch the events on Trim Poetry Festival blog http://trimpoetryfestival.blogspot.com/, and on Boyne Writers Instagram @boyne_writers.

10am: Live Online Poetry Workshop by Anne Tannam. Fully Booked.

3pm: Readings by members of Boyne Writers Group.

4pm: Results of Trim Poetry Competition 2021: 

Introduction and Comments by the judge, Jean O’Brien.

Readings by the winner, the runners up and some of the shortlisted poets.

6pm: Poetry Reading by Jean O’Brien.

7pm: Poetry Reading by Boyne Writers Member, Orla Fay, from her chapbook “Drawn to the Light”.

8pm: Poetry Open Mic on Zoom with Rachel Coventry as MC. 

Trim Poetry Festival : Poetry Open Mic on Zoom with Rachel Coventry as MC. at 8pm on Saturday 13 March.

Five minutes each. Use this link to join the Zoom Open Mic. The room opens at 7.45pm and people can register to read on a first come basis. https://us02web.zoom.us/j/5340756676 : Meeting ID: 534 075 6676

Rachel Coventry’s poetry has appeared in many journals including Poetry Ireland Review, The SHop, Cyphers, The Honest Ulsterman and The Stony Thursday Book. She has just completed a PhD on Heidegger’s poetics at NUIG. Her debut collection, Afternoon Drinking at the Jolly Butchers, was published by Salmon Poetry in 2018.

Ode to a Nightingale, John Keats

Midsummer Eve Edward Robert Hughes 1908

Away! away! for I will fly to thee,

         Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards,

But on the viewless wings of Poesy,

         Though the dull brain perplexes and retards:

Already with thee! tender is the night,

         And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne,

                Cluster'd around by all her starry Fays;

                        But here there is no light,

         Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown

                Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways.

I couldn't let the day pass without revisiting my favourite John Keats poem, Ode to a Nightingale. It always makes me think of a beautiful summer night. Today marks the bicentenary of his death in 1821. He was only 25. In my chapbook I include a poem called John Keats' Ghost but here I'm going to add another he inspired, which appeared in Skylight 47. 

An Mhaighdean Mhara

A Mermaid John William Waterhouse 1892

I wrote this poem in response to the song An Mhaighdean Mhara which I heard on the radio last night. I thought it was gorgeous. The song tells the story of children saying farewell to their mother who returns to her life as a mermaid. I know people are finding life hard at the moment in varying degrees, but do stay strong. Even something like listening to music can take one out of themselves and brighten the hours. Take care readers.

An Mhaighdean Mhara

(The Sea Maiden)

 

Drawn back, once again, to the shore,

in the distance they see her gently wave,

in joy and happiness to greet them,

her land children.

 

In the grey-blue dawn,

in the tide’s roar, they call Mother! Mother!

Two plaintive gulls, hopeful

as the foamy water breaking,

 

rushing in, making sand slate.

She cannot stay, sheds earthbound Mary Kinney

with one more loving glance and a flipping tail.

Further out to sea a bob of seals gather.

 

Orla Fay

Cathalbui Poetry Competition 2021

This poem of mine was recently published in the Cathalbui Poetry Competition Entries Anthology 2020. It was written a couple of years ago. 

The 2021 competition details are below:

Cathalbui Hedge School – Belcoo, Co Fermanagh

PRIZES:  1st £100: 2^nd £60: 3^rd £40. Plus a trophy in each category.

Winners announced at Cathalbui Hedge  School, Healthy Living Centre, Belcoo:

11.00 am on 12 July 2021  (May be on zoom again this year but will inform)

Entry is free – Closing date:  17 April 2021

Send to: belcoopoet@gmail.com

RULES

1. Include a name and address.

2. Place your unpublished poem in the body of the email (times new roman script font size 11) – not an attachment.

3. The judges’ decision is final

4. Say if you don’t want your entry published in the annual anthology. 

Timetable for 12 July Hedge school:

11.00am: Competition poems, judges’ comments and readings. Poetry readings.

2.00 pm: Joyce symposium: Finnegans Wake.

The Gloaming

 

The Gloaming

after a pen & ink drawing by Greg Hastings

 

All roads are middle ground, a cutting

through space and time. All journeys are paths.

We venture through sleep on liminal highways,

night what comes after this setting sun,

this brightly wrought prospect of dreaming,

this melting of torc by dusk.

 

Starlike celandines and buttercups implode,

and autumn gorse dresses a lane to sea,

that place where Plath went blackberrying,

that just-over-the-horizon entity, magnet of death,

centre of chaos, conversely of order, and peace –

in the eye of the storm, the centre of life.

 

But this light is not fenced in, pours, spills

out over barriers, not unlike water, or words,

races ahead in thought, makes colour silken,

embellishes blue with green. We know these lines,

this form, walk through prisms of existence,

find ourselves stopping – an outsider looking in.

 

Orla Fay

The Gloaming is written after a pen and ink drawing by West of Ireland artist Greg Hastings. His Instagram page can be viewed here.