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.
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...
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.
If you enjoy reading my blog then why not buy me a coffee or support the blog's upkeep!
"Time held me green and dying Though I sang in my chains like the sea."
"When the heart weeps for what it has lost the spirit laughs for what it has found."
"(i do not know what it is about you that closes and opens; only something in me understands the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses) nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands"
Orla Fay is a member of Boyne Writers Group. In 2001 she won the Meath Chronicle/Bookwise Short Story Competition and in 2003 the Drogheda Creative Writers Adult Poetry Competition. In 2004 she had a poem commended in the Golden Pen Poetry Competition and in 2005 she was awarded 3rd place in the Dunlavin Poetry Competition and published in the 23rd Dunlavin Festival of Arts Annual. She has been published in the Meath Chronicle, New Poems of Oriel (2006), Boyne Berries Magazine, Crannog Magazine, Revival Poetry Journal, The Sharp Review, Ropes 2010, NUIG's Writers' Society's Writers' Exchange Chapbook, Riposte, Wordlegs, The Linnet's Wings, The Stony Thursday Book 2011 & 2013, thefirstcut, Shot Glass Journal, Census 3, Silver Blade Magazine, HeadSpace, Outburst, The Galway Review, The Artistic Atlas of Galway, Shamrock Haiku Journal, Carillon, The Poetry Porch, Three Drops from a Cauldron, The Ofi Press, Headstuff, Abridged, Amaryllis, The Pickled Body, A New Ulster, Tales from the Forest, The Honest Ulsterman, Lagan Online, An Anthology of Reactions, The Rose Magazine, Orbis and The Ogham Stone 2017. In 2008 she was a finalist in the Meath County Library Eist Poetry Competition. In 2009 she had a poem commended in the Francis Ledwidge International Poetry Award. In 2010 she had a poem highly commended in the Windows Publications Cavan Crystal Poetry Award. In 2011 she had a story selected for The Lonely Voice: Short Story Introductions in The Irish Writers' Centre. In June 2012 she published her poetry chapbook Drawn to the Light. She was a featured reader at O'Bheal in Cork in March 2013. She was highly commended for poetry in The Jonathan Swift Creative Writing Awards in October 2013 and long-listed in the WOW fiction Awards 2014. She was longlisted for poetry in The Anthony Cronin International Poetry Prize 2017, The Fish Poetry Prize 2017 and The Over the Edge New Writer of the Year Competition 2017 and shortlisted in The Rush Poetry Competition 2017, The Dermot Healy Poetry Award 2017 and The Red Line Book Festival Poetry Competition 2017.
