Adeste Fideles

 

I'm having a read through of Crannog 32.  Fellow Boyne Writer Brendan Carey Kinnane has a poem included in this issue.  His poem is called Khayelitsha.  I haven't read anything of Brendan's in a while but this poem, like all his poems, is rich in language.  Kevin Graham, whom I admire has a poem included called The Snow Globe.   Clare Sawtell has a poem called When They Leave which I like too.  As I'm reading the journal I can't help smiling and thinking about how I want to write something new.  I love poetry.  Isn't it good that you can fall in love over and over again?  This bodes well for fidelity!  I don't even know where to start with Abridged Primal.  I suppose initially I'm drawn to Beth MacFarlane's Deep Shadows because it has a resonation with my poem Of the Crow.  I also like Vast, Illusive Sea by Jan Harris.  Kevin Graham has a poem in this too called Raw, as does Ann Egan who has a poem in Crannog 32 called Butterfly on a Rafter.  I also love Enda Coyle-Greene's Hedgehog.  There is so much to admire and think about in these magazines.  Needless to say I'm refreshed and inspired by the work. 

The Bicycle Diary

 

Now while I should be finishing off my reflective practice journals for my course I've been making a new blog which can be found at http://orlasbicyclediary.blogspot.ie/ This blog will be a diary of my trips cycling I intend.  I hope that it will motivate me too to get fit. 

I received copies of Crannog 32 and Abridged 0__29 Primal in the post in the past week and they are lovely.  I will retreat and read them over the weekend.

Until then!

Adieu!

Boyne Berries 13

Above is a photograph and a poem by Anne Crinion representing Knowth in Co. Meath.  It appears in Boyne Berries 13 alongside the print and poem Newgrange.  Boyne Berries 13 contains prose and poetry by members of The Boyne Writers' Group.  It also contains work by Tom French, Patrick Doherty, CP Stewart, Byron Beynon, Johanna C Leahy, Cliff Wedgbury, Barbara Leahy, Margaret Galvin, Kenneth Keating, Pearse Murray, Elaine Martin, Ana Maire Blackburn, Fiona Bolger, John Ennis, Liz Quirke, Gregoir O Duill, Armel Dagorn, Eileen Ni Shuilleabhain, Rachel Coventry, Alan McMonagle, Eithne Cavanagh, Mary Bradford, Tony Bailie, Paul McMahon, James Reid, Philip Quirke, Jane Blanchard, Maurice Devitt, Kevin Connelly, John Saunders, Marie Gethins, Chris Connolly, Louis Mulcahy, Teresa Sweeney, Dawn Lowe, Frank Joussen, Greg Bogaerts and Margaret Cahill. 

 

Boyne Berries 13 can be purchased from the following link:

 

http://www.boynewriters.com/buy_or_submit.html

 

Thanks to Frank Murphy for launching Boyne Berries 13.  He is pictured below at the launch in the Castle Arch Hotel, Trim with vice-chairperson Caroline Carey Finn. 

 

Abridged 0-29 Primal

Abridged 0 – 29: Primal: Edgar Martins, Lynda Tavakoli, Lynn Rothwell, Mark Goodwin, Sarah Usher, Stephen Murray, Cecilia Danell, Vivian Jones, Beth MacFarlane, Jan Harris, Stephanie Conn, Rebecca McGetrick, Dominic Connell, Kevin Graham, Aoife Mannix, Orla Fay, Mhairi Sutherland, Emma Must, Ruth Stacey, Eleanor Rees, Gail Mahon, Róisín Tierney, Martin Boyle, Ann Egan, Ian Clarke, David Andrew, Luke Prater, Belinda Loftus, Enda Coyle-Greene, Peter O’ Neill, Moyra Donaldson. Launch at the Golden Thread Gallery, Belfast, Thurs 04th April.

I was of course delighted to get an email from Gregory McCartney of Abridged saying that they would like to take my poem Of the Crow for this issue.  I always admire their submission calls.  Primal's was:

PRIMAL

The bodies of the naked on the low damp ground…In the violet hour to the violent sound

What first was humanity, in its primal condition, still smouldering with instinct and fear? We shift about in mind-forged manacles, the cold and viscous layer of the urban which closes us in with crusting edges. We are numbed and enveloped in the thick residue of industry and development. Lines of buildings, artificial languages and artificial lives, leave us unfeeling in unchallenged survival and a lost human heritage.

 

And we, low to the ground and overwhelmed in the sensurround, were marked with earth and the stench of other bodies. We were flooding inside, unlived and burning. All of our skin, naked to the air and to the movements of gravel under our pulsing palms and the balls of our feet; a charged weather encloses bare flesh, flailing bodies lit by a deep sun. We are locked and tangled in cyclical smoke movements around the flames and we are howling.

 

 

I've just submitted my latest two assignments through moodle.  They were 2000 words each on social and emotional well-being and gender in play.  Happy Easter!

Ó Bhéal's 300th

I very much enjoyed reading on Monday past in The Hayloft Bar above The Long Valley on Winthrop St. I met fellow featured reader and poet Maurice Devitt and I was impressed by his poetry especially the poems The Joy of Sets and The Lion Tamer Dreams of Office Work. Also I was touched by the poignant Mexico 1970 and The Watch, which both remember Devitt's father.

I must thank Paul Casey, founder and director of  Ó Bhéal for making the night enjoyable and for his hospitality. Also thanks to everyone who attended and listened.

I read from my chapbook; the 13 poems of Drawn to the Light. The readings are recorded and you can listen to lots of wonderful writers on the O'Bheal website. Next Monday the poet Ann Joyce will read. The 15th of April will be the 304th event and the 6th anniversary of O'Bheal. Well done.

On Monay night I stayed in the Parkview B & B, a rare and lovely place. Thanks to Finbar for his hospitality. Finally here is a shot of Cork City at night from the bedroom window.

Haunted by the poetic voice of Christina Rossetti

Yes this is what just happened to me!  I'm in bed writing a poem, well I've closed the document now to come back to it at a later stage, and a line from one of Christina Rossetti's poems wrote itself onto the page.  Now obviously I don't want to pawn this line as my own (as if) but maybe I'll allow its presence in italic.  Anyway I feel quite chirpy, like the birds, probably because it is spring and because I've rinsed my mind in silence.
 

Crannóg 32 Launch

Crannóg 32 will be launched in the Crane Bar, Sea Road, Galway at 6.30 pm tomorrow.  I can't wait to get my hands on a copy.  Isn't the cover cool?  It makes me think of the Queen song The Invisible Man. 

You can buy the magazine here http://www.crannogmagazine.com/