I spent Saturday evening at the fantastic Laurel Villa Townhouse in Magherafelt for a poetry reading from three poets, two from Australia and one from America. Jeffrey Thompson is from Maine and is currently spending some time in Belfast as a Fulbright Distinguished Scholar in The Heaney Centre. Petra White and Paul Hetherington are Australian poets representing Australia on a tour of Ireland. There was a packed house for the reading and I really enjoyed hearing some new(to me) poets, all three with very different styles and subject matter; and all extremely talented.
Afterwards we had supper, including some luscious pavlova and several glasses of wine. I had a great time sitting out on the patio in the lovely warm evening, chatting and hearing about the Australian poetry scene from Paul who also tried to convince me me that really, red backed spiders were not a reason for me to stay away from Australia. I wasn't entirely convinced.
Sunday morning involved more food, all home made and delicious.
It's a wonderful place to stay, and Eugene and Gerardine are great hosts. To round off an excellent 24 hours, Eugene gave me a piece of bog oak to take home with me, thus fulfilling a long held wish of mine to possess a piece of this black wood.
About Me
- Moyra
- Poet, creative writing facilitator, editor. Experienced mentor for those working towards a first collection. My publishers are Lagan Press, Belfast and Liberties Press, Dublin, who published my Selected Poems in 2012, The Goose Tree in June 2014. Blood Horses was published in 2018 from Caesura Press www.caesurapress.co.uk and a new collection, Carnivorous was published from Doire Press Spring 2019 www.doirepress.com Awarded an Arts Council of NI Major Artist Award in 2019
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