Elementary

This is the second Beautiful Dragons project with which I've been involved. The first was 'Heavenly Bodies' where 88 poets wrote a poem each to represent each of the 88 constellations. My constellation was Triangulum and the eventual poem was A Dream of Three.
In this new anthology poets were invited to pick an element from the periodic table and I chose Silica.

Dreamt up, organised, edited and masterminded by the wonderful Rebecca Jane Irvine the projects are not only great fun but also a challenge and I love being involved. The launch of the new book will be in Manchester on the 27th November and the book will be available at the link below, where you can also see a picture of the lovely production.



http://www.beautiful-dragons.com/Beautiful_Dragons/My_Dear_Watson.html

Dis-Ease moves to Bangor

As part of Aspects Literary Festival, the Dis-Ease exhibition opens on Wednesday 2nd September in Sync Space, Dufferin Avenue. Opening at 6.00 pm and a short reading at 7.00pm.

Dis-Ease

Very pleased that the exhibition of Dis-Ease is part of the Belfast Book Festival. The result of my collaboration with photographic artist Victoria J Dean, the exhibition consists of a series of images combined with poems or extracts from poems. It opens on Monday 8th June at 7.45 - everyone welcome.

 

 

http://www.belfastbookfestival.com/#!exhibitions/cahm 

 

Absorbed

 

I’d take you back into myself,

every cell, each chromosome.

 

I’d have you back, before birth,

before conception, all

 

your future still ahead. I’d hold

you as an imagined thing, safe.

Solas Nua

A poem of mine - read in Washington for St Patrick's Day


http://www.wjla.com/blogs/lets-talk-live/2015/03/irish-book-day--24770.html

Irrevocable Things

I was fortunate enough to recently have a poem win the North West Words Poetry Competition. Here it is - for anyone who would like to read it.
It is also included in the Spring edition of the North West Words on-line magazine

Irrevocable Things

We lead him to the chosen spot.

A bright day, without clouds,

autumn sun still holding its heat.

He trusts us; we’ve never

given him reason not to trust us.

The sky blue drug goes in,

we see him feel it hit

and then we watch helpless

the violence of his falling and terrible
tumbling over himself, his desperate
lurching refusal to stay down though
unable to stay up; it goes on forever,
until he’s prone at last and Claire
puts her hand over his eye and
he gives in to the shuddering darkness.
A bullet loudly, thankfully, finishes it.

 It has dragged the heart from me;

I want to cry wait horse, wait,
come back,
we’ll do it better, it was a kindness
that we meant.

 All the regret for every hurt I’ve ever caused,

sadness for everything I’ve ever lost,
is pouring through this rent, that wound,
his drawn back lips, his emptied eyes.

When I am Old

A lovely image from Liberties Press to go with my poem - When I am Old


https://www.facebook.com/DublinLibertiesPress/photos/a.225210427514078.50427.117184288316693/784097174958731/?type=1

Time's winged chariot

I first became involved with social media a number of years ago when I received the ACNI Artist Career Enhancement Award. Sites such as Facebook and Twitter were recommended as a way to increase artist profile and keep in touch with what was happening – and it’s true – I have built up a network that allows me to hear about a lot of submission opportunities and competitions. On one level, it’s great; never miss a thing and I do love to hear about other poets’ successes and new books. But on another level it induces great anxiety in me. I write very slowly and sometimes long periods of time go by when I don’t write at all. I simply don’t have enough poems to keep up with the opportunities.

 

Time is a strange thing. In my career as a poet I have always juggled writing with a full time job that pays the bills, with bringing up a family, with other interests and with all the stresses and strains that are part of life. I always seemed to be able to find the time, even if it meant sitting up into the early hours. Even when traumatic things were happening, there always seemed to be time to write. Now time seems to have shrunk – or maybe it’s my energy levels.

 

I had imagined that as I got older, life would become less frantic, less emotionally demanding, less of a roller-coaster ride. Not a bit of it – if anything it’s more intense. I probably have more time to myself than I used to have – in fact I know I do – but it seems to drift past me in ways it never did before.

 

Which brings me back to all those opportunities for publication - I’m frustrated with myself that I can’t be more disciplined with myself, that I can’t focus more on my writing. I’m never going to be prolific, but I should be doing more. Time is running out.

 

So – what can I do? Energy foods? Throw out the TV? Employ a muse that wields a cattle prod?

Signing Syndrome

I’m just wondering if any other authors suffer from this syndrome. It’s the one where someone hands you one of your books to sign after a reading and every single brain cell you have stops working. Brain freeze. The person standing in front of you is someone you have known for at least ten years – but can you remember their name?

Spelling also goes totally out the window; for example last night, I managed to totally mangle the name Nathaniel so that it resembled nothing more than a long line of consonants.

So far I have remembered my own name, but I’m not complacent about that always being the case.

How I envy those authors who can manage to write an erudite but personal message under these circumstances.

 

A great surprise

I didn't know it was happening until I got the link from my publisher. Honoured to have a poem read by the great Garrison Keillor


http://goo.gl/EzuDpB


And then discovered another one!
http://writersalmanac.org/episodes/20141114/

Writing about reading

There have been so many poetry readings over the last few months that it would have been just about impossible for one person to get to them all. I managed to get to quite a few over the summer, and they got me thinking about the purpose of a ‘reading’. For me it adds to my understanding of a poet’s work; to hear them read, to hear where they put the inflections, the pauses, the emphasis. I go back to the poems on the page with the poet’s voice still in my head. Hearing Miriam Gamble, Anne-Marie Fyfe and Theo Dorgan read from their new collections has made me feel as if I have been given a key to the books themselves, making entry to the work easier. On another level, it can be the pure pleasure of just listening, letting the words enter through the ears rather than the eyes.

Hearing Myra Vennard read at the On Home Ground Festival in Magherafelt was one of the joys of my summer. The tone of the event was set by Damian Smyth, who seemed to channel the spirit of Heaney into the room, holding the atmosphere despite noise from outside and other distractions. Myra’s poetry flowed into and around the audience like a spiritual balm. I felt as if I was listening, not to a poet read, but to poetry itself. The event finished with the wonderful voice of singer songwriter Ciara O’Neil and I could feel the hairs stand up on the back of my neck. The music and poetry complimented each other perfectly.

Another outstanding reading for me was that of Damian Smyth during Aspects Festival. I have been at readings where, when the poet announces that he/she is reading two more poems, you can almost hear the collective sigh of relief from the audience that the end is in sight; but this was the opposite. I was at a table with a number of other poets, Jean Bleakney , Paul Maddern and Jonathan Hicks and we all agreed that we could have listened for hours. For me it was like the pleasure I had as a child listening to my mother read me the next chapter from whatever book we were on.

I always appreciate the opportunity to read my own work to an audience and I hope people enjoy hearing me read my poetry. I’m always inclined to the view that ‘less is more’ when I read at events. I’m terrified of boring everyone! Different readings can have very different feels to them for the poet standing up there. I’m always nervous beforehand. I usually pick a range of poems to read and adjust the list according to the ‘feel’ I’m getting from the audience. It can depend on so many factors, but sometimes I feel as if my words are toppling off a cliff and other times I can feel the warmth, interest and engagement. Like most poets I have poems that I know work at a reading and others that I seldom read in public. It’s not that one is ‘better’ than the other, some poems just work well spoken aloud and some suit the solitude between the reader and the page. It’s always a bit nerve wracking giving a new poem its first spoken outing.

All of this pondering meant I was very interested to be asked to attend a Poetry Slam as a ‘judge’. It was good fun, though I did feel slightly uneasy at the idea of poetry as competition. It allowed me to reflect on the difference between ‘performance poetry’ at a slam, and a more conventional reading. My conclusion was that good poetry shines through in either setting.