Another 7 Towers night with lots of stuff on show. I arrived late (don’t ask) and missed some people but caught Jim Rooney with a poem about Brien Friel and one about an ‘Angel Poet’, both very witty. I liked also Mary Wogan’s poem ‘As She battled Cancer’ (about Farrah Fawcett, recently deceased) which had that clear-edged, no frills, language that appeals to me. Jane Robinson’s poem about the extinction of a particular species of monkey also appealed to me. It was really well done. I have written on similar themes myself. Eileen Keane gave us part 2 of a story she started a few open mics ago (‘Tea at the Hotel Glengoorly’), so we finally found out what happened to the heroine (I am NOT, of course, going to tell you). Also on offer was Stephen Jame Smith who performed his work, including his very moving ‘How Is She’, and reminded us that ‘Glor’ on Monday nights at the International Bar (9.00pm), is an open mic well worth a visit. Desmond Swords read a piece about ‘default poetry’ in which (among other themes) he made a few lunges at the idea of there being a ‘correct poem’. I read some more polemicals about ‘The War on Terror’. It’s much on my mind, looking at the daily carnage in Afghanistan that has replaced the daily carnage in ‘Iraq’ in the TV newsreels. MC for the night was Declan McLaughlin, with his usual panach.