The Lucan Festival 2010 Poetry and Prose Reading was held at 7.00pm at the on Wednesday 22nd Sept at the Festival’s art exhibition at the Douglas Newman Good offices in Lucan Village. Writers Lucan joined writers from the Seven Towers Agency to give a varied and entertaining night.

Local writer David Mohan read a couple of poems, including one highlighting the

bizarre names of Chinese takeaways and a dark suburban poem entitled ‘Quiet’. Ross Hattaway read from his book ‘The Gentle Art of Rotting’ and also some pieces he is fashioning towards his next collection ‘Pretending to be Dead’ (2012). Alma Brayen read from her recently published book ‘Prism’ and then it was time for another local writer Triona Walsh who gave us a ‘local’ poem: The Weir Tea Rooms and also a poem dedicated to her daughter. Then it was over Oran Ryan from Seven Towers who surprised us with his’ Polar Bear for Sale’ and ‘Dinner with Dr Mengele’, both startlingly original pieces.

After a short break, Niamh Bagnell delivered a poem specially written for the occasion ‘Don’t Bring Your Pigeon into Douglas Newman Good’ and then went on to give some poetry without a script. Steve Conway gave an excerpt from his very successful ‘Shiprocked’ book and also a new piece on ballooning. What?– You heard me. Ballooning! Another local writer, Louise Philips, gave us some poems centring on human relaltionships and on that word we (poets and everyone else) have difficulties with: ‘love’. But Louise’s uncluttered style saw her read poems of refreshingly simple directness. Raven was last up and gave hid usual strong individual performance. He is always spell-binding in both his poetry and his

presence. He is every inch and artist and as soon as he starts… that’s it! You’re captured! And so I made no notes of the poems he delivered (without a script, as usual) gut I did recognise some of my favourites, including ‘Midway’, which appears in The First Seven Towers Census Anthology (2009)

As for myself, I did MC and started things off with a poem that dates back to my fist days living in Hillcrest in Lucan (1976!) entitled ‘Early Dispatches’ and which you can read in my poetry blog in the ‘poetry’ category.

It was a great evening and a terrific mixture of talent from Lucan and further afield. And a big Thank You to Niamh Bagnell for coralling all the Lucan scribes and herdng down to the fesival reading. And Thank So Much to the Seven Towers Agency for ferrying out to Lucan all that talent! Very much appreciated.