OMIGOD! It’s not ‘The Last Wednesday’ again, is it? Yes, my good man, it sure is! Just where did
the month GO! Plenty on offer as always, including the launch of a new poetry magazine, ‘Poetry Bus’ edited by Peadar O’Donoghue. Forty poems! And includes people you’ve often heard me going on and on about on this blog: Stephen James Smith, Niamh Bagnell, Colm Keegan, Maggie O’Dwyer… Absolutely great value. Peader says in his introduction that ‘my dream is for it to become one of the best poetry magazines in the world’. What a great start! Congrats to all concerned and well done Paedar.

Missed a few writers at the beginning because my bus decided to lounge around Lucan Village for about 20 minutes, but was in time to hear a great range of talent, including Phil Lynch with a poem mentioning the Berlin Wall and one on a recurring dream. Karl Parkinson also had a ‘dream’ poem, ‘I Have a Dream”, from his collection ‘a sacrament of song’, and you should get your hands on this collection as soon as possible. John Piggot, Damian Clarke, Maggie O’Dwyer, Susan Roe, Helen Dempsey, Bob Shakeshaft… what great stuff! And then Sandra Harris, whose stories are really arresting, by which I mean they are really strong on story and keep everyone’s attention to the very end. No higher praise, I think, for a short story. This one was about three wishes that went very wrong. Then Ross Hattaway with ‘The Need for Leadership’, a rather sadonic piece dressed up as off-hand comedy. And it really is comic, until one starts applying it to what’s going on in society today. Ann Tannem,

like Ross, gave something of a disguised reflection on our Ireland of today (my God, everyone is getting soooo serious. I better stop writing those jokey poems of mine), followed by Oran Ryan with his ‘Dinner with Dr. Mengele ‘(what did I tell you!!!). Donal Maloney gave us a piece from his novella, replete as always with his profound love of classical music, and then Frank Moore gave some poems, intermingled with snatches of old songs, and Kate Dempsey gave us a ‘recession’ poem (serious, serious, serious…I’m tellin’ ye…)

Thank God I DID have a serious poem for the night (‘Listening to My Elders’) which then allowed me to read some of my silly Haiku (notice I didn’t say ‘haikuS’) and ‘That Look’.