Last week’s Seven Tower’s themed reading at Chapters Bookstore in Dublin was on

‘Animals’ and first into the fray was Karl Parkinson with his City Sonata, a poem which mentions gulls and so, if you consider gulls as animals… but who cares. What a great poem it is (‘ I sing the city into exsitence from my dreaming…’). Also a new poem called ‘Fishing’. Eileen Keane gave an excerpt from a story in which a cat figures prominently (very good, but I’m somewhat damaged as to ‘cats’, having endured an awful lot about ‘Kilkenny cats’ during the previous week). Then Bernie O’Reilly with some poems, among which one with a moral: don’t creep around the house late at night looking for cheese. OK, Bernie. Point taken. Richard Halperinon a brief visit from Paris read from his book ‘Anniversary’ and one published in that

new magazine ‘The Moth’ which I’m never able to find anywhere. John Sexton gave a powerful rendering of ‘The Green Owl’ and some others. Terrific stuff. I found shades of Bukowski in his (John’s)  ‘The Invisible Horses’. Alma Brayden read from her ‘Prism’ book and then Oran Ryan described how ‘Alexander Wormgrind Saved the World’ and Phil Lynch came up with a polemical poem referring to those now far off days of the Economic Boom (remember?). I was last (but of course not least) with poems about cats, dogs (‘The Dogs in the Street…’  from my book ‘And Suddenly the Sun Again’) and rats. Veryenjoyable to read and to listen. Next month (Thurs 13th Oct) the theme is ‘Ghosts and Ghouls’ in keeping with the month that will be in it. Come along and have a great evening.