Category: On-Line
‘Live Encounters’. The poems are ‘My father Saved Lives’, ‘Black Saturday 1941 Revisited’ and ‘Duende’. The first is a personal poem, relating to my father who spent some time on the construction of the hospital in Blanchardstown (now Connolly Hospital) where TB patients could be treated. ‘Black Saturday’ deals with the difficulty of forgiving while not forgetting, and Duende came out of an essay by Garcia Lorca in which he eloquently discusses that crucial moment of clarity in the mind that sets off creativity.
‘A New England Schoolroom c. 1800’ in ‘Flare’, the quarterly ‘narrowsheet’ produced by the long-running Sunflower Sessions. This open-mic event occurs every last Wednesday of the month (except December) and is now located in ‘The Lord Edward’ pub opposite Christchurch Cathedral, Dublin. Copies of Flare (€5) are available at the sessions. NB: The Sessions are always friendly, lively and full of fun. Come along, and not just because of FOMO!Publication on-line in ‘Southword’, #31
A poem of mine appeared in the online poetry magazine ‘Southword’ last month (issue 31) and it is very good news to be published alongside some really fine practitioners of the art. Hard to pick out particular favorites but the ones I found most striking were Geraldine Mitchell’s Remote Capture who wrote out of a photograph depicting a group of actively energetic young people. The energy is caught brilliantly in the poem. Sinead Morrissey’s Platinum Anniversary also took me in, and her use of space to let the poem breath is really good. And Matthew Sweeney’s Owl Song and its restrained sense of loss I found very appealing. My own poem also speaks of loss, especially during ‘Those First Evenings’.
All 32 the poems can be read on the website http://www.munsterlit.ie Enjoy!
Publication in Stepaway Magazine #22, January 2017
I am very gratified to be included in the on-line Magazine ‘Stepaway’. In its own words, ‘this is an an award-winning online literary magazine which publishes the best urban flash fiction and poetry by writers from across the globe’. Contributors lead their readers ‘through the streets of his or her chosen city. They do so in one thousand words or less.’
This issue #22 includes poems set in places as diverse as Dublin (me), Moscow (Liz McSkeane), Paris (Seamus Hogan) and several more. Some, ‘Dwelling on Decay’ by Michael Schiffman for instance, do not name the actual place and they are not the less effective for that, perhaps even more effective. Anonymity allows a degree of universality. Michael’s poem is my pick from among the very good material on display in this issue. It is a type of list poem that is not merely a list poem, with people’s histories moving in and out of it. And, despite its title, it has some lyrically luminous descriptions (‘ … a pair of small butterflies / flit among these autumn blooms / (what nectar will they find)’). A really evocative piece.
My own contribution He Walks His Several Cities is a nostalgic piece, which tries to
convey my feelings as I walk today through my Dublin realising that it isn’t quite my Dublin, so much has changed. I came across an old photo in The Irish Times in a piece by Arminta Wallace showing the corner of Westmoreland Street in the 1950s with the old Leyland buses taking up people and I then took a photo of the place as it is today. Unfortunately it’s not a good photo because the view is dominated by roadworks for the new Luas (i.e., metro) line but I did mange to capture a modern a bus. Think how amazed the people of the ’50s photo would have been at the sight of it! The two photos show something of the changes I see around me as I walk the street now, but with that old-photo scenario still playing in my sixty-eight-year-old head! And lest you think I am harking back to ‘the good old days’ well, No Sir! Dublin is a much brighter, cleaner place today than it was back then.
You can view all the poems on the Stepaway site at http://www.stepawaymagazine.com
and congratulations go to Darren Richard Carlaw (and his team) on producing such a clean, uncluttered website which forefronts its content so well. As you will read on the site, contributions are welcome. Send one story or poem at a time to submissions@stepawaymagazine.com All submissions should be contained within the body of the email. No attachments.
StepAway Magazine is a nonprofit organization, edited and maintained by volunteers.
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