Analogue Magazine - out now

Issue 5 of Analogue music magazine is out now - free to pick up somewhere near you. I did this cover illustration for them, along with a few spot illustrations for the article itself, on the subject of mental illness among rock musicians. A little different than my usual approach, but it's not a subject you can be too flippant about.

Byrne and Eno : Its-a Happening (again)

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Well whadyaknow - those erstwhile mavericks of the New Wave are now quite middle-aged. Hasn't stopped them getting back together to do the collaboration hustle. Good thing? Bad thing? Thing Thing!

I've quite a soft spot for their 1980 album 'My Life in the Bush of Ghosts'. Along wih whale sounds, The Cramps and The Goon Show, it brings me back to the hazy basement rooms of georgian houses, back when I first to entered studenthood. A hugely influential album, this new one (with its Miranda July-ish title) can't really be anything along those lines, but these two particularly crispy heads are always going to have some sonic sparks to bring to the equation, so check it! Here! The whole album is streaming for your listening pleasure and there's one track available as a free download (once you submit yopur email address to the cybermephisto).

Tropic Thunder Preview Screening



Stiller Inc. - back with a bang!!!


I went along to an advance screening of Tropic Thunder last night - thanks again to those enlightened, generous people at the wonderful Movies.ie - and had some of the best belly laughs of recent times. Anybody who’s familiar with the Stiller package will have a good idea what to expect and judging by the enthusiastic (and somewhat blokey) audience profile, there’s a whole posse well hungry for this particular brand.

I won’t get into spoiler territory, but I think this one will have you you spitting popcorn out your nose on at least a couple of occasions, whether you’re a fan or not. It may not be quite the ‘Nam Zoolander’ that it has been touted as, but it’s damn near! While it looks like it was a lot of fun to make, its worth remembering that this is the movie Owen Wilson had to skip due to his hospitalisation - so maybe not quite so light a mood on set after all.

The plot sees a bunch of preening hollywood types bogged down, way behind schedule and over budget, in an expensive jungle shoot for a ‘nam memoir’ movie. In a desperate attempt to redeem himself and motivate his charges, the inexperienced brit director (a manic Steve Coogan) attempts to go ‘off the grid’, shooting guerilla stylee in the interior – with disasterous results. Trouble is, the actors are so self-immersed, it takes a while for the facts to catch up it with them in the form of some pretty real adversaries. Along the way, cliches are mined, dialogue is peppered and (of bloody course) truths are dispensed. With explosions, heroin and dentures.

As in the very, very funny ‘trailers’, Robert Downey Jr. is the best thing here. Much has been made of his character (think Russell Crowe meets Brad) going deep blackface, and much of the ‘plot’ hangs on (Stiller’s character) Tugg Speedman’s previous performance ‘going full retard’ – so there’s lots of pointy excrement-smeared sticks to poke any political correctness the audience might smuggle in. Jack Black is the most wonderfully-named ‘Jeff Portnoy’. Love it!

Along the way there’s great cameos, set-pieces, homage/pastiches and great, great oneliners. So all good then? Yeeeeeeeeeayyyyy-ish.

I was bugged by that increasingly common feeling that this really could have been an out-and-out classic. Given the premise and the cast, there was so much further these guys could have been taken. Downey Jr. is outstanding, Stiller does his ‘bambi with a brain of cheese’ bit again and Black goes through the motions – although he does get a couple of the great gags. Drop in Nick Nolte doing the ‘generic vet number 1’ gig, Matthew McConaughey doing Owen Wilson and a baldy Tom Cruise donning prosthetic hamhands to do the production’s ‘bigdick playa’ and you get much sending up of the hollywood machine. Problem is, Stiller Inc. now ARE the Hollywood machine. I was left with a distinct feeling that some of the best gags mightn’t have surved the ‘notes’ process, ending up on the floor. (Although some seem to have made it into the ‘making-of-making-of….’ documentary on youtube).

Unfortunately, scientologists don’t do humour – this one at least. Cruise’s wigga tyrant is initially a genuine treat, but overexposure turns him into the guy with the lampshade on his head at this particular party. A muddled third act, the ‘warm’ ending (complete with cutaway to clarify that ‘no kiddies were flung in the making of this movie) just seem to cop out from what could have been downright nasty fun.

But maybe I’m just picky. It’s still a whole bunch o’laffs – so check it, playa!

The Therapeutic Community (Cuckoo!)


Washington DC company Keegan Theatre are back in Ireland for their annual tour of the country. This year they bring their production of One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest to Galway, Kilkenny, Roscommon, Longford and Thurles. I was at the Pavilion Theatre, Dun Laoghaire last night to catch the tour kick-off.

Keegan specialise in staging Irish theatre in the US and I've been lucky enough to see them reciprocate with shows like Death of A Salesman, A Streetcar Named Desire and Glengarry Glen Ross on several of their previous visits to Ireland. It's always a treat to experience these American classics voiced by an American troupe. Staging is usually restrained, but the performances make up for this by embracing the characters and flinging them around the text with gusto. There's nothing particularly avante garde going on here - just solid, professional interpretations of classic texts, treated with respect and enthusiasm - just what the doctor ordered!

With a cast of fourteen, this is one of the larger productions to date. Possibly because of this, it felt a little slow to get going. Like many of the Keegan shows, audiences here may be more familiar with this play's cinematic incarnation (and that delerious Jack Nicholson performance is hard to forget!). However, the play was written in 1963 by Dale Wasserman, adapted from Ken Kesey's bestselling 1962 novel - and it retains the novel's narration by Chief Bromden, which the movie dispensed with. A lot depends on the shimmering intensity and pathos of that character on stage. Here, Kevin Adams gives a rumbling, resonant performance as the visionary (fake) catatonic – but the required gravitas was elusive to start with.

However, once Keegan stalwarth Mark A. Rhea scraps his way onstage, things kick off with aplomb. Rhea has taken centre stage on recent tours and his McMurphy is a wiley thug with a heart of, if not gold, at least solid brass. Sheri S. Herren is Nurse Ratchet with a restrained performance that gradually blooms into glacial cruelty.

The ensemble playing might fluctuate, but the central performances anchor the core of this countercultural polemic. Kesey’s writing is sometimes swamped by the appeal of his Merry Prankster persona and it’s a welcome reminder of his ability to see these characters fleshed out here. (I’m sure Wasserman played his part too – as does the show’s director Susan M Rhea).

Nowadays, we’re dangerously close to apathy about the issues Kesey was addressing; the power of the ‘Combine’, alienation, selling nobility down the river, abuse of power, the nature of insanity - they all get an airing in this work – and can still trigger modern relevances as well as wistful retrospection. I was reminded of Hunter S Thompson’s comment about California's Summer of Love;

"We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave. So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark -- the place where the wave finally broke and rolled back."

Less appealing, and yet very interesting, is the somewhat misogynistic subtext of the work. Almost all the female characters - on or offstage - with the exception of “Candy & Sandy” (the light, lewd relief) and one repressed, Catholic nurse are harridans of the highest order. ‘Ratshit’ herself, Patient Harding’s coquette wife, The Chief’s white mother, and Billy Bibbit’s tragically controlling mother are all apportioned their share of blame for the emasculation of the noble urges of the (male) individual... whereas, Doctor Spivey, and even the bullying ward orderlies, are reprieved by a backslapping camaraderie and fondness for the odd toke, or whatever. This theme had previously bypassed me somewhat, and it’s a strength of the work that the often overlooked patriarchal baggage of the 'counterculture' is overt here.

These aspects, coupled with the central theme of the Chief’s physical loss of aboriginal nobility - via his father’s malleability and weakness - brought the shadow of Hemingway looming over proceedings for this punter. There’s no doubt that Hemingway was an influence on Kesey (along with Burroughs, Steinbeck and Faulkner) - but whether this patriarchal inheritance is consciously written, I can’t say.

Keegan Theatre are touring Ireland until October 4th – full schedule here - and I’d guess this production will get better and better as it tours!

Boy In The Striped Pyjamas Premiere



The World Premiere of The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas took place in Dublin last night. The movie is based on the book by Dublin writer John Boyne, itself nothing short of a publishing phenomenon - this side of the water at least. The book has attracted a readership which runs from 10 year olds to grandparents and strikes me as one of those stories that's so simple in it's premise that it's hard to believe it isn't (a) true, or (b) hasn't been told before. And I mean that as nothing other than the highest compliment to the writer!

Boyne has been writing for many years, with 6 novels to his credit, but this book has really been his breakthrough, selling over 3 million copies to date. His newest book is a retelling of The Mutiny on The Bounty from the perspective of the cabin boy. This is a writer with a real gift for a good idea, and it's great see his back catalogue also getting plenty of attention on the back of his recent success.

I had the good fortune to win 2 tickets to the premier courtesy of movies.ie, an excellent new irish website for all things movie-related (thanks guys). Unfortunately, another commitment unexpectedly got in the way, so herself and her mum (a big Boyne fan) had the treat of attending instead. They gave it a big thumbs up - especially for Asa Butterfield's performance as Bruno, the young protaganist, whose relationship with the boy of the title is the core of the story. I won't go into too much plot detail - you either know by now it or you don't. I've a date with my daughter to see it and am looking forward to it very much!

The movie goes on general release on 12th September over here and November (I think) in the US.

Elsewhereabouthese(p)arts

Some interesting browses of recent days;

Over on the Guardian Arts blog, Billy Mills welcomed the arrival of Lughnasa in particular and Autumn in general with a call for posts of Autumn poems - which quickly led to the usual syndrome of blog commentators picking a tangent and engaging in hostilities thereon. This time its about obscenity or violence of language and imagery in Art, no less. Some tasty poems scattered in there though - and the thread is still growing!

***

Expat Hungarian poet & translator George Szirtes' blog is consistently thought-provoking, always worth a visit and a couple of recent posts, springing from his recent trip to his birthplace, Budapest, stood out. But there's no shortage of great stuff here, from his trademark dry humour to more sombre commentary. Just excellent!

***

Meanwhile, over on Polyolbion, Matt Merritt has a good review of Happenstance stablemate James W Wood's recent collection, Inextinguishable. It's a cracking collection, which I hope to review here myself soon. One distinguishing feature is the fact that it's illustrated - students of Edinburgh College of Art interpreted his work, to mixed effect. This is an area that interests me - but it's rare to see a really successful collaboration of this kind. In that regard, I feel this book isn't quite there. However, the poems themselves are fine! Some of the artwork is fine too, but together - I'm not so sure?

***

Finally, over at the Irish Times, I see Aidan Dunne had also previously reviewed the I Can / Can I ? exhibition which features on the post below. He's a bit more emphatic in his take, where I found myself a little less moved - more bemused really. To be fair, I think that's part of this particular exhibit's intention. Anyhoo, who cares what the feckin' critics think - get in there yourself!

The Potentiality Exhibition

I Can / Can I?
on painting and potentiality

The current exhibition at Temple Bar Galleries sees three artists explore their relationship with painting. Sonia Shiel and Michael Coleman from Ireland and Hanneline Visnes, a Norwegian artist based in Scotland, ask questions of the medium that move from formal interrogation to downright cheeky.

Each artist examines their work in the context of Potentiality – a concept originally framed by Aristotle – which concerns itself with the potency of possibilities – ‘What if?’, ‘Where does this lead?’ and ‘Why / Why not?’. The exhibition is not an answer to these questions, but a process of investigating what it means to be a painter working in visual arts practice in 2008.

Coleman shows a calm, fixed installation of related canvases in juicy hues – a restrained progression from his body of compulsive, stylised painting. Visnes shows the most ‘traditional’ work here. A surreal motif involving raptors and jewellery is riffed out at various sizes, on unprimed MDF or paper, with an emphasis on controlled rendering. One larger piece is a very satisfactory resolution of deftly brushed filigree.

Shiel appears to have grasped the bull by the horns and wrestled it into a kind of submission. One of Ireland’s finest young painters (winning the Hennessy Craig award in 2004), she has long exhibited technical fluency. Recent years have seen her practice absorb increasingly experimental contexts. This is certainly true of her work here, to the point where paint is subverted, as in the case of Sal-on (shown above). As well as incorporating small canvases, paint also skins this assemblage, creating an almost theatrical construct.

There is risk here, in subverting the reverence which conventionally applies to gallery paintings. But this show is about risk – and questions. The biggest one of all? Are these the right questions?

I Can / Can I?
on painting and potentiality,
continues at Temple Bar Galleries until 20th September

This review originally appeared in the August 28th issue of Evening Herald HQ Magazine.

Beware The Feckless Supernatural!!!

or....what to do when yer Inspiration Fairy trades the magic wand for a dimebag? Suggestions on a postcard to Ward 9, Snow White Rehabilitation Clinic, Corpse Avenue, Neverland.

Summer Reading : Mars, a text!

Patrick Chapman's latest collection of poetry displays the characteristics which have earned him praise and recognition as one of the more interesting voices of his generation of Irish poets.

The poems in this volume - ranging as they do over broad periods of time and experience – can sometimes appear to be ‘quare bedfellows’. However, this is far from negative - if anything it emphasises the diversity and range of thought and expression in Chapman's poetry. Heated relationships, cold wars, inner and outer space all combine here to provide a backdrop for stories of the heart, mind and body in a collection that exhibits distinctly cinematic qualities. There's a touch of the Noir here - not unrelenting darkness - more highlighted angles and delineations of a gamut of memorable characters. We meet a Queen of her own private Gethsemane, a vampire-priest-ringmaster, as well as certain politicians and ‘vast and cool intelligences' opening church and shopping malls in virgin territories. Musicians and other cultural icons create a sinewy linkage between the poet and his environment.

Throughout, there's a healthy dose of surreal humour. However, one of the strengths of this collection is Chapman's ability to present humour without resorting to glibness. Here it is part of the full tableaux of human experience, woven into love, fear, bewilderment and hope. There's a fair deal of sex too.

Overall the writing is underpinned with a deceptively casual sense of craft (this is Chapman's fourth collection, following on from a recent book of stories. He's also written films and audio plays). Towards the end, the collection heads into (literally) darker waters. Immersion recurs as a theme along with various extinctions, such as the young fisherman in the poem What You Leave Behind, lost at sea while providing for his his family;

“In dying he has lumbered them with boat-wreck
And some lately settled fear an tí –
Squatting in the drowned man’s chair.”

At first, this collection charms with its immediate vibrancy - then merits re-reading to tap into some of the deeper currents at work below the surface of this skillful, considered writing.

More info here.

The SLANTy Clause

Myself and other IGI illustrators currently have an exhibition running at Ormeau Baths Galleries, Belfast. You can read all about it over on Scamp. SLANT is all about putting your own stamp on a favoured painting. The tagline is 'imitation : flattery or battery" and there's everything from straight homage to wholesale re-invention. My own painting (above) is based on Dali's Premonition of Civil War. It's ALL good - but some of my favourites are paintings by PJ Lynch, Kevin McSherry and Jonathon McHugh. Also at the same venue is The AOI's Images 31 exhibition, featuring the cream of UK illustration. So, well worth a visit! >>>>>>> UPDATE!!! You can now check out a step-by-step of the above image over here on the IGI blog SCAMP! Make sure and leave a comment!

Ronnie we hardly Drew ya!

Myself and a bunch of IGI illustrators have marked the recent passing of Ireland's most distinctive singing voice, Ronnie Drew, by putting pen to paper and coming up with a few nice scamps of the great man himself. Check em out here.

Dispatches

Written back in late 2007, but seems appropriate to the current Irish climates;

***

Dispatches

This morning, the patio is a chessboard
Drained of fight, a low contrast
Truce of gritty concrete squares

Slick under furniture pieces disarrayed;
Mouldering victims of a thuggish midnight squall.
Brick red when first assembled, inclemency
Has shrunk their ersatz teak to oldbone grey.

I know they've reached the rotting stage.

The last time they were used, not one
But two seats rent that sunny afternoon,
Their rundles detonating under laden
Celtic tiger arses, ambushed.

***

This poem featured, along with a few others, in issue 2 of Polluto - the 'Apocalypses and Garden Furniture' issue. Now there's a theme and a half - and how bizarre that I actually had a poem which fit nicely!

Jusslyktha! (ahurr, ahurr)

And on, and on, and on she kept flowin - the witch bin around before ma mother born! To turtle or not - this be the interrogative? I believe there's excellent value in real estate in Chelonia at the mo? (Limited designs tho.)

Clucksake!

Those damnable best intentions went a-wanderin' again; insulting ladyboys, got beaten up on the tube and had luggage redirected to reykjavik; ended up drinking in shoreditch with japanese kylie fans - hence the infrequency of posts of late. Didn't bother me though - stuck here at home ripvanwinklin' through the biblical deluge that is the Irish summer. Thank goodness for stumped fowl, I say!

Raccoon in the Restaurant

The good people at the Evening Herald's HQ magazine (Hi Sue!) asked me to review Meridien Theatre Company's production 'Raccoon' which is currently running at Bewleys Café Theatre, during lunchtimes, until August 23rd. You can read that review here

This really is a very good show, so if you're in the Grafton Street area for lunch before the run ends, I'd recommend it highly. The writer is an American named Tom Hall and, based on this play, I'd think his short stories (I'm guessing he's written a few) should be well worth a read. That's if anybody knows where I might find them / him? According to the bumph, he's lived in Mexico, Cork & Wexford but is now based in Dublin. 'Raccoon' also features in a double bill 'The Lost Field' from Meridien - which will be touring nationwide this November - so keep your eyes peeled.

Meridien are a lively and innovative company, with some interesting work in their archive. Their forthcoming production is 'There Are Little Kingdoms' - a play based on the short story collection of the same name by Kevin Barry. Barry was a worthy winner of the 2007 Rooney Prize for this cracking collection of tales from small-town Ireland - one of the best debut collections of recent years. The author himself is adapting the work for stage, so make a note folks, this should be a pretty hot ticket, IMHO.

Summer Reading 2 : Some Journals

It’s been a hectic couple of weeks since getting back from hols. Any headway I made in my summer reading has bottlenecked somewhat. However, before what passes for summer these days has flown, here are a few journals whose summer issues I've been stuck into;

The Stinging Fly

The Summer 2008 issue of The Stinging Fly lives up to its now well-established reputation. The regular 'First Passions' feature, where writers discuss their early reading influences, features Vona Groarke, whose recollections range from the first book she ever owned, aged five (or six) to the 'full force gale' of individual poems. There's the usual rigorous selection of innovative new prose - a Stinging Fly trademark by now - alongside a very healthy mix of original poetry. Featured poet Grace Wells exhibits an artful whimsy over seven poems. Reviews include Tom Mathews investigating Wendy Cope's newest collection and Yvonne Cullen absorbing Harry Clifton’s extremely well-received Secular Eden: Paris Notebooks 1994 -2004, among others. The highlight for me is an astonishing story by Desmond Hogan, a writer who has been in the news for less salubrious achievements of late. To simply call 'Old Swords' a story seems understated. This writing is a congealed amalgamation of reference and insight, with innocuous detail and character reminiscence layering and shifting to eventually conflagrate a human life, in all its tawdry hopes and limitations. Fascinating technique!

The Dublin Review

Another journal with impeccable editorial credentials here, the only bum note for this reader being a rather dry essay referencing Henry James - 'On Style and Freedom'. Worthy, no doubt - but perhaps a shade too academic for this slight intellect. Much more satisfactory were two (very) short stories by Kevin Casey, Maurice Walsh's squint into Salvadoran street gangs and a wonderfully evocative trip to Inishbofin in the company of Tim Robinson. Brian Dillon also provides a fascinating perusal of the various manifestations of Marcel Duchamp's 'ready-mades' - somewhat of a misnomer, as Duchamp, cute hoor that he was, held a 'flexible' approach to his own manifestos on what constituted an 'objet d'art'.

Crannóg 18

Bookending the covers with striking images by Jaber Lufti, the summer 2008 issue of Crannóg is crammed full of fine poems and some pretty good prose too! Standouts for me include poems by Fred Johnston, Deborah Moffat, Nicholas Messenger and Maureen Gallagher. My own poem 'A Piece' features here too, bringing the issue to a close on page 57. Thanks for the selection, people!

Pen Pusher 10

I've mentioned before that Pen Pusher is one of the more handsomely produced journals, and this issue is well up to the usual standard in all areas, with a cover illustration by Richard Short - who also contributes a story inside! It's hard to define the editorial policy at work here - but the result is a very classy selection of clean, crisp writing - to match the design perhaps? ;-) Peter Higgins writes on Elmore Leonard, that crime writer beloved by Hollywood. Elsewhere there's striking story 'My Stalker' from Pia Chatterjee, a little madness from Sir Charles Maxwell-House and a couple of somewhat surreal poems from Leah Armstead and Heather Phillipson. Still have to finish reading this one! BTW Pen Pusher have come up with an inspired way for supporters to sponsor their production costs by donating 2p per page - so for a quid you can sponsor a whole issue and get mentioned by name ....unlike us poor loyal subscribers then ;-)

Fiddledy Diddledy Deeeeelicious!

I had the pleasure of attending the opening event of TRADITION:DL (Dun Laoghaire festival of traditional music) last friday. We were treated to a rare solo performance by fiddle virtuoso Paddy Glackin. Glackin is the real deal - a dyed-in-the-wool virtuoso, whose range and deftness were given an airing on the full gamut of jigs, reels and slower airs. On the slower passages, the full range of the instrument's expression was brought to bear in the hands of an obvious master of his art. Some of the other 'tunes' brought out my inner contrarion. (Please bear with me here). Not having been brought up in one of those classic trad-filled environments, I sometimes find the emphasis on 'tunes' in trad a bit chafing. To my (admittedly untutored) ears - the difference between one 'tune' and another can often seem minimal. I must own up to a bit of a knee-jerk rebeliousness when po-faced tradsters talk reverently of newly composed 'tunes'. More often, the composition in question seems to to comprise of inverting a triplet here or transposition of a couple of notes there, when compared to the another 'tune'. Unlike Rhapsody in Blue, for example, much trad stuff is more of a repetitive motif for leppin' around to, no? OK, I'll put my hands up - my name is PJ and I'm a trad dullard! Don't get me wrong - I enjoyed Glackin - just found myself mulling those aspects of 'trad' that irk me during the interval.

After that came the highlight of the evening for me. Spiers & Boden are a couple of young men who are to the forefront of a New Folk revival that seems to be sweeping along nicely in the UK. Also members of Bellowhead and previously part of Eliza Carthy's entourage, these guys know their stuff, have the credentials to prove it, but also display an irreverant attitude and willingness to entertain that often seems lacking in our homegrown folkies. I know, I know - English Folk isn't 'pure' (like ours?). It's all based on dodgy 'revivalism' and nostalgia innit? F*ck that. This was a vibrant and energetic performance of new music that knows (and feeds) its roots. Admittedly, in embracing experimental influences, Carthy et al can sometimes verge on pop music with a folk tinge - but that's no bad thing. Why shouldn't folk music also be popular music? These guys deliver - buy the album - or better still catch them live!

Anyway - a great double bill to kick off this wee festival, more power to its elbow. I'd have loved to make it along to 'The Frost is All Over' on the Saturday night - Dermot Bolger's collaboration with Tony Mac Mahon - but didn't make it back from Belfast in time. Anybody who was there care to fill me in?

Merrion Square Suntrap?

I made it over to the National Gallery of Ireland yesterday for the third in their series of lunchtime poetry readings during July, in association with Poetry Ireland. I was disappointed to miss the first two due to being abroad - featuring Vona Groarke and Eavan Boland, whose reading kicked off the series.

Yesterday's event featured Catherine Phil MacCarthy, a steadfast presence on the Irish scene; poet, novelist, editor and teacher of creative writing. True to form, her reading, like her work overall, was confident, understated and elegant - occasionally breaching consistently high levels of quality to achieve some remarkably moving passages, as in the chilling poem 'Ultrasound'. Personal highlights were a poem called 'The Deluge', which paired the whimsy of a barrage of Beanie Babies (neighbouring children breaching garden defences) against more biblical considerations. MacCarthy finished up with another fine piece, The Opal, available to read on the poet's website, along with other works from her recent collection 'Suntrap'.

Next up in the series is Gerald Smyth, reading on Weds 23rd July and Harry Clifton brings the series to a close on Weds 30th July. The readings are advertised as being in Room 21 (The Portrait Gallery) but yesterday's took place in the lecture theatre (in the basement). I'd guess they'll remain there. Also some mention of a poetry evening at the NGI this autumn - sounds interesting! Meanwhile, this series is a pleasant lunchtime interlude for anybody in the Dublin 2 area during July.

Summer Reading 1: Costa De Stopia

As mentioned earlier, I’m just back from a couple of weeks in Spain. Usually not big fans of the sun holiday scenario, this year the offspring deemed sunshine and a pool to be mandatory elements, so off we flew. And guess what? It was fuppin’ great! Lucky timing too - as borne out by our alarm monitor phoning to say the house alarm was going off back home but not to worry - we weren’t alone - it was probably set off by the torrential rain and hailstones!!!

Between narrowing down the iPod options for best poolside basking music (Air … by a drowsy mile!), glugging ice-cold rosado and experiencing 135kmph rollercoasters, I had plenty of languid reading time. I’d brought a selection of journals, one poetry collection and one novel, but pride of place HAS to go to JG Ballard : The Complete Stories: Volume 1.

Reading Ballard’s dystopian gems under the hot Spanish sun brought on unexpected and eerie synchronicities between his stories and the surreal and artificial landscape of the mass tourist experience. All that packaged recreation, intensive leisure, modular accommodation, shifting sands, glaring skies and polished dereliction. The contrast between the well-watered, palm-shaded apartment enclaves and the dusty, halfshod streets outside seemed spookily similar to some of the environments from the Vermillion Sands stories. The ever-present swimming pools, whether fully functioning or leering from the gaptooth building sites of the stalled Spanish economy, were an obvious Ballard trope. The heaving, oily beaches emphasised references to the Gadarene swine in The Reptile Enclosure. While our apartment may not have had the Thousand Dreams of Stella Vista, humidity-broken sleep produced its own myriad shattered tableaux. The psychotropic correlation of environmental guilt and the slight drainy whiff as the aircon kicked in wasn’t lost on me either!

Considering most of these stories dated from the late 50’s and early 60’s, I was struck once again by Ballard’s uncanny prescience. Admittedly the clunky poetry-tape-producing Verse-Transcriber machines of Studio 5, The Stars seem quaint in the context of today’s digital environment, but - as Ballard states in his introduction – these stories aren’t set in any future, but a ‘visionary present’. The cumulative effect of reading these stories in relative succession led to a vaguely ominous, but not altogether unpleasant, disorientation – peaking in Barcelona. After Ballardian immersion, both the Zoo and the Metro felt bizarrely virtual. But the icing on the cake had to be an offhand mention in a phone conversation that “the Radar had died in Dublin airport”, a few days before we were due to return. Yikes!

All ended well though - an excellent break, to which these stories added a spice of head-swimming, delerious pleasure!

Wolff Enright (not a law firm!)

I only made it to one event during this year's Dublin Writers Festival. The festival coincided with a pretty hectic pre-holiday period for me plus I was a bit word-weary for a while there. However, I did manage to make it along to this event. Couldn't have missed it really, as I admire and enjoy Wolff's writing in a big way. To have him double-heading with the bould Enright was just too good a ticket to pass on.

It was a pretty full house on the night (and very muggy inside - what's the story Project?). First up with the introductions was Niall McMonagle, who then welcomed both writers to the stand. Enright read her story Honey from her recent collection Taking Pictures. This story was originally the worthwhile winner of the inaugural Davy Byrnes Award (for which Wolff had been one of the judges). It's a typical Enright story - as much as such a thing exists? A crackling, vernacular and bleakly humourous narrative of a protaganist whorled up in guilt, grief and gumption, spitting and fidgeting towards some kind of release. Enright is adept at traversing her characters across passages of brittle, iced language compacted into suspended, breathless near-hysteria, only to skid on a word or two into pools of warmth and emotion. So it was here. As Wolff followed her to the podium, he exclaimed that he'd be pleased to hand over the award cheque again - so good was this story. It was a wonderful reading of a classic modern story, IMHO. The good news is that Honey is available to read online over on the Irish Times website. The bad news is that only available by subscription! Here's the link.

Wolff followed up with two of his own classics: Say Yes (which you'll find here) and Bullet in the Brain, (read by T. Coraghessan Boyle in a podcast here). Both are cracking stories - not neccessarily what I would consider his most representative work, so an interesting choice.

After that, we needed a pause to breathe and let the words settle. Then we were off into a somewhat fractured discussion on the short story which, in truth, contained cliche as well as insight. But there were tasty moments too. Considering the merits of the story versus the novel, Wolff opined that Randall Jarrell's (?) somewhat glib definition of the novel as "a work in prose of a certain length that has something wrong with it" could equally be applied to the short story. I also seem to recollect that he commented on the story form having more in common with poetry than with the novel, but my memory might just be channelling Wolff's close friend, Ray Carver on this recollection - I know I've heard him say this.

Discussing the start of a story, Enright said she 'doesn't do' beginnings. Also, she doesn't have much time for those writers who claim not to know whether a piece will become a story or a novel. For her it's one or the other, from the off. She also said something interesting on endings. For her, it's not so much about the endline as the silence that follows it - and how that differs from the silence before the story began. A bit precious maybe, but a compelling consideration.

Also discussing endlines, Wolff commented on Carver's skill in this area, turning the most open and inconclusive lines into a kind of revery. He referenced the endline of Carver's story 'Gazebo' for this. I don't have this to hand just now. Crack a book :-) (I'll add it here later). One area that wasn't discussed was the role of the editor. With so much referencing of Carver, I'd hoped to maybe raise the contentious issue of Gordon Lish's role in paring back Carver's original drafts. But time was limited and I didn't make the cut.

Enright mentioned some significant influences on her as a younger writer, citing Alice Munro in particular as well as a seventies anthology of experimental work, "The Naked I", which brought subjective narrative to the fore. She also spoke of those many, many stories still to be told from the point of view of women, particulary Irish women. A curious moment occured when a female audience member asked both writers for their thoughts on the differences in the short stories of male and female writers. Wolff demurred to Enright, as she had lead the timbre of the discussion in this direction, but the Booker winner was somewhat gobsmacked and flustered by the question. Strangely unsure, I thought, considering how much of her writing drags a raggedy fingernail along the frayed seams of gender politics. For his part, Wolff suggested that there seemed to be more violence in men's writing. To his chagrin, he's had it pointed out that the mortality rate of dogs in his stories is quite high.

Finally, appropriately enough, an anecdote that Wolff shared with us;

The discussion came round to those questions which writers face at events like this, one in particular being "When did you realise you wanted to be a writer?" Where many writers might refer to vague, intuitive urges, Wolff remembered an exact moment from his schooldays, when he would often write exercises on behalf of his classmates (for reward, no doubt). On one such occasion, the recipient of said 'hokey homework' told him 'you know you're good at this.... you should be a writer'. This specific incident planted the idea. On subsequent occasions, having entirely lost contact with this guy, he would refer to the incident in public readings and offer his thanks to the individual. At one such event, a lady stayed behind, quietly made her way over to him and explained that she was the individual's daughter. She explained how her father, like Wolff, had served in Vietnam. Unlike Wolff, however, he returned a scarred and deeply troubled man who moved his family to remotest Alaska, where he sought a precise kind of solitude. If any other settler moved to within four miles of their home, he would up stakes and move even further into the wilderness. Eventually (of course) his wife had had more than enough privation, took the kids and left him to it! Recounting all this to Wolff, the daughter finished with the meek observation, "I guess somebody must've told him he should be a hermit."

Knowing the young Wolff's propensity for 'creative truth', I'd be inclined to take this with a pinch of salt - but a fitting yarn nonetheless, from a master storyteller on a wonderfully interesting and entertaining night.

Hi. Again. At last. (For a while?)

Well now. In spite of many weeks of my non-posting (and the noticeable amount of quality long-term bloggers who are calling it quits) the blogosphere hasn't yet ground to a halt. A good thing? I think so. It's true that maintaining (any sort of quality in) a blog can be aright old chore - but what a great way to make and feed some of those synaptic contacts that internet technology always promised. And waffle freely.

I can't plead any kind of strategic decision behind my own recent lapse in posting. It just came down to being on holidays for the last two weeks and a bunch more weeks of random hectivity (hection?) before I went away (of which, more anon). Anyway, I'm back now - energised, tanned and typing again. Please do let me know if there's anybody left out there. I feel bad for disappearing just as a few people other than myself were starting to drop by. To be fair, I've always referred to my own wee cul-de-sac of the information superhighway as an 'intermittent' blog (Suffering the Intermit, anyone?) and so it has proven to be.

So, please allow me to re-kickstart proceedings by linking to a couple of (still-relevant) reviews which I penned for the Evening Herald before chucking a few more euros into Ryanair's coffers, and which appeared in my absence;

Chekhov via Friel : Three Sisters at The Abbey

Space Drama : Ulla Van Brandenburg at IMMA

Synth Eastwood is a creative collective that's been putting some interesting multimedia shows on for quite a while now. Well worth checking out! This is an image I submitted for their recent flags & anthems show.

SING - its the weekend!

Yay! Funky Friday and the sun is OUT! Raise a holler so you know you're alive - rip the veils from yer eyes and set bravely forth into the tangled byways of Saturdayville (by way of your tipple of choice). Amach with ye!!!

The ONLY Irish band

Right now, this is IT! The new album from Republic of Loose and it leaves everything else on it's face, bleeding from the pores and streaming snot into the gravel. Standouts: Got, 23 Things I don't like, 13 Shots, I.R.I.I.S.H., I like Moosik and Mik Pyro's impression of Van on My Brain. Urrrrrrrrngh - Good God - they gotz the funk - and the stuff. Nothing else in the country comes close (excluding resident masked aliens and one chilly plucker of alt-victoriana). Isabel Reyes-Feeney is the illustrator who's created most of the ROL graphics (her vocals feature on the album too!) - check her work here.

The future of poetry magazines

Interesting article over on the Guardian Arts blog. "A whole new generation of poetry magazines is emerging," claims Todd Swift, Oxfam poet in residence and editor of the online anthology, Nth Position. Some interesting debate in the comments too!

IGI Postcard Pack

If you're an art director in one of the leading UK ad agencies, design studios or magazine publishers you just might have received this wilful and uppity little pack of promotional cards recently, featuring 16 illustrators from among the ranks of the Illustrators Guild of Ireland.

I'm in there - and a bunch of my character dooooooods also adorn the pack itself, design courtesy of Artisan. If you haven't received one - and would like to..............tough - the whole print run has been sent, I'm afraid! But maybe drop the IGI a line, so they can include you on their next mailout - or maybe even invite you to some snazzy illustration-related event. Or not.

Scamperville Rendevous

Some nice stuff going up over on the Scamp blog these days.

Parp, Parp! (that's my own trumpet, you know).

Seriously though - I've some images over in this posting of recent work by IGI members and also in this posting of 'scamps' to 'welcome' our new 'leader' at the 'helm' (enough already!).

Also posted is a link to the fantabulous new website by fantabulous Irish illustrator Alan Clarke. I'm jealous of both the work and the snazzy website. I should get me one of dem lads. maybe. sometime.

Dublin Writers Festival 2008

Whoooop again! I've just been perusing the excellent line-up for this year's Dublin Writers Festival and have already booked my tickets for this event: Tobias Wolff and Anne Enright - Small Wonders: The art of the short story.

Tobias Wolff is probably my favourite living writer, in a lineage running from Hemingway - (I know, I know) - via Carver, so I'm hugely excited at a chance to hear him read / speak / whatever. Coupled with the currently omnipresent Enright, it should be a very interesting evening indeed. Plenty of other cracking events in the line-up, including some kind of evening with JP Donleavy? Pardon the confusion - its just that the programme blurb doesn't give much inkling as to what format to expect other than a 'special retrospective'? I'm a longtime fan of Donleavy's short stories and of The Ginger Man novel in particular, but have to admit I've found his increasingly 'stagey' persona somewhat cloying in latter years. Here's hoping the feet-of-clay factor doesn't come into play with Wolff.

I've pipedreamed before about attending the Creative Writing Program at Stanford, where not only Wolff, but Eavan Boland are on the Faculty (Colm Toibin has been a visiting lecturer there too, apparently playing a part in getting poet Brian Turner to Ireland after seeing him alongside Wolff, at an anti-war reading). So I noted with interest that Wolff's close contemporary Richard Ford has been signed up as adjunct professor in the School of English in Trinity College, Dublin. The Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist and short story writer will teach students of the MPhil in creative writing at the Oscar Wilde Centre for Irish Writing. There are some core similarities between the two Americans - Ford's lineage running a little more southerly, out of Faulkner and Flannery O'Connor. I've relished his short stories, but haven't been as enthusiastic as the broader audience about his Frank Bascombe trilogy. Having read the first book, The Sportswriter, I had enough of Mr. Bascombe to last me for quite a while. Not sure what that means - if anything. I'm sure I'll move on to the other books in the future and I'd be interested to hear what anybody out there thinks of these books - what am I missing here folks?

Blogspotting!

A quick runaround some of my current online haunts reveals:

A NICE OVERVIEW OF CÚIRT on Nuala Ní Chonchúir's blog.

A RUNDOWN OF THE WINNERS of the Hennessy New Irish Writing Awards ( including links to shortlisted work) over on the Emerging Writer blog.

A NICE MIX OF POETRY AND PHOTOGRAPHY on Mark Granier's Lightbox blog.

Patrick Chapman's fourth poetry collection A SHOPPING MALL ON MARS is out now!

UK poet Matt Merritt blogging about his new collection TROY TOWN.

All well worth a gander!

Penpusher 9 - The Bees' Nibs!

Whoooop! Just received my copy of Penpusher magazine, issue 9 in the post, and it's a thing of beauty! Beautiful layout & typography throughout, crisp black text and snappy two colour cover on high white uncoated stock with a nice bit of weight - all perfectbound into the definitive 'slim volume'. Full credit for immaculate design to Hape Mueller. In Googling for the designer's website (which I couldn't find!) I came across this bizarrely interesting tidbit, crediting Kaiser Chiefs frontman Ricky Wilson for the magazine's distinctive logo! What a small, funky world it can be.

Anyways, on first skim, the editorial control and overall content well merits the very high production standards and I'm chuffed indeed that my poem 'Salthill, Monkstown' features alongside some quality material in this issue. Thanks Penpushers, you've made me week!!!

Hearmerooarrrrrrrrrrr!

BMW are running a promo campaign at the mo for the highly desirable Mini around the theme of 'Hear Me Roar!' you can check out some of my work for the campaign here along with work by BrenB, Chris Judge, Joven Kerekes and a bunch of other spiffing diddlers. Grrrrowwwwsa!

Thisisnotashop

This bizarre exploding chickenguy is a mashup by artist and designer Robert Carr of one of my doodles with a photo by Jessamyne Fiore. It featured as the cover graphic on the recent programme for Thisisnotashop gallery in Benburb Street, Dublin 7 - a real sweet artspace. They've been invited to participate in ART 08 over at the RDS this May. Based on last year's show there it should be areal hot ticket and well worth a visit. Git! Go! Getalong little Dawgies!

And check out the newest Thisisnotashop programme too - featuring a tres chilly graphic by designer John Lambert, aka electronica plucker Chequerboard. Tastic!

Gillian Lawler at The Cross Gallery

Gillian Lawler is one of a new generation of young Irish painters who manage to bridge tradition and the demands of an art audience for whom working in paint is verging on anachronism – a falsehood, of course. It is to the credit of the Cross Gallery that quite a number of these painters have been associates of the gallery since it opened its doors in 1999.

I’m thinking specifically here of Sonia Shiel and David Begley, as well as Lawler. Each of these artists can be seen to have re-assessed traditional, if not classical, inspirations in recent years by bringing their own slants; Begley to the human figure, Shiel to the natural landscape, and now Lawler to the urban. All share a love of surface and the materials of the painted medium.

Gillian Lawler’s work first caught my attention with compositions redolent of drumlins or magmatic bulges, seemingly landscape based, but very stylised. However, the decisively appeal for me was not so much the organic geometry of the compositions as the wonderfully worked patina in which they were rendered. There was no hint of that ethereal clouding into abstraction that so many landscape-based abstracts choose to wrap themselves in. Here was a determined and interesting, regimented deterioration of composition and painted surface – allowing the underpinning drafts to become something worked intensely into existence.

Then, last summer, Lawler was awarded the prestigious Hennessy Craig Scholarship and The Whyte’s Award at the 2007 RHA Annual exhibition for work which had moved on from the organic curves of previous sources to embrace grid elements and areas of carefully underplayed brighter pigments, bringing a fresh momentum to her destructed grounds.

The current exhibition develops these elements further. While some organic curves reappear, they are as ambients to those grid-based elements which have now moved assuredly to a dimensional centre stage in all of the compositions on show.

The most striking piece, to my eyes, is a large canvas named ‘City on Stilts II’. Here, cuboid forms merge to a distressed, melded plane – calling to mind medieval cities, antique cabinets as well as some possible future tribal habitat. Dominent colours here are the eroded complementaries of Indigo and Apricot (also reminiscent of Shiel’s pallet) but with an aging influence of pale verdigris. A ground of parallels suggest municipality, tillage and the corrugation of machine processes. All is quiet however, the stillness of early morning in the city, or rather of the city viewed from outside.

Herein lies a key strength of the work on show. Each canvas presents a sense of an environment observed, as if by a cultural outsider – but which also realises itself as a contemplative inner vision. Where are these places – within or without? Who resides in their viewing?

Other standout works are a large ‘Untitled’ canvas, which calls to mind a timeworn apartment or office block, but also resembles some metaphysically chainsawed woodblock in its iteration of negative grid spaces. Of the medium sized canvases, ‘Tower II’ encapsulates that sense of ‘inner habitat’ as it’s subject suspends between ‘ground’ and ‘sky’ of questionable logic. All are rendered with love of surface that fuses deterioration and destruction with wonder and beauty.

Overall this is an excellent show by a painter who seems to have found her own ‘third place’ between tradition and the new. Larger pieces are fulfilled with no loss of craft compared with the medium sized canvases more familiar to me from past work. Despite the emphasis on ‘modern building developments’ in the artist’s statement and the description of ‘primarily abstract meditations on the possible long-term rise and fall of cities’ – I find these works resonate with deeper instincts. In perusing the common planes and surfaces of the urban human habitat, it seems that Lawler is triggering the locks of inner rooms and perspectives.

The exhibition runs until 3rd May. An edited version of this review appeared in the Evening Herald HQ magazine of April 24.

Heaney Wright Review on Poetry Ireland




Those good people over at Poetry Ireland have seen fit to pop my review of the recent CD Wright & Seamus Heaney reading from DLR Poetry Now 08 up on their guest blog. Thanks PI people! I'm in good company over there - and the guest blog is just one of the nice features of www.poetryireland.ie, along with the forum, irish poetry news etc. Well worth a wander!

God of Shopping

Hey - checking out the upcoming festival line-ups reminded me of this - an artwork I painted for the SPOKEN WORD exhibition at last year's Electric Picnic. Based on that old chestnut about how 'We went Shopping for God, and found the God of Shopping'- I think its originally attributed to a certain Leonard Alfred Schneider? If memory serves, a sample of same features in a track by The Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy? Oh, the fuzziness. Anyways, this here piece of art now rests in the private collection of goodbuddy Joven. Enjoy!

Poetry Now - The Strong Award





The Rupert and Eithne Strong Award is presented annually to recognise first collections published in Irish or English by Irish presses or poets. The presentation, and accompanying reading by shortlisted poets, has become a fixture of the Poetry Now festival and provides a valuable opportunity for emerging poets to give voice to their work in a supportive and knowledgable environment. Many speak of the affirmation this offers along with the opportunity to reach a new audience, as well as mingle with audience, peers and influences during the festival itself. Nerves were undoubtedly fluttering backstage as this year’s judge Louis de Paor took to the stage to begin proceedings.


As one of Ireland’s leading Irish language poets and Director of Irish Studies at NUI Galway, it was little surprise that de Paor announced himself ‘dismayed’ at the fact that only one Irish language collection featured on this year’s list. Another concern was the rigour, or lack thereof, of editorial input by the publishers of this year’s crop of emerging writers – whether referring to the quality and choice of content or the fundamentals of proofing wasn’t made clear. His final concern was with the nature of poetry predominently featured, with a perceived emphasis on the shorter, mostly lyric form to the exclusion of other approaches, including that type of poem which ‘brings you for a walk in the woods’ before revealing its intent. It was refreshing to hear constructive criticism where one might have expected platitudes. Then it was time for the first reader.


Nell Regan’s collection ‘Preparing for Spring’ has previously been shortlisted for the Patrick Kavanagh and Glen Dimplex New Writing awards. Her work has been praised for its precision, sophistication and tact. On the basis of this reading, that praise seems at least partially correct, with a definite sense of precision and craft on display. However, treatment of certain subjects, such as the Blaschkas (a family of skilled zoological glass model makers) and the muslim call to prayer, seemed a little lacking in that other area of tact. The subjects at times felt observed, rather than identified with – that old colonial sense of the exotic ‘other’ shadowing proceedings just a little. Work with its basis in personal history, seemed more considered. No doubt the obligation of reading first, in this context, was testing and it is possible that nerves played a part in leaving me a little cold on some of the poems. However, there’s no doubting the skill of construction in these pieces and I’m sure to warm to her work on further reading.


Next up was Nuala Ní Chonchúir, reading from ‘Tattoo ; Tatú’, her bilingual collection from the same publisher (Arlen House) as Regan. Here too was craft and precision aplenty - but this work, I felt, was backed up with a deeper investigation of self, with the investment of that self in the crevices of skillfully constructed poems. This poet has been praised as having a ‘Chekhovian eye for detail’ by Cathal Ó Searcaigh - an assessment I’d be inclined to agree with (even if the source has been dogged by controversy of late). Stand-out works for me were ‘Our Lady of Dublin’, a somewhat gothic rumination, with nice prior context given for its striking line ‘even this crown is not my own,’ as well as the title poem, with its imaging of the body as a palimpsest of prior lovers. So far, so graceful.


Our next poet’s collection won the Patrick Kavanagh Award 2005 in manuscript. Reading from ‘The Boy in the Ring’, (Salmon Poetry) Dave Lordan displayed feisty, vernacular language and gave it socks, wellys and Doc Martins in his delivery. Lordan’s obviously no shrinking violet. Small town tales were vented with foam, fleck and fecklessness by “fuckin’ fearless” protagonists. Yet again there was doubt on my part in the rendering down of those mucksmeared characterizations of life in small rural towns to something approaching caricature. Invoking staples of rebellious adolescence - haircuts, hash and happy hooliganism - combined to deliver… nothing really startling, actually. The subjects of his poems are chewed out with a vigour which sometimes felt a bit like barrelfish-shooting to me – e.g. the pillorying of the flatbed concelebrants of "Entente Florale" – perhaps at the expense of the poems’ own insights?


Next, Billy Ramsell gave a reading which exhibited certain of the same characteristics as Lordan’s despite very different voicing and the fact that here, much work seemed recited from memory. Presenting work from ‘Complicated Pleasures’, (Dedalus) Ramsell too seemed in danger of subverting the impact of his texts with a performance style which drew freely on audience interaction, asides, anecdotes and the like, going somewhat beyond the usual realm of establishing intimacy, calming nerves and setting contexts. (I’d estimate the ratio of poet to raconteur in the region of 1:2?). Indeed he revealed that, when faced with a microphone, his first tendency is to sing – at one point proposing a rendition of The Lakes of Pontchartrain! (…which clearly would have been well received by the Festival Curator, who proclaimed it her favourite song in wrapping up this event). Perhaps thats no bad thing in itself – we’ve all been at those readings of slumber-inducing, buttock-numbing monotonal bardery. But, while fresh voices need fresh approaches, I can’t help but feel there’s sometimes a cost to the work.

So then, on to the denouement. Reiterating his earlier comments about the high calibre of these four collections, de Paor announced, with the minimum of fuss, that this year’s winner of the Strong Award was the collection which had ‘made me me forget I was reading a book of poetry.’ Dave Lordan returned to stage to accept his award. Rightly pleased, he proceeded to invoke the I Ching, allowing the audience to choose the page number for a final poem. ‘64’ it was - then off to the wings (of glory) for him and the chill streets of Dun Laoghaire for the rest of us.


A final tangent - from which I can draw no specific conclusion - relates to poetry and publishing undergoing dramatic (!) transformations in this era of rapidly changing information technology. Of the collections featured in this year’s Strong Reading, the one I will soon buy (my festival book budget was blown on US poets) is, coincidentally, the title from the poet who maintains the most comprehensive online presence - Nuala Ní Chonchúir. ‘Tatoo : Tatú’ is my own Strong choice this year - purely my personal taste, of course, but with the added incentive of finally daring to consider the possibility of writing in my native tongue. After all, if I can coach Henri Cole in the pronunciation of ‘a dhaoine uisle’, perhaps there’s still hope for my inner gaeiligóir. Slán!

Revival 7 Launched

The launch of issue 7 of Revival takes place today, Wed 9th April 2008 at 9.00pm at the White House, Limerick. Unfortunately I'm stuck in Dublin due to work, but I'm willing good wishes all the way to Limerick, where those good people, the WhiteHouse Poets, make good things happen on a regular basis. I'm delighted to have my poem 'The Cormorant' included in this issue of Revival and my good buddy Stephen Farren from the Poetry Ireland forums has a piece in there too, I believe. looking forward to getting my hands on this! Copies are now available at €7.00 and you can purchase or subscribe HERE.

DLR Poetry Now 08 Highlights



Well now, what an excellent few days! A hearty well done to all concerned.

Standouts for me were:

Ruth Padel’s keynote address

Comparing and contrasting structures in Tennyson, Dickinson and Harsent, Padel took us to the building blocks of the poem – vowels. Vowels as the basis of syllables, thmselves in turn the basis of words and rhythms. She spoke eloquently on the role of vowels in unlocking our emotions – creating a syllabic sensuality of sounds – pointing out that we tend to sing in vowels – consonents being largely percussive.

Henri Cole Workshop

Despite limited time (we inevitably ran over) the twelve participants and Cole engaged very thoroughly over readings of a poem each, some of which were truely remarkable. Henri proved a pleasant and knowledgeable facilitator and shared his thoughts on personal language (…would you use that particular phrase over cocktails?) , the dangers of the demotic ( …wheelie bins, anybody?) , Epigraphs (…you want to start your poem at 20,000 feet) as well as some thoughts on Anaphora, Modifiers (as an exercise, delete them all from your draft!) and Enjambments. Particular poets were recommended as reading in the context of certain of these and other points (Hopkins, Stevie Smith and AR Ammons came up). A key theme was the balancing of ‘sonic technique’ so as not to clutter up the emotional intent of the poem.

Overall a wonderful opportunity to bend the ear of a “master poet, with few peers” to quote Harold Bloom.


CD Wright / Seamus Heaney Reading

I must admit I wasn’t very aware of Wright’s work prior to the festival. That’s all changed now. Described by some as an Elliptical Poet, the clarity, experiment and refined audacity of her work blossomed in her vocalising. Language Poetry is another term that has been applied to her work – and language here is certainly approached with vigour. A wonderful, bracing reading which had the hairs up on my neck. And then came Heaney! Peter Sirr made reference in his introduction to ‘Seamus Heaney, pursued by Seamus Heaney’. When the Man Himself entered, stage left, he was always going to be chased by the ‘bear’ of his persona and reputation to some extent. However, Heaney is a longtime friend of this festival and intimacy was quickly established with a puckish grin. Referring briefly to his recent ill health (and full recovery) he then proceeded to give a masterclass with a thematic and considered reading of select recent work. With poems from 'District and Circle' to the fore, he finished his reading with ‘The Blackbird of Glanmore’, a favourite of his own and, I’d guess, many of the audience – who gave our 'Chieftain’ (Wright’s introductory word) a warm and emotional ovation. A startling, yet moving event – a tribute to the power of poetry and to this valued poet in particular.

So, just a few of the highlights from a truely special few days. And I haven’t even mentioned the roundtable discussion on current trends in the publishing and reading of poetry, the visceral charge that was Brian Turner reading from his collection ‘Here, Bullet’ and the varied delights of the Strong Reading, with the Strong Award won by Dave Lordan, for his collection The Boy in The Ring. Yet.