Howl, the movie

Howl, the movie - a film composed from court records, interviews and the poem itself, and with James Franco as the young Allen Ginsberg - opened in cinemas in the US last week. I look forward to its European release.

There's a trailer on the film's official website. And an early review on Ron Silliman's blog.

writing 3.0

Writing 3.0 is a festival co-programmed by Fingal County Libraries and the Fingal Arts Office, and runs from 1 October to 26 October 2010. On offer are readings and author talks, film screenings, workshops (performance poetry, creative writing, screenwriting, animation) and many more.

As part of the programme I will be hosting an open-mic poetry session, preceded by readings from guest poets Colm Keegan and Dave Lordan. This will take place on Wednesday 6 October at 7pm. The venue is Swords Castle.

All events are free - though all those completing the online booking form will be entered into a lottery for tickets.



*Update, 30/09/10*
The venue for the open-mic session has been changed. It will now take place in the Council Chamber in County Hall (Swords) - which charges the event with a new dimension.

Ó Bhéal

On Monday 20 September I will be reading at Cork city's weekly poetry event, Ó Bhéal.

Ó Bhéal has been running since April 2007 and typically presents a guest poet followed by an open-mic session, while the evening kicks off with a 'poetry challenge'.

Ó Bhéal has also been promoting the art of the poetry-film. I was delighted to read on its website that the Zebra Poetry Film Festival in Berlin will be screening The Lammas Hireling, a film of Ian Duhig's poem of the same name made by Ó Bhéal founder and director Paul Casey, as part of its programme in October.

My thanks to all at Ó Bhéal for having me as a guest poet. The venue is The Long Valley Bar (upstairs) on Winthrop Street, and start time is 9pm. Entrance is free.

Writing and Corruption

The question of 'sincerity' or 'authenticity' in writing, and whether it exists or is even desirable, is something that has been concerning me more and more. I am being forced to mull over it again after reading Michael Kindellan's essay "'The Labor of Revision': George Oppen's Sincerity" published in the current issue of The Wolf. Kindellan writes: "It is the nature of Oppen's 'test' to reject as insincere anything which is already known at the time of writing; which is to say anything unlearned during the process of writing itself is corrupt."

I am also halfway through Melissa Lee-Houghton's book Patterns of Mourning (Chipmunka Publishing, 2009). A book-length 'poetic diary' comprised of a series of 'songs' or epistles to various persons, it is a difficult read in terms of the circumstances of its composition and subject matter ("I wrote this book while undergoing what was later termed a Mixed Affective Episode, as a diagnosed Manic Depressive since the age of 15" writes Lee-Houghton in her foreword) but mostly because it disregards the rules of narrative or even syntax - threads break off and come back in snatches, tenses and subjects change unexpectedly, the identity of the addressee shifts constantly - as well as the conventions of what's termed 'confessional writing'. It is also an exhilarating read, and it contains some astonishing poetry that lights up masses of material which often looks and sounds like the unsorted outpourings of a stretched mind, a mind which nevertheless remains alert to its position and use of language. In her foreword, Lee-Houghton also writes that much of the book was composed "on the underside of letters, the backs of my hands and arms and all over my clothes, on train tickets, in public computer terminals, on walls..." and argues against "the idea that as individuals a loss of control or emotional stability is something which should bring about shame and humiliation".

Melissa Lee-Houghton and I are two of around 30 writers participating in the 'Genius or Not' online project, which invites its contributors to compose short pieces of off-the-cuff prose or poetry (nothing already considered or worked on) written on particular days of our choosing, and to publish them shortly afterwards and with minimal revising. The project is curated by Succour's managing editor Anthony Banks and is an offshoot of the responses to the 'theme' proposed by Anthony for Succour's abandoned issue 11 (6 February 2010). 'Genius or Not' is currently under way, with work pouring in almost daily, though the website that will be carrying it has not yet gone live.

'Genius or Not' is an exercise that forces me to resist the intensive (and sometimes self-conscious) re-drafting of my original notes towards a poem. Paradoxically, being aware of the imposed constraints at the point of composition, these notes becomes contaminated by an urge to find their raison d’être. So they become less 'sincere' or 'authentic' than the notes I would usually begin poems from. I have tried to circumvent this by introducing additional constraints on the act of writing itself, such as performing it in conspicuous circumstances, under difficult physical conditions or while being occupied with something else.

But during the short 'tidying-up' phase the anxiety of publication kicks in: I often attempt to put a polish on what has found itself on paper, and thus introduce secondary elements which I have no further chance to work through. Which leaves some of the pieces hanging uncomfortably between the note and the poem. This is the intention of the exercise; it also serves to reinforce the axiomatic claim that the pith of the writing happens in the re-writing.

To discover what we write and why we write it we must perform the act of writing in the first place. I find that the 'Genius or Not' exercise offers a gateway to themes and forms or levels of language that may not be accessible under unforced circumstances. I suspect its influence will turn out to be in the detection of corruptions at the time of the initial composition: that is, it will help sharpen my skill for collecting raw material. This is where poets who have worked for years honing their crafting and re-drafting and self-editing skills sometimes find they have gone limp.

Greek, by Theo Dorgan

Fresh ink, fresh paper, the world
quietly opening to the south
(from ‘Begin, Begin Again’)


On receiving my copy of Theo Dorgan’s poetry collection Greek (Dedalus Press, 2010) my initial suspicion was that the weight of place might overwhelm the poetry. The book design, a glance at the contents page and a quick dip into random poems all seemed to corroborate this impression. Several poems are named after Greek place names (‘Kato Zakros’, ‘Return to Hania’, ‘Nisos Ikaria’), clichés attached to Greek island life (‘Taverna on the Beach’, ‘Morning in the Cafeneion’, ‘Honey Yoghurt’, ‘Bread Dipped in Olive Oil and Salt’) or fragments from the history and mythology of classical Greek civilisation (‘Plato’s Myth’, ‘Nike’, ‘Over Delphi’). And I noticed the repeated occurrence of words such as “salt”, “rock”, “light”, “sea”, “boat”, “heat”, “olives” etc.

The first poem, ‘Begin, Begin Again’, aims to introduce us to a new location by making parallels to the one left behind, and allows us a glimpse into a process of renewal: “The ships at twilight in the roads at Pireaus / are ships that sat heavy with night on Penrose Quay…” Here, Munster blends into Attica , and vice versa. This, we are led to understand, will be a book about the sea, travel, change.

And love. The book’s first section (‘Undying’) is a meditation on the process of seeing again and seeing anew, often facilitated through love – with the beloved re-opening the poet’s eyes by example:


You have the hunter’s steady lope, ready to go
anywhere, risk anything on instinct,
and I need water, I need courage, I need rest.
(from ‘Kato Zakros’)


laughter a remedy for the deep fault
under the streets, the reek of ancient stone.
(from ‘Taverna on the Beach’)


In section two (‘ Islands ’) the lyric line or phrase takes over. The poems here operate like postcard-poems in the sense that words aiming to recreate landscapes or moments at specific and remote places are written for the benefit of absent eyes. One could wonder whether what is being described is a romanticisation of Greek island life that is projected to and visible only by the outsider, or the display of actual pockets of resistance against westernisation. A traveller or newcomer to a group is in possession of a detachment that the permanent dweller has no access to, and this puts them in the arguably privileged position of observer. It is also a limited position, but a valid one nonetheless, which can offer insights unavailable to the member of the settled group. Do we get such insights? The poems are well-crafted, with an attractive surface, and are often punctuated by wit and the appearance of ghosts from Modern Greek history or classical mythology. Our attention becomes dominated by a handful of sharp images:


A boy comes backlit through the entrance arch,
a carefree, sunny child, all smiles and puppy fat.
(from ‘Alexandros’)


… a loud
and beautiful shambolic drunk, heart full of joy.
(from ‘Morning in the Cafeneion’)


… comedy ripped down the crooked
street like a string of firecrackers…
(from ‘Cross-Country Bus’)


Mortality and ageing lurk unmistakeably behind the lines here, as in much of the book: an abrupt understanding of the impermanence of things. ‘Return to Hania’ (from section one) is a clear exponent of this: it is an especially Cavafyesque poem in which – at first – the aged poet looks back over life, remarking “it has not been what we expected”. The concluding stanza, however, begins “It beggars breath to speak of it; …” and ends with a sense of affirmation that the here and now is what matters, and it ought to be made the most of:


I thought my life a catalogue of loss–
now, without meaning to, I see it all as gain;
I am dizzy with hope, stunned – so much laughter
and love, such joy come round again!
(from ‘Return to Hania’)


Section three (‘Sappho’s Daughter’) comprises a long narrative poem replete with themes of travel, mythology and the sea, and where the poet equates falling in love to being seduced by a siren’s song (Odysseus is never far in this collection). The narrator tells of being used so that the woman may bear a daughter, a sequence of events which he ultimately does not regret because of the experience of pleasure it has left him: “I can see now I was had. / … / if I had known then what I knew after / I’d still have stepped over that threshold …”

Specific place, then, carries less weight than is at first apparent: openness to the accumulation of experience seems to me the message in this collection. What Dorgan is (didactically?) hinting at throughout is that we ought to be prepared to confront our fate while staying ready to use what we have learned to recognise events and voices directing us to it. It is surely no coincidence that he ends the book repeating a line whispered previously:


Nobody knows what may happen in this life
(from ‘Sappho’s Daughter’)

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