The Stony Thursday Book No. 19 (Winter 2023)

In March 2023 I accepted an invitation to edit the 45th edition (No. 19 in the new series) of The Stony Thursday Book, an annual anthology of contemporary poetry published by Limerick Arts Office and one of Ireland's longest running literary journals. A call for submissions went out in April - and I'm now happy to report that the issue in question was published in November 2023. Its publication was marked by an event on 21 November at Belltable in Limerick City Centre, where the book was launched by the Mayor of the City and County of Limerick, followed by readings from poets featured in the issue.

The Stony Thursday Book was founded in 1975 by poets John Liddy and Jim Burke. The new series is administered by Limerick Arts Office and benefits from the practice of a rotating editorship. Previous issues were edited by Annemarie Ní Churreáin, Martin Dyar, Nessa O'Mahony and Peter Sirr among others, with the compilation of the book relying exclusively on open submissions.

In the current edition's publication announcement, my editorial contribution is described as "embracing innovation and unconventional forms," in the process "creating a fascinating collection of poetic exploration." That was indeed part of my intention, differentiating it perhaps a little from what came before, and contributing an alternative perspective on the potential of poetry to the archival document that the entire Stony Thursday project represents across time.

Out of several hundred submissions I was pleased to be able to include work from 37 poets based in Ireland, Britain, across Europe, and elsewhere in the world. The nature of the submitted material allowed me to put together a showcase of poetry that collectively poses questions on the contemporary functions of the form and its publication media, in Ireland and/or/via elsewhere, and its relationships with other artforms as well as social and technological change, as we approach the 21st century's quarter-mark. The published contributions - exceptional across the board - range from short, single poems to poems spanning several pages, clusters of conventional and experimental pieces, prose and visual poetry, fragments, list poems, sequences and more.

Full list of contributors:

Mara Adamitz Scrupe / Derek Beaulieu / Gregory Betts / Finola Cahill / Lynn Caldwell / Eoghan Carrick / Patrick Chapman / Greg Crowley / Natasha Cuddington / Ailbhe Darcy / Ellen Dillon / Brendan Duffin / Mars Duigan / Will Fleming / SJ Fowler & Zuzana Husarova / Kit Fryatt / Cat Grogan / Alina Hanusiak / Christina Hennemann / Mai Ishikawa / Casey Jarrin / Pippa Little / Niamh Mac Cabe / Aodán McCardle / Emma McKervey / Máighréad Medbh / Audrey Molloy / Mary Kate Nyland / Nuala O'Connor / Estelle Price / Serge Shea / Jo Slade / Ilias Tsagas / Louise Viera / Patricia Walsh / Mark Ward

I was fortunate to work with Richard Meade in designing what was on occasion material that came with complex typesetting specifications. And I enjoyed the process of selecting the cover art with the aim of producing a book that also functions as an art object: 'Catching Glimpses' is a stunning image by Ciara Barker, an artist from Co. Galway now based in Limerick city.

I was also fortunate to be supported by a team at Limerick Arts Office that administered the route to publication clearly and efficiently, allowing me to focus on the task of putting the book together. My thanks for this - and more generally for the invitation to edit this year's edition - to Arts Officer Pippa Little, Assistant Arts Officer Aoife O'Connell, and Clerical Officer Lizanne Jackman.

And thanks to the poets who read/performed their contributions at the launch, in what was a hugely enjoyable and memorable evening: Kit Fryatt, Ellen Dillon, Finola Cahill, Máighréad Medbh. Lynn Caldwell, Natasha Cuddington, Aodán McCardle.

The Stony Thursday Book No. 19 (Winter 2023) is available to purchase directly from Limerick Arts Office, and retails at €10. It is also available from selected bookshops, including O'Mahony's in Limerick city.

Below is an excerpt from my editorial introduction:

"My editorial work here and elsewhere privileges the display, arrangement and preservation of, where possible, substantial material from each poet towards offering their work visibility, yes, but also room to breathe, a chance to give up its concerns, the opportunity to interact with its surroundings. It is these surroundings, some pre-existing and some constructed in the process of editing, that to a large extent determine my approach to selection.

This stands in direct contrast to a hierarchical understanding of the artform. For sure I have certain tastes and a preference for certain modes of making, which naturally chime with those of my own writing practice and inform my editorial decisions to some degree; but what holds sway is an attempt to facilitate horizontal conversations between units of poetry - and consequently their respective modes - and across to readers. Boundaries are there to be trampled on and blurred out. There’s a learning opportunity for the editor too: what constitute common concerns right now; how are approaches to writing and experimentalism evolving in the hands of poets from the experienced to the relative beginner, across identity intersections or operating in and through a range of territories; how may the ordering of units of poetry reflect some of the ordering of marks that went into creating those units - fragments, poems, sequences - themselves. Ultimately: what does the 45th edition of The Stony Thursday Poetry Book document, in the particular time and place of its constitution, and in the endlessly mineable spaces between poets and readers?

The old adage that this book could not exist without poets generously putting their work forward - whether selected for printing or not - is as true here as anywhere. Everything exists in relation to everything else; correspondences therefore between the poems that appear here and what I was unable to give light to form the unseen platform and crucial foundation underpinning the book. I trust that each reader will give consideration to the interplay of language and mark-making presented here, take it apart and put it back together metaphorically or literally in their minds or on paper, to derive their own meanings and construct their individual relationships with the material. But I also hope that they will consider the contrasts and absences that also define this volume: what may be missing or possibly exist just beyond the frame, what kinds of writing may have remained inaccessible in the first place, and why this may be the case.

In the end any preciousness about our work that we may harbour as poets, editors, publishers, dissolves on contact with readers - a category that encompasses us all. The moment when these linguistic and visual juxtapositions belonged to their authors has passed, if it ever existed at all: now the poems in this volume are its readers’ to do with as they please."