yes, but is it poetry

A new update on the Al-Mutanabbi Street project

2012-01-12T13:11:00.007Z

Allowing for minor editorial interventions, the composition stage for my chapbook / artist's book Muses Walk has been completed. Sixteen new poems are, for better or for worse, written; I've also taken many photographs, some of which will contribute its visual element. I've now moved on to working out the design, before tackling production/printing issues.

In addition to being a response to the bombing of Al-Mutanabbi Street (it was conceived as such, with the concept behind it discussed elsewhere) I view Muses Walk, which will be home-made and self-produced, as a sort of coda to Spitting Out the Mother Tongue - and the completion, at least for the time being, of my treatment of the conditions I grew up with and their implications. And though I'm only required to contribute three copies to the project (to be delivered by the end of March 2012) I intend to make 50 numbered copies of the book, with the rest made available for purchase at readings etc.

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I'm currently in the process of putting together a reading/event in Dublin to mark the 5th anniversary of the bombing of Al-Mutanabbi Street, on 5 March. Time and venue are confirmed, as are most of the participants. I'll be posting more on this next month.

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Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here, an anthology of texts responding to the bombing, will be published by PM Press in June. It's edited by Beau Beausoleil and Deema Shehabi, and is now available to pre-order from the publisher's website.

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Below is a video recording of a panel discussion on Al-Mutanabbi Street at Santa Cruz public library. It's introduced by Beau Beausoleil, who outlines quite comprehensively his reasons for initiating and curating these projects.

on the radio

2011-12-31T10:46:00.003Z

My poem 'New Year's Eve', from Spitting Out the Mother Tongue, was broadcast on RTÉ Radio 1 on Thursday 29 December, during the mid-morning show Today with Pat Kenny. It was part of a 25-minute section of poems and prose extracts on the themes of winter, Christmas and the New Year, compiled and presented by Niall McMonagle. A podcast of this section of the show is available on the RTÉ website (the introduction to my poem, read by actor Barry Barnes, starts at around 14:45).

Review in The Irish Times

2011-12-19T14:05:00.005Z

Harry Clifton's highly appreciative review of Spitting Out the Mother Tongue was published in last Saturday's edition of The Irish Times.

A couple of extracts:

"The world it inhabits has gone past the point of the national, and begun to relax into its own ubiquity as a fact of life, without the usual anguish of expatriation."

"... he and his poems, so universally at home in themselves, are a straw in the wind, a forerunner, in Irish poetry and Irish poetry publishing, of what has happened in Britain with Grace Nichols, Benjamin Zephaniah, Jackie Kay."

Read the full review here.

the poet was in the shack

2011-12-14T13:43:00.004Z

The resulting text from my shack intervention at the Highlanes Gallery in Drogheda last Saturday - part of Thomas Brezing's exhibition 'The Art of Failure isn't hard to Master' - is now on the gallery website. Many thanks and congratulations to all who collaborated in composing this piece. Thanks also to the gallery staff. I enjoyed shacking up with myself for a few hours and interacting with the public from there.

Footage of my reading of the text after emerging from the shack has surfaced on YouTube:

Poem on Occupy Writers

2011-12-08T11:41:00.061Z

Occupy Writers have published my reverse-narrative poem 'Mayday'.

Read more Occupied Writings, and see the full list of writers who have signed their support to the Occupy Movement around the world, on the Occupy Writers website - with links to other support groups, news and information on how to find your local Occupy group.

POST III: Poetry at the Games

2011-12-05T11:51:00.040Z

The Irish Centre for Poetry Studies at the Mater Dei Institute in Dublin has published the third issue of its online journal POST. Edited by Michael Hinds, POST III: Poetry at the Games is devoted to links between poetry and sports or games, and as such it includes among others a survey of poetry inspired by chess, a (largely) pictorial essay on the poetics of horse racing, a study of sport in the work of Brendan Kennelly, and an examination of the appearance of the word 'bikini' in Ezra Pound's Cantos.

POST is subtitled a review of poetry studies, and is therefore of an academic/scholarly nature. But in addition to essays and reviews it often features original poetry: derek beaulieu's visual poem-games appear throughout this issue, while my sequence 'Masculine Biography Vol 1' (from Spitting Out the Mother Tongue) is also included, introduced in the editorial as "describing a personal history in World Cup-termed fragments".

Cadences Vol 7

2011-12-02T13:44:00.002Z

Volume 7 (Fall 2011) of Cadences: A Journal of Literature and the Arts in Cyprus has just been published. This issue places particular emphasis on translation and its bridge-building aspect, with an essay by EU official and literary translator Anthi Karra prominent. And apart from the usual content of poetry, fiction and non-fiction texts in Greek, Turkish and English - often translated from one into another of these three main languages of the island - there are translations from the Portuguese, Spanish, Lithuanian and Polish.

The issue also includes my poems 'The Orchard' and 'Το Πίσω Περβόλι' from Spitting Out the Mother Tongue, which were written simultaneously as two versions or branches of the same poem, one in English and the other in the Cypriot dialect of Greek.

In Focus (Vol 8, No 3)

2011-11-23T15:43:00.001Z

In Focus is "a quarterly magazine on literature, culture and the arts in Cyprus" and is published in Nicosia by The Cyprus PEN Centre and Armida Publications. Its current issue reproduces the feature on my work originally published in January for 3:AM Magazine's 'Maintenant' series: an interview conducted by Steven Fowler, accompanied by five poems.

In Focus features fiction, poetry, artwork, essays, reviews, interviews and non-fiction pieces. Some of the material is very good - an interview with a maker of theatre masks from a few issues ago springs to mind. But it is of a conservative bent, and with a tone that can appear overly formal, or sentimental.

Editor Panos Ioannides has published work of mine before, and I'm grateful that he has sought our permission to bring the feature to the attention of the magazine's readers. But it's impossible to ignore that a lot of what it publishes is at odds with the gist of what I say in the very interview it reproduces - or with what I hope my work represents. For example, in another interview from the current issue, with the singer Alexia, which pointedly takes place in the city of Ammochostos/Famagusta (since 1974 standing north of the Cypriot divide) there's the following exchange:

ALEXIA: Let's see what song is played at the beach bar of the new tenants.
MARIOS (interviewer): Whatever it is, I hope they won't stay for much longer and that soon we'll get to hear some Greek tunes instead... perhaps some of your music!
ALEXIA: Thank you Marie! Yes, let's hope so!

Then, in an essay that offers a reading of the poem 'The Stone' by Sophocles Lazarou - an intriguing-sounding poem which I'd like to track down and explore further - the essay's author Andreas Petrides writes:

"And if I express myself in this almost dithyrambic tone, dragging out a poem from the past, it is because my soul thirsts every so often for one, albeit fleeting, return to good poetry, beyond the suffocating grip of the modernistic or philosophical, without real inspiration, contemporary constructs."

It's not the case that In Focus juxtaposes differing approaches to writing and art, or contrasting sociopolitical attitudes, to offer a critique or a questioning of each position: I find the majority of what it publishes tending towards the nostalgic, the self-consciously poetic, the insularly nationalistic. Which makes the reproduction of the feature hard to interpret.

Scrutinising Ireland's President-Poet

2011-11-17T21:34:00.009Z

It was amusing to read the comments that predictably flooded in from indignant folk, mainly out of or related to Ireland, following Carol Rumens' deconstruction of Michael D Higgins' poem 'When Will My Time Come?'. "Mean-spirited", "churlish", "nasty" and "mad woman" were some of the epithets used with reference to the article or its author, both in the chain of comments below the piece and on other forums.

The first I knew of Rumens' piece on The Guardian website (which I often read) was from a parochial defence of Higgins in the following Saturday's Irish Times (which I often don't). For what it's worth, I feel there's an issue with Rumens' article in that its title (possibly not her own choice) and first paragraph question the very claim that Higgins is a poet, rather than what he writes or his approach. (Interestingly, on her own website Rumens begins her welcome note with "I hate attaching labels to myself. Am I a poet? I hope so but how can I be sure?") But this kind of ultra-defensive reaction a critical piece elicited from people interested in poetry was rather revealing.

What was particularly notable was how, even in such minds, the poetry got relegated to insignificance the moment its maker attained a national office - even one of a largely ambassadorial nature. Few, if any, confronted the poem itself or its deconstruction. This lack of belief in the relevance of poetry brought to mind a disparaging comment made about Barack Obama by one of his opponents in the run up to the 2008 US presidential election: "he's a poet, not a fighter".

Michael D Higgins has been a politician and a public figure for a long time, with a real, active and well-documented championing of human rights and the arts. His poetry is viewed as something he does in parallel, and harmless - though published by relatively mainstream presses. As far as I'm aware there's been little serious critical attention given to it (the pats on the back of the sure-isn't-he-great-writing-poems-too sort don't really count).

Isn't the very reason he has now been voted president of a state enough to make his words and how he has used them ripe to be scrutinised - harshly, if necessary? It's not OK for arts bodies, other poets etc just to publicise and celebrate the fact that they have a president who has also written poems. I hope, without holding my breath, that in publishing the "offending" article Carol Rumens and The Guardian end up causing a critical shift beyond their initial intention.

The Art of Failure isn't hard to Master, by Thomas Brezing

2011-11-10T15:51:00.008Z

Thomas Brezing's exhibition The Art of Failure isn't hard to Master opens on Saturday 12 November 2011 at the Highlanes Gallery in Drogheda, Co Louth, and runs until 11 January 2012.

Brezing's painting 'Skylloura', which provides the cover for my book Spitting Out the Mother Tongue, will be on show.

There's a full programme of public events planned around the exhibition, two of which include my participation:

On Saturday 26 November, at 3pm, I will be taking part in a panel discussion with title 'the influence of literature on art and art on literature'. Artist David Newton will be contributing chair, with the panel also including Thomas Brezing and artist Mary Kelly. (A full colour catalogue accompanying the exhibition, with essay by Cliodhna Shaffrey, will be launched at this event.)

And on Saturday 10 December I will be present in the gallery from 11am until 2pm, in the Artist's Shack, for an intervention, where I intend to engage the public into the surrealist game 'exquisite corpse' to produce collaborative poems around the works in the exhibition.

Reading in Balbriggan Library

2011-11-06T15:57:00.005Z

On Wednesday 9 November I will be reading from Spitting Out the Mother Tongue in the public library in Balbriggan, Co Dublin. Start time is 7pm.

eternal torture

2011-11-02T10:38:00.009Z

"Translation is not just important: I would go so far as to say that without translation we wouldn’t have literature, not as we know it. I think a good form of torture for any serious writer would be to deny them reading anything other then works produced in their own language or country. For eternity. Translation is the lifeblood that sustains the conversations crucial not only to literary creation, but cultural understanding and development."

- John Holten, interviewed by Karl Whitney for 3:AM Magazine. Holten's first novel is The Readymades (Broken Dimanche Press, 2011), with artwork by Darko Dragičević.

Seven Towers Lunchtime Readings

2011-10-30T19:37:00.000Z

Karl Parkinson and I are the featured poets in November's edition of the Seven Towers lunchtime reading series, which takes place on the first Wednesday of each month at the Twisted Pepper café (54 Middle Abbey St, Dublin 1). Wednesday 2 November 2011, 1.15pm, free admission.

London Student newspaper

2011-10-26T10:28:00.033+01:00

London Student, 'Europe's largest independent student newspaper', has published a feature on Wurm im Apfel, where Kit Fryatt talks about Wurm's origins as a reading series and small independent press, about its publications and its plans - as well as the state of non-mainstream poetry in Ireland. "Yes, there is more to Irish poetry than Heaney and bogs and grandmothers' nails," the feature's author comments.

It also includes a short write-up on Spitting Out the Mother Tongue, a sort of first mini-review, in which it is described as "a fantastic book of poetry, with poems about Danielle Steel and Mötley Crüe..." Kit then briefly discusses the collection.

London Student is published fortnightly and is available free on all college campuses of the University of London.

writing 3.0 festival (2011)

2011-10-14T10:13:00.002+01:00

For this year's Writing 3.0 festival I will again be hosting an event with readings by guest poets followed by an open-mic session. The aim of the event is to showcase poetry written wide of the mainstream and to celebrate the work of new writers by inviting a participant in the previous year's open-mic session to feature. The featured poets this year are Catherine Walsh and Sarah Maria Griffin.

Catherine Walsh is the author of eight books, most recently Optic Verve: A Commentary (Shearsman, 2009), and her work has been included in a number of anthologies. She also co-runs the small press hardPressed Poetry. Sarah Maria Griffin's first collection Follies was published by Lapwing earlier this year. In April she represented contemporary performance poetry from Ireland in New York City.

The venue is Gibney's Pub in Malahide, and the date is Thursday 20 October. We start at 7.30pm and attendance is free (no pre-booking required) with registration for reading in the open-mic from 7pm - please note that performance places are limited.

Full festival programme and booking information for all events on the festival website.

It's a Wrap: UpStart poster giveaway party

2011-10-12T11:53:00.005+01:00

To mark the close of the poster project and to raise funds for future projects, UpStart - the group that put art and poetry on the streets of Dublin during the Irish General Election campaign of February 2011 - is throwing a poster giveaway party on Friday 14 October at Block T, Smithfield, Dublin 7.

It'll feature bands, DJs, performances, speakers, screenings and a poster exhibition. And everyone attending will receive a wrapped poster - their own piece of UpStart history to keep.

Somewhere among it all I'll be reading from new work.

The entrance fee is 7 Euro (though it's free for contributors to the original project) and like all UpStart events it's BYOB. 7pm till midnight.

launch of Spitting Out the Mother Tongue

2011-10-05T12:28:00.000+01:00

Wurm Press invites you to the launch of Spitting Out the Mother Tongue

poems by Christodoulos Makris

The Loft Bookshop

54 Middle Abbey St

(upstairs in the Twisted Pepper)

Dublin 1

Tuesday 11th October 2011, 8pm

Guest Speaker: Harry Clifton, Ireland Professor of Poetry

i'm so happy 'cause today i found my friends

2011-09-24T10:04:00.042+01:00

Nevermind released on 24 September 1991

End of call for An Inventory of Al-Mutanabbi Street

2011-09-19T11:43:00.023+01:00

The Al-Mutanabbi Street coalition's call to book artists closed on 1 September. The project attracted an incredible 254 participants from around the world, far exceeding the curators' target of 130.

An Inventory of Al-Mutanabbi Street is set to have its first full exhibition in early 2013 at Manchester's John Rylands (University) Library - an old haunt of mine.

The UpStart Slam: Poetry vs Wrestling

2011-09-08T10:45:00.032+01:00

This Saturday 10 September I'll be taking part in UpStart's second 'Slam' night, which inevitably pits poetry against American Superstar Wrestling. Like UpStart's hugely successful first 'Slam' of last February, it will happen at The Complex in Smithfield Square, Dublin 7, and it's a BYOB event. Food will be on sale. It starts at 8pm and it's €10 in (tickets at the door).

Mindless Summer

2011-09-03T13:33:00.019+01:00

In news that seems to have barely registered outside the island, 98 containers full of explosives left untended in the elements (in direct and extreme heat, mostly) for three years, right next to Cyprus’ main power station at Mari, finally blasted it to extinction on 11 July. It's been reported that it was the world's largest ever peacetime non-nuclear explosion. The fact that only 13 people were killed is largely due to it having happened at 6am, when the scores of restaurants, beaches etc nearby were empty.

As it was, it resulted in the whole country (minus the tourist areas...) experiencing frequent power shortages, whose impact has been exacerbated by the usual summer heat. The financial consequences are estimated to be severe, particularly for small businesses, with an already shaking economy looking as if heading for trouble. There’s an element of exaggeration and sensationalism in the reporting, as well as a heightened sense of tragedy ingrained in the local psyche – but this should not distract from the several levels of mindlessness that brought such an event to pass. The subsequent government denials, political point-scoring, daily and increasingly bombastic protests and emotionally-charged tales of heroism or cover-up operations reported in the media or via word of mouth are a form of explosion of a different kind: that of a simmering dissatisfaction with and mistrust of those in power to manage public affairs fairly.

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The riots that started in Tottenham and spread elsewhere in London and other English cities a month later were similarly triggered by a specific incident, though their roots are diverse. Looting is an extreme but logical conclusion of a certain form of capitalism. And parallel to examining policing practices and ways of delivering justice (and current rhetoric seems to be pointing to disproportionate measures against even those suspected to have been involved) a core question to be pondered is what might have allowed the various strands of people who took part to justify their involvement to themselves – consciously or otherwise. Time ought to be taken over this. It’s not well-thought out or in any way constructive having the matter morally resolved simply by blaming ‘sheer criminality’ and ‘mindless thuggery’. And it should be clear that nothing is gained by plunging already disaffected people into further marginalisation.

Violence is rarely mindless – though it's inarticulate as an expression of frustration. And this was hardly an apolitical event. I read that some in the British government are calling for the power to shut down social networking in times of unrest. How ideologically removed would such an action be from those ascribed to the Chinese authorities, often criticised for (among other things) Internet-spying and firewall-installing in an effort to silence dissidence (the highlighted case of Ai Weiwei’s detention comes to mind)? And what of the widely-praised uprisings of the Arab Spring – with David Cameron recently claiming a share of the credit for the Libyan rebellion – didn't they depend on unrest co-ordinated through social networking? The implication is of a strain of opportunism as well as double-standards in the machinations of current government – and this is perhaps what ought to be eradicated first. Cutting social services, withdrawing benefits or council housing as punishment, or attempting to ban Twitter are re-actions as inarticulate as the riots themselves.

Round the Clock goes Out of Print (and related notes)

2011-08-23T11:40:00.034+01:00

Wurm Press has now sold out of the second print run of my chapbook Round the Clock. At the moment we have no plans to re-print. But I still have a handful of copies, each of which can be bought for €4 directly from me at readings, or by post (email me for details).

On a related note, before last Saturday's reading I got my hands for the first time on a sample copy of Spitting Out the Mother Tongue. I'm very pleased with its feel, print quality and overall design. The cover - courtesy of artist Thomas Brezing - looks great. The text has gone through countless editorial probes and there's nothing that can be done about it now... Some tweaking is required relating mostly to typesetting and then it'll be ready to go. The launch is scheduled for 11 October - I'll be posting more details on it nearer the time.

And on a further related note, Wurm im Apfel has started a crowdsourcing funding campaign. Please do consider donating - any amount is welcome (though €5 is the minimum the site will accept). Your contribution will help keep Wurm going: without funding from any official source, it has been presenting by far the most interesting and exciting poetry in Dublin since 2008, both through its reading series (which included the Wurmfest weekend festival in 2009) and its publication programme of chapbooks and full poetry collections. For more information, and to donate, click on the relevant icon on the right. [update 4 Oct 2011: funding target has been gratefully met, icon removed]

Wurm Press poets at the Twisted Pepper

2011-08-15T16:10:00.002+01:00

On Saturday 20 August I'll be reading with Cah-44 and Karl Parkinson for a Wurm Press poets showcase hosted by the Seven Towers agency. We'll be at the Where It's At underground bookmarket, housed every Saturday afternoon at the Twisted Pepper building (downstairs in 'The Box'), 54 Middle Abbey Street, Dublin 1. Start time is 3pm, and admission is free.

Herbarium reading

2011-08-06T10:29:00.005+01:00

Here's SJ Fowler reading 'Sincerely', my poem in Herbarium (starts at around 1:10, following one of his own contributions, 'White Horehound') at the launch of the anthology on 22 July. Steve has also compiled a video log of the event.

Herbarium is now sold out.

Al-Mutanabbi Street project: an update

2011-07-25T13:25:00.015+01:00

On joining An Inventory of Al-Mutanabbi Street I had a clear idea of the concept for my contribution - though the details, especially in relation to the book's production, were (and are) still hazy. I made the initial assumption that a poetry chapbook would qualify as an artist's book without the need for visuals or special production techniques.

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The poem 'Muses Walk', included in my upcoming collection, is the product of an attempt to write a specific street in the centre of Nicosia as it stood at a (less) specific period of time. It's made of 16 lines, some as short as three words, others running to a second or third physical line on the page. The poem is an attempt to freeze space and time, and present Οδός Μουσών in a condition now long gone.

Οδός Μουσών is - or was - a street containing elements that I imagine, through pictures and verbal descriptions, Al-Mutanabbi Street to also contain. I was also struck by the idea that Al-Mutanabbi Street could be an ordinary street anywhere and at any time, but with a unique and extraordinary story. And of course Nicosia continues to be scarred by its own history of conflict.

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So for the project I proposed to make each line in 'Muses Walk' the title/starting point for a new poem, therefore producing a book of 16 poems, the "contents page" of which will simply be the original poem.

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Four months on I have begun expanding ten of those original 16 lines. I am keeping an open mind on the format each new poem might take: discursive or in note form, written in prose, made of found texts, employing words from languages other than English... And I haven't ruled out the possibility of adding photographs - perhaps in a manner not unlike the books of W. G. Sebald.

Writing "to order" like this is turning out to be bloody hard! Especially since I thought I had written all I had to write in the original poem. But it's also exhilarating and, now that the book is starting to find some shape, immensely satisfying. It's been put to me that what I am in essence doing is 'exploding' the original poem, with shrapnel of memory and language flying about in all directions, often crossing and lodging into each other at odd angles.

Herbarium

2011-07-16T10:37:00.007+01:00

Herbarium is an anthology of poems, edited by James Wilkes, celebrating and exploring the contemporary resonances of medicinal plants and herbs. It features contributions from over 50 poets and is published in celebration of the Urban Physic Garden, a pop-up community-built garden of medicinal plants installed in Southwark this summer by Wayward Plants - a collective of architects, designers, artists and urban growers - with the aim of blooming a slice of neglected London land for a short period. The garden is open to visitors Tuesdays to Sundays from 11am to 6pm, until 15 August 2011.

For the anthology, each species in the garden was selected by a participating poet, who then produced a poem around it. My contribution ('Sincerely') relates to the herb gravelroot. Gravelroot is a "white- and purple-flowered plant up to 3m/10ft; North American Indian red dye plant" (The Complete Book of Herbs, Clevely and Richmond, Lorenz Books, 1994). Its roots and seedheads are used to treat rheumatism, backache and urinary disorders - but of interest to me in writing this poem is its employment as a talisman (in voodoo, magic and witchcraft) for gaining success in job hunting and interviews, and for the improvement of career prospects in general.

A reading of the poems from the anthology - and the launch of the print edition (with accompanying CD) published by Capsule Press - will take place on Friday 22 July at 7pm at the Urban Physic Garden site on 100 Union Street, London SE1 0NL. Unfortunately I can't be there, but S J Fowler has kindly agreed to read my contribution.

my new collection now available to pre-order

2011-07-10T11:33:00.002+01:00

Spitting Out the Mother Tongue is now available to pre-order from the Wurm Press website for the special pre-publication price of €10 (plus €2 postage to addresses outside Ireland). Publication will be in September, with a launch planned for early October - details nearer the time.

At the moment I'm correcting the proofs. I'm really pleased with how it's coming together - the typography, cover design, overall feel - and excited about bringing out this strand of my work in book form. I can't wait to get my hands on the actual thing!

Grow Together: Concrete Poetry in Brazil and Scotland

2011-07-01T11:23:00.002+01:00

Grow Together: Concrete Poetry in Brazil and Scotland runs from 3 July to 7 August 2011 at HICA (The Highland Institute for Contemporary Art) and is open on Sundays 2 - 5pm, or by appointment.

Augusto de Campos / Haroldo de Campos / Décio Pignatari / Edwin Morgan / Ian Hamilton Finlay / Geraldo de Barros

As well as presenting individually important poems, such pivotal works as Augusto de Campos' Tensão, this exhibition, with adjacent works in English and Portuguese, examines correspondence between languages as well as between language and equivalents in sound and music. It specifically reflects on the communication between poets of different nationalities and, in this context, on the effects of location on meaning. Consistent with this the location of HICA, as rural gallery and research project, enables an active presentation where elements such as Morgan's Chaffinch Map of Scotland or Pignatari's Terra, painted directly onto the gallery walls, make immediate connection to the context of the space and exhibition, and determine a current meaning.

Background to the concrete poetry movement, especially in Brazil, will be presented through related materials, including interviews with Augusto de Campos and a film by Michel Favre on the concrete artist Geraldo de Barros.

The exhibition’s title, Grow Together, is from the Latin root of the word ‘concrete’. Here, this etymology is particularly suggestive, of dialogue between geographically distant centres (Brazil and Scotland), or perhaps more pertinently, of the process of development of artworks and poems themselves: the process through which meaning finds form, exemplified in the exhibition by Haroldo de Campos’ Cristal Forma.

Dr Nuño Sacramento, Director of the Scottish Sculpture Workshop, will give a talk on the work of Ferriera Gullar, poet and author of the Neo-Concrete Manifesto, at HICA on Sunday 7 August.

The Art Books of Henri Matisse

2011-06-21T12:50:00.003+01:00

The Chester Beatty Library in Dublin is currently exhibiting five out of the more than a dozen artist’s books produced by Henri Matisse. I wanted to look at the approach in these books towards marrying the elements of narrative, typography and illustration.

I was a little surprised to learn that they often came unbound, in loose sheets. Jazz (1947) is Matisse’s best-known art book, with bold colours and occasional lithographed text as accompaniment to the images. Jazz is brilliant and large-scale – and in my mind somewhat at odds with the idea of the portability of the book (it was originally conceived as a collection of plates). In terms of book production, then, I found the other exhibits of more interest.

Pasiphaé (1944) is Henry de Montherlant’s retelling of the legend of the birth of the Minotaur. For this, Matisse selected favourite phrases from the text which he interpreted in several ways – though in the book he published only one image per scene. The linoleum-produced illustrations consist of white lines on a black background, forming silhouettes which recall classical Greek representations of the figure; dispersed throughout the book, they contrast sharply with the white pages containing the black lettering of the text. (I also noted that the text incorporates a combination of verse, regular prose and dramatic dialogue.)

an image from Pasiphaé (source: henri-matisse.net)

For Poèmes de Charles d’Orléans (1950) Matisse created a backdrop to the medieval-period poems rather than direct illustrations. What stands out here is the use of his own calligraphic script for the text – surrounded by garlands and rolls; he also decided to vary the colour and motif of the script in order to avoid monotony.

In Poésies de Stéphane Mallarmé (1932) he responded to the poet’s stated emphasis on the importance of the white space around the poem by etching “an even, very thin line, without hatching, so that the printed page is left almost as white as it was before printing.” So, like in Pasiphaé, the soft-line images placed on the opposite page to the text form an attractive contrast to the dense black type.

an image from Poésies de Stéphane Mallarmé (source: henri-matisse.net)

And there’s also his illustration of James Joyce’s Ulysses (1935). Most intriguing here is the fact that Matisse chose to illustrate subjects from The Odyssey rather than scenes from Joyce’s text. His pencil studies reproduced on blue & yellow (see-through) tissue are impressive.

The exhibition continues until 25 September 2011.

wurm im bloom

2011-06-13T12:11:00.001+01:00

On Thursday 16 June Wurm im Apfel presents a poetry reading with Sophie Mayer and Nina Karacosta. The venue is the Cat and Cage pub (function room), 74 Drumcondra Rd Upper, Dublin 9. 8pm start, free admission.

Sophie Mayer published her first daringly experimental and queer-positive poem when she was 6 years of age. She teaches creative writing at Kings College London and has published extensively on feminism and film. Her new collection is The Private Parts of Girls (Salt, 2011).

Nina Karacosta lives in Paris. Her chapbook Previous Vertigos appeared from Corrupt Press earlier this year.

The performances will be preceded by an antidote-to-Bloomsday workshop (wurmshop). From 6pm. Bring poems to discuss and share. No straw boaters please.

Whitey on the Moon, by Gil Scott-Heron

2011-06-01T12:44:00.007+01:00

The sound of tambourines calls us to gather round. It's a summer evening on a city centre lawn, or maybe on a concrete pavement in some ghetto.

The speaker gets straight to the point. It's all come to a head: a rat bit his sister Nell. The repeated reference to “whitey on the moon” suggests that this happened around the time of man’s first walk on the moon. The juxtaposition of these images prompts us to consider the cost at which such a feat might have been accomplished, what kind of sacrifices might have been made to get a man to the moon. Where did the funds for research, medical support etc come from? The speaker links all this to his inability to pay for the treatment of his sister (who gets worse) and ruminates on his obligation to be paying off loans for the next ten years.

Being bitten by a rat in the home suggests neglect. We learn there’s a landlord involved; and that, while the rent has gone up, there’s still no adequate sewage system or supply of electricity and hot running water. Then come further, more general hardships: higher taxation, more expensive food, widespread availability and use of hard drugs, and – getting back to the start of it all – rats lurking around the house.

Up until now the man on the moon – the derogatory “whitey” notwithstanding – has been a symbol for the disparity in means between the rich and the poor. But suddenly he begins to be implicated (if it wasn’t such a terrible pun you could say that the speaker smells a rat): “Was all that money I made last year / for whitey on the moon?” he asks. And right there the anger boils over: but, as well as defiance, it's with an undercurrent of suspicion that nothing will come of it that the speaker vows to send his bills – “airmail special” – to the man on the moon.

In its vaguely defeated denouement the poem is an eloquent call to arms. There’s an uncomfortable contrast between the contempt the speaker shows to the powerful through the use of the word “whitey” and the hope of having his bills paid by him. While specifying the man on the moon as white, combined with the fact that the poet is black, may strike some as restrictive in its particularity – though there is much evidence that there are still discrepancies in standards of living between racial groups – the situation described has a broader ambit. Last year I spoke to a (white) man who was bitten by a rat on the first night after he and his family had moved into rented accommodation – a rather neglected home until the threat of litigation – very close to where I live. Taxes are indeed going up, while public services are being curtailed; heating bills and other domestic charges are increasing; crime is encroaching on areas previously thought of as safe.

At the same time comfort and riches are fenced in smaller and smaller circles – both between and within nations. Acts of thievery and thuggishness are being swept under the carpet or even justified due to the power the perpetrators command – political, financial or cultural. People lose their livelihoods and homes while those accountable are quietly retired or handed bonuses or both. Those who simply try to carry on are finding it harder to do so – and others who seek out new challenges, whether for the sheer excitement of it or because they see no other option, are often constrained by new laws and new moralities.

I read ‘Whitey on the Moon’ as a timeless revolutionary call that has found a new point in the sociopolitical cycle at which it is relevant. It questions whether the dignity of individuals should be traded for general prosperity and excellence – or indeed whether this is the only way. This year’s Arab uprising and student protests in the UK are almost certainly just the beginning, because the current – and widening – contrast between those with means and those without cannot possibly be sustained.

Baghdad, 5 March 2007 (Al-Mutanabbi Street) at the Imperial War Museum North, Manchester

2011-05-24T10:58:00.003+01:00

Exhibition continues until 31 January 2012.

Poem of the Day on UpStart blog

2011-05-15T14:11:00.002+01:00

My poem 'Ginsberg in Fingal' was Friday's Poem of the Day on the UpStart blog. As noted there, it's taken from my chapbook Round the Clock, and was composed out of lines from Ginsberg's poem 'America', written in January 1956.

It places the figure of Allen Ginsberg at a specific location (Fingal, a relatively wealthy county in Ireland and home of Dublin airport) and a particular time (late 2000s), and gives this figure a voice. As such it's a straightforward dramatic monologue, or 'persona poem'. But this persona's voice wasn't an invention: at the time of composition correspondences between impressions of contemporary Ireland and 1950s America seen through Ginsberg's poem were too intriguing to ignore.

nthposition May 2011

2011-05-04T12:53:00.003+01:00

nthposition is an award-winning and widely-read online magazine of poetry and other writing, including features on people and places, opinion, fiction and reviews.

It has just published its May 2011 content, which includes my poem 'University'.

Christian Bök in Bury & London

2011-04-28T11:43:00.002+01:00

Christian Bök will be making a couple of rare appearances in the UK over the coming week.

First, as part of the Text Festival in Bury, he will be performing at the Met Arts Centre along with Holly Pester, among others; this is on Saturday 30 April. Then, on Tuesday 3 May, he will be at Vibe Live on Brick Lane for the London Word Festival, with Luke Kennard and Maria Fusco. Both shows start at 7.30pm.

Below is a clip of Bök reading an excerpt from his book Eunoia, which consists of five chapters restricting themselves to the use of a single vowel; this is a poem/section from Chapter I (for Dick Higgins).

Alighiero e Boetti's 'Dossier Postale'

2011-04-24T14:45:00.004+01:00

During the Arte Povera exhibition at Tate Modern in the summer of 2001 I was leafing through a relevant catalogue and was arrested by a page describing Alighiero e Boetti's Dossier Postale (1970). I read that for this piece Boetti designated 26 recipients (artists, dealers, critics, collectors etc) to each of which he assigned an imaginary itinerary. That he mailed a letter to each at the first point of their itinerary. And that, since these journeys were imaginary, the envelopes containing the letters would be 'returned to sender' - Boetti himself - unopened, who would then place them into larger envelopes and mail them to the next address on their journey.

And so on. Boetti documented the process by means of photocopying: both sides of each envelope were copied before being sealed into larger ones. All this material was subsequently catalogued and filed in 26 different folders, each corresponding to an addressee.

image: Museo MADRE

I was recently reminded of my encounter with Dossier Postale through Derek Beaulieu's description of A Box of Nothing - another instance of mail art. Ten years ago the work of Boetti appealed to me because of its playfulness, its use - and subversion - of bureaucracy, its fascination with order and classification, its exploration of error, its interest in process. (Arte Povera as a whole was a movement that challenged the worship of the art object by using deliberately unorthodox materials; Alighiero Boetti inserted the Italian conjunction e - meaning "and" - into his name to reflect a sense of multiple, unstable identity.)

I remember photocopying the Dossier Postale article and filing the copy in my "cuttings etc" envelope/folder. Despite searching for it on many occasions since, I was never able to find it. But its ghost has accompanied me.

image: Sperone Westwater Gallery

Material from Dossier Postale has been exhibited over the years, and so has that from Boetti's other similarly conceptual works - including a series of embroidered maps of the world produced between 1971 and 1992, and the compilation of a list of "the thousand longest rivers in the world" published as a limited edition book in 1977. Such material - like the finished poem - appears as an end result, the product of a process. One could also regard it as a starting point from where each viewer/reader may work backwards and re-imagine the process for him/herself. And on occasion, the process itself is the poem.

Spinning Cities, by Kimberly Campanello

2011-04-20T12:02:00.001+01:00

In Kimberly Campanello's chapbook Spinning Cities (Wurm Press, 2011) shit is the first but not the last word. Its smell wafts through the twelve dystopian poems, which crawl with impurities, decay, cunt, deformity, rape. Animal parts and bodily functions.

These poems take aim - but never cheaply. Restless but clearly thought out and well stitched together, they make it their business to illuminate recesses of the now, in the process establishing unexpected connections. They force the reader's eyes to stay open. And they retain a wide scope, with varying line length and geography that reflect the poet's pool of raw material.

How credible is my endorsement of the work of another Wurm Press poet? Of course I'll support it! But I do so only because Spinning Cities hits the spot consistently. And it works as a unit. Razor-sharp, exhilarating, and revelling in the power of words and their interaction to grapple with things as they are, to shake up and to unsettle, this is compelling and - crucially - necessary poetry.

An Inventory of Al-Mutanabbi Street

2011-04-12T10:58:00.003+01:00

On 5 March 2007 a car bomb exploded on Al-Mutanabbi Street in Baghdad. More than 30 people were killed and 100 wounded.

Al-Mutanabbi Street is in a mixed Shia-Sunni area. It's the historic centre of Baghdad bookselling, with bookstores and outdoor stalls, cafés, stationery shops, tea and tobacco shops... It's been the heart of the Baghdad literary and intellectual community since the 13th century.

The Al-Mutanabbi Street Coalition was formed as a response to the bombing, to honour the street by creating work that holds both "memory and future" - what was lost that day. To this end it devised and curated the Al-Mutanabbi Street Broadside Project, and completed its call to letterpress printers after reaching a goal of 130 broadsides from 130 individual printers. Thanks to the efforts of writer Evelyn Conlon, thirty of the resulting broadsides were recently exhibited in The Market House in Monaghan and the Central Library, ILAC Centre, Dublin.

Now the coalition is calling on book artists to work on An Inventory of Al-Mutanabbi Street in order to "re-assemble" some of the "inventory" of the reading material that was lost in the bombing. The curators of the project are Beau Beausoleil of San Francisco's Overland Books and Sarah Bodman of the Centre for Fine Print Research, UWE Bristol.

I have joined An Inventory of Al-Mutanabbi Street by making a commitment to produce and contribute an edition of three of a new chapbook of poems within one year (by end March 2012). One complete set of the 130 responses to the call will be donated to the Iraq National Library in Baghdad; the other two sets will be used in conjunction with shows of the broadsides as well as in shows of their own.

Participants in the project are not precluded from producing additional copies of their books to sell / exhibit / use however they wish. I haven't yet decided whether to do so, or to what extent. But I have settled on a concept for the book and began work on it. I'll be posting on its progress over the coming months.

'Genius or Not' writing project

2011-04-04T11:08:00.000+01:00

A little over a year ago, a group of writers who had previously appeared in Succour magazine, as well as a small number selected through open submissions to Succour's abandoned issue 11 (February 6, 2010), were invited to introduce to their writing practice an exercise that would come to be known as Genius or Not - following the example of Harry Mathews who, in 1980, attempted to overcome writer's block by committing to produce "twenty lines a day, genius or not" for a period of one year (himself following an exhortation that Stendhal once made to himself). Harry Mathews went on to publish the results in his book 20 Lines a Day (Dalkey Archive Press).

Each writer was asked to commit to at least one writing session per month lasting no more than one hour, which would yield a prose piece of no more than 500 words or a poem of no more than 20 lines, and whose contents would not have been preconceived in any way. The result would then be posted for publication within a day or two.

The project has so far amassed around 150 texts. Some of the writers who initially agreed to participate decided at different times and for various reasons to withdraw. Genius or Not has now gone live, carrying all the pieces already posted. The project is ongoing, and texts will continue to be added by the participating writers as they are being composed.

The title of each text is the date of its composition, and each is given up to five tags by its writer relating to its subject matter. There are therefore various ways of reading the texts on Genius or Not, such as chronologically, by specific writer, or by subject through the system of tags.

In addition to appearing on the website, the entries will feed onto the wall of the Genius or Not Facebook page, while the project can also be followed on Twitter.

*

To date I have contributed 12 pieces to Genius or Not. I discussed in an earlier post how the constraints placed on the act of writing while producing these texts have begun to have an effect on my writing practice.

The intermingling of styles, approaches and concerns present in the project is fascinating. Its brief means that elements of time and chance impact on each individual writer to produce a wide array of texts and a hypnotic overall pattern. The texts hang somewhere between journal entries, notes towards a poem or a story and fully-realised pieces. As the project continues, and with new writers coming on board - an injection of fresh blood will be sought at some stage in the future - it promises to evolve further.

The Tongue Box is OPEN...

2011-03-25T09:27:00.000Z

Tongue Box is a night of poetry readings and other forms of spoken word, also featuring live music, taking place on the last Tuesday of every month at The Cobblestone Pub in Smithfield (77 King Street North, Dublin 7). Hosted by Raven and CAH-44, it has developed a reputation as one of the most exciting and fun regular poetry and music events in Dublin.

I will be reading at the next Tongue Box on Tuesday 29 March, where I'll also be giving some poems from the forthcoming book an airing. The other featured poets are Catherine Cullen and Abby Oliveira. Music is from Pearse McLoughlin. Start time is 8pm and admission is free.

Local Colour (derek beaulieu & gary barwin)

2011-03-22T13:20:00.000Z

& Gary Barwin's explanation

Wurm im Apfel: rent party

2011-03-18T09:29:00.000Z

Wurm im Apfel is throwing a rent party to cover costs for its 2011 programme of readings and publications. Proceeds will go towards the funding of performances by Kimberly Campanello, Rachel Lehrman, Gavin Selerie and David Toms - and the forthcoming publication of full-length books by Dave Lordan, Astrid Lampe and myself.

Suggested donation is 10 Euro (alternatives will be accepted...) Those attending are also invited to bring suitably portable works of Dadaist art - or to come dressed as one. There'll be a prize for the best. There will also be a raffle.

Performing on the night will be Enda Reilly, Anne Tannam, Cah-44, Raven, Catspupil, Elder Roche and more.

20% of the proceeds will go to Aware, the mental health charity.

The date is Tuesday 22 March. Start time is 8pm. The venue is the Cat and Cage, 74 Drumcondra Road, Dublin 9 (opposite St Patrick's College).

Make it Brutal

2011-03-15T10:49:00.000Z

How might we start redressing Seamus Heaney’s claim that “in literature, nobody can cause any bother any more” (Stepping Stones, 2008)?

*

Poetry suffers from a crisis of relevance. It has been pointed out many times that it's a marginalised genre within a marginalised field. The arts are viewed by government as a revenue-generating division of tourism or, like sports, a flag-bearer for national identity; and by the majority of the public as an indulgence / proof of cultural refinement (delete what does not apply). And poetry – well, poetry is seen as hopelessly out of touch, even within the arts, as can be deduced from Artur Żmijewski’s quip during a recent interview: “What if we try to treat ourselves more seriously and not use the language of literature?” (‘The Politics of Fear’, Art Monthly, February 2010). By literature, I take it he means the higher, stuffier kind.

Żmijewski may both be right and wrong. It seems clear it’s no longer “serious” to employ a ‘poetic’ mode as overwhelmingly as it continues to be employed. Doing so ignores what goes on around us. Savagery, obscenity, apathy, decay, exploitation, hunger, crime – all these and more are everywhere we look. They are our known knowns. Though escapism is fine, necessary even, we must be careful not to cross into denial. And while we have a duty to search for hope beneath the rubble brought about by advanced capitalism, we must compel ourselves to engage with the very stuff that creates it.

*

"The language of literature" is deadly serious. The most enduring of it was urgent at the time it was composed. It’s up to writers to remember this and continue its tradition of undermining its own norms.

The challenge is to unravel what makes some poetry – with language and devices that are at times offensive in their disengagement – so popular with those who bother to read poetry at all, and what (in extension) gives such a forbidding image to those who don’t. Reasons put forward include the teaching of it in schools. Check. The abundance of creative writing classes, with their emphasis on imitation and consensus rather than critical reading or experimentation, also seems a hindrance. The perception of it being rather cosy and for the privileged persists, and coincides with an ingrained certainty of what Poetry should be ("I don’t know much about modern poetry but I know what I like").

*

Another argument accepts that it's a minority artform, and suggests it should remain that way. There’s pleasure in exclusivity, and poetry is primarily about pleasure, right? Such an argument seems to me a product of a particularly elitist view of what literature should be about, and which is the very thing literature, as all art, aims to challenge.

*

So is there an answer? Or is asking the question enough? Some would say that “causing bother” for the sake of it is spurious and childish – it’s not big and it’s not clever. But its practice may just open a gateway, both for those who admit to reading poetry and those who don’t, beyond mainstream verse and to the core of our practice.

Because there are endless approaches to poetry besides the lyrical – including the realisation of projects that are unexpected and persistent rather than secluded and exclusive. Humour and sarcasm seem pertinent tools for poetic composition. As do cartoonism, transcripts, computer code, hyperlinks, ventriloquism… And rage. And the ugly. And brutalism, with its links not only to the architectural kind or to art brut, but also with its connotations of vulgarity – and of ‘bad taste’, through the use in Hiberno-English slang of the adjective ‘brutal’ to denote low quality.

Howl, the reading

2011-03-01T16:16:00.000Z

On Saturday 5 March I will be reading at an event in London's Poetry Café celebrating the life and work of Allen Ginsberg. Participating poets have been invited to perform Ginsberg's poetry and/or their own material in demonstration of his wide, varied and ongoing influence.

The event was triggered by the European release of the film Howl. A list of some of the poets scheduled to read appears on the poster above; a late addition to the bill, I look forward to joining them.

Details:
The Poetry Café, 22 Betterton Street, Covent Garden, London WC2.
Saturday 5 March 2011, 6.30pm for a 7pm start.
Admission is free, places are limited.

just what is it that makes lists so appealing?

2011-02-24T12:07:00.000Z

For an article published in The Guardian online last week, Dan Vyleta compiled his 'Top 10' of books written in the author's second or adopted language. Discussing the practice of writing in a language other than one he was born into, Vyleta comments:

"It is true that for many of us our relationship to our adopted language is not territorial. Mine is an English that I cobbled together from the many places I have lived and the books I have read, a transnational quilt. It limits me in some respects, and opens avenues in others."

Among those on his list were books by the usual suspects - Conrad, Nabokov, Brodsky, Beckett - along with some by lesser known (Emine Sevgi Özdamar) or currently prominent (Aleksandar Hemon) writers. It was great to see Ha Jin mentioned, whose book of essays The Writer as Migrant (The University of Chicago Press, 2008) has a simultaneously steadying and animating effect.

Through this piece I learned that the technical term for such writers is 'exophones'. Literally, this means 'outside of voice'. Which carries all sorts of dismissive overtones. 'Exolingual', an alternative in the same vein, would suggest something else entirely.

I'm actually rather amused by efforts to find appropriate labels: emigré, transnational, post-national, heteroglossic, polyglot... Wouldn't it be interesting to consider how, to a certain extent, all writers use a hybrid tongue, one of their own making?

Upstarts out and about

2011-02-20T14:01:00.001Z

The UpStart posters are up around Dublin city. Among the earnest political promises that hold little currency we find the unexpected: a fantasy scene, a political cartoon, a startling line, a combative message... The impact is not enormous - these posters are dotted here and there, sometimes overwhelmed by the bankrolled electioneering slogans and those familiar rigid faces - but for those with even moderately roving eyes they provide relief and make a bright splash in their day.

Great credit is due to Aaron Copeland, mastermind of the initiative, and to everybody working for months now to bring it to fruition; kudos too to all the artists, writers, filmmakers and musicians who have donated their - mostly uncredited - work to the project.

All the work for UpStart, including the images/text on the posters, is now being added to the project's website, where there's also a lively blog. I haven't yet managed to locate the poster with my contribution - eventually I hope to add to this post an image of it in situ.

*Update, later on 20/2/2011: Here it is, courtesy of Unkie Dave's photostream on Flickr.

The Films of Nanni Moretti

2011-02-14T12:14:00.000Z

I became acquainted with the films of Nanni Moretti about ten years ago, through La Stanza del Figlio (The Son's Room): a clear-eyed, minimalist piece on random loss and the illusion of control, grief and the coming to terms with it. I noticed how Moretti told his story using a series of sharp vignettes that built on each other to bring about a complex effect. The comfortable lifestyle of the family in question made an impression, as did the lightness and airiness in the atmosphere, which I put down to geographical location.

I have since watched several more of Moretti's films, in random chronological order, the most recent being Aprile, from 1998. His commitment to the political left - completely absent from The Son's Room, which seems more and more like an anomaly within his oeuvre - is abundantly clear, as is his deep concern with life in Italy and the country's international standing. The failure of the Italian left is a constant motif, with his opposition to the premiership of Silvio Berlusconi - see in particular 2006's Il Caimano - indicative of his sentiments. All this is constantly juxtaposed with apparent events from his own life and his love of image and documentary filmmaking. Movement is also an important element - his Vespa is a vehicle for all sorts of shifts and freedoms - as is intellectual discourse, and humour. But two things have struck me the most: an air of self-depreciation, a slight sense of the ridiculous which he assigns to the character "Nanni" played by himself, constantly dealing with failure at something or other but crucially not giving up, finding a way to carry on; and the superficial disparity between his leftist ideology and polemics and the rather comfortable circumstances of his characters.

Is this a comment on hypocricy? Or does the richness of the mediterranean climate afford - at least on the surface - the people depicted in his films an easier mode of living? A soft humanity in his characters shines through, a closeness between them that rarely appears suffocating and a gentleness in the way they correspond with each other despite differences of opinion or personality: all these radiate a sense of well-being generally absent from the harsher climates of northern Europe. Is this a trick of cinema, part of the unending game played by memory, or simply a nostalgia for a disappeared (or never there in the first place) set of life rules?

Leave the libraries alone!

2011-01-30T15:16:00.000Z

At a public meeting earlier this month, Philip Pullman delivered a speech / critique of Oxfordshire county council's plans to stop the funding of nearly half of its 43 public libraries and have them instead run by community volunteers. And it went further and deeper, including commentary on publishers' increasing reliance on market forces to make editorial decisions. The speech has picked up a lot of attention, and has already been translated into French with the title 'Laissez nos bibliothèques en paix!'

The issue concerns me thrice over: as writer, reader and public library worker. Although it relates to specific developments in Britain, the broader forces at work apply to much of the world - particularly to regions under financial pressures.

Credit is due to the False Economy and Open Democracy sites for first co-publishing the speech.

Patience (After Sebald)

2011-01-25T11:26:00.000Z

Written and directed by filmmaker Grant Gee (Meeting People is Easy, Demon Days, Joy Division), Patience (After Sebald) is described as an essay-film on landscape, art, history, life and loss. It offers an exploration of the life, work and influence of WG Sebald via a long walk through coastal East Anglia that tracks his book The Rings of Saturn, and features contributions from Tacita Dean, Robert Macfarlane, Katie Mitchell, Rick Moody, Andrew Motion, Chris Petit, Iain Sinclair and Marina Warner.

Patience (After Sebald) will premiere at Aldeburgh Music, Snape, Suffolk on Friday 28 January, during After Sebald - Place and Re-Enactment: A Weekend Exploration, which also includes an exclusive new work performed live by Patti Smith. After the screening, Grant Gee will be in conversation with Robert Macfarlane.

I'd love to travel for this, but it looks like I'll have to settle for a future screening of the film elsewhere...

Poetry in Motion at the Droichead Arts Centre

2011-01-21T13:43:00.000Z

On Wednesday 26 January I will be reading as guest poet at the Poetry in Motion monthly series of readings at the Droichead Arts Centre.

These sessions start at 7.30pm with short readings from members of the the Saltwater Scribblers writing group (who have now taken over the running of the series). I'm told that guest writer readings can lead to dicussions about the writing craft.

Admission is free. Sean-Nos Singing sessions follow the readings - these start at around 9.30pm and are also free of charge.

My thanks to the previous organiser of the Poetry in Motion series, Emer Davis, for arranging this reading.

Twelve Beds for the Dreamer, by Máighréad Medbh / Catfish, dir. Ariel Schulman & Henry Joost

2011-01-14T12:26:00.000Z

How beneficial or detrimental to the reading of the poetry is personal acquaintance with the poet? I have known Máighréad Medbh for some years, as a fellow poet and as a colleague, as well as in a social context. While reading her latest collection Twelve Beds for the Dreamer (Arlen House, 2011) I found it difficult to keep my awareness of the circumstances of her life from entering the reading of the work.

I began to write these notes while waiting for the lights to dim for a screening of the film Catfish. Unlike The Social Network, this is a film about Facebook and its considerable impact. And it raises questions about lots more besides: identity, deception, life vs. art, invention, dreams vs. reality… But mostly I see it as being about the idea of personas, an individual’s separate and variable faces, about the fragmentation of the self.

At times, Máighréad Medbh’s poetry sizzles on the page. It is fearless and it is elemental. It is unapologetically feminine, intellectually agile, and it derives from the body. As might be expected from the work of someone primarily identified – for better or for worse, there’s little she can do about that now – as a ‘performance’ poet, there are great rewards in reading these poems aloud. There are turns of phrase and linguistic somersaults that delight. And the collection glitters in its tight unity: as the poet notes in her introduction, this is a quasi-scientific attempt to record her dreams at each stage of the moon’s monthly cycle – while staying more faithful to poetry than to astrology. A sense lingers that this book is the record of a journey out of the domestic – of an un-domestication, or a de-domestication. I’m not sure which.

Am I subconsciously reading these poems as autobiography? How much do we gain or miss by knowing the poet personally? When she writes as the poetic ‘I’, we know that this is not the ‘I’ of the historical person Máighréad Medbh speaking: at most – even in the work of the most ‘confessional’ of poets – this may be an approximation of a particular facet of her. Do the poems in which the speaker addresses a ‘you’ or invokes a ‘she’ achieve a distancing effect? Both ‘you’ and ‘she’ appear closer to the Máighréad Medbh I know – and not because of any specific pieces of information relayed. How many versions of ‘Máighréad Medbh’ are writing here – if any at all? The question seems to be one of construct.

I’m not totally convinced that Catfish is as pure a documentary as it purports to be. After all, isn’t it a film about artifice? For me it makes no difference whether it is ‘real’ or a hoax. Whether one knows ‘the truth’ about how the film was made, the personal circumstances of Yaniv Schulman specifically or of Ariel Schulman and Henry Joost, whether Angela Wesselman-Pierce really exists as we see her or whether she was in on the project from the start – this is all immaterial. The crucial thing here is whether the film’s themes and the questions it attempts to raise are constructed in a persuasive manner.

The main one of these seems to be whether Facebook (or any social network) forces its users to appear as the sum of their fragmented selves – a rather reductive state. Or, as it simultaneously seems to promise, whether they can be as many different parts of themselves – or the person(s) they have invented – as they want to be. I emerged from both screening and book with a heightened awareness that what remains undeniable is the body itself, corporeal matter – which is the medium we respond to the world with. That our perceptions begin and end in the body. These are issues that would speak to anyone with an online presence – and more generally to anyone who has more than one way of addressing the world. Which is not just poets, filmmakers and artists, but practically everyone.

3:AM Magazine's 'Maintenant' Series

2011-01-04T11:05:00.000Z

For the 43rd edition of 3:AM Magazine's Maintenant series of features on contemporary European poets, I am being interviewd by the series editor, Steven Fowler. As is the usual practice, the interview is accompanied by a number of my poems.

Each featured poet is assigned to a country, and as such I was the first to have fallen into the category marked 'Cyprus'. I comment on distinctions on the basis of nationality in the interview.

I was delighted to have been approached for this feature. I think the series is a terrific and necessary initiative from 3:AM Magazine, through which I've become aware of the work of some really exciting poets.

UpStart: The Video (with Stephen Rea)

2010-12-31T11:26:00.001Z

this is not a definitive end-of-year highlights list...

2010-12-27T14:51:00.000Z

An incident in which a woman may or may not have knocked down something or somebody, and then driven off, becomes the starting point in Lucrecia Martel's film The Headless Woman (La Mujer sin Cabeza). Zoë Skoulding's collection of poems Remains of a Future City reflects on our complex and evolving relationship with the European city. Parental fascism, indoctrination, closed societies, under- or mis-information and the violation of language are some of the themes examined memorably in Yorgos Lanthimos' unsettling film Dogtooth (Κυνόδοντας). As part of her installation The Golden Bough in Dublin's Hugh Lane Gallery Katie Holten painted the walls with the 'average colour' of the universe, as determined by astronomers at the John Hopkins University in Baltimore - both the 'incorrect' and the 'correct' versions. derek beaulieu's reading for the Wurm im Apfel series revealed a surprising dimension in conceptual poetry composed through mechanical means. Francis Alÿs' games with cities, international borders and other landscapes was presented as a series of instructions and postcards for the exhibition Le Temps du Sommeil at the Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA). Over a decade after publication, I became engrossed in the complexities of J M Coetzee's Disgrace. Another rather late discovery was the music of LCD Soundsystem. A luminous, labyrinthine construction in Carlos Garaicoa's show at IMMA sparked an online publishing initiative of mine currently in the pipeline. My first foray into the world of TV series box-sets led me to the seductive world of Don Draper and his fellow Mad Men. Daniel Miller interviewed artist Artur Żmijewski for the February 2010 issue of Art Monthly magazine; later in the year Żmijewski exhibited at Dublin's Royal Hibernian Academy. Gaspar Noe's Enter the Void attempts to push the boundaries of cinema, and is visually and aurally stunning. An exhibition of outsider art from Japan in the Halle Saint Pierre in Paris (Art Brut Japonaise) had me disoriented. A Selected Poems by Thom Gunn, which I picked up in a second-hand bookshop some time ago, went everywhere with me for most of the year.

UpStart

2010-12-18T10:56:00.001Z

UpStart is a non-profit arts collective which aims to put creativity at the centre of public consciousness during the Irish General Election Campaign in 2011. It plans to do this by reinterpreting the spaces commonly used for displaying election campaign posters in Dublin City and is calling on all artists to submit work for this exhibition.

The objectives of UpStart are to encourage a debate on the role of the arts in the state. The hope is to highlight the importance of creativity and ingenuity when society is in need of direction and solutions, and to emphasize the value of the arts to public life. UpStart believe that the future development of the country requires a healthy cultivation of the Arts.

UpStart are asking for submissions to this project from the full range of artistic disciplines. The aim is to receive 500 submissions from writers and visual artists, photographers, painters and graphic designers. These works will be duplicated and 1000 pieces will be printed as election size posters and be erected throughout Dublin city. Works from musicians and film makers are also accepted: these will be hosted and exhibited through the website, which will be launched on the day of the electoral poster campaign.

UpStart is now open for submissions, which will be accepted until the 15th of January. Submission details (please read these carefully) are available on the website, where you will also find information on how you can donate or otherwise help out with the project. There is also an UpStart Facebook page.

UpStart comprises artists and writers from Ireland and abroad and is non-aligned to any political party. It respects and follows Dublin City Council litter regulations and operates within the requirements of Irish law.

The Main Stream

2010-12-12T23:01:00.000Z

Triggered by a post on Carrie Etter's blog about describing and classifying poetry and the commentary/mini-discussion which ensued, Tim Love has written a short essay on the "alleged mainstream / non-mainstream rift and how to deal with such perceptions."

carry on writing

2010-12-03T11:47:00.000Z

"For days and weeks on end one racks one's brains to no avail, and, if asked, one could not say whether one goes on writing purely out of habit, or a craving for admiration, or because one knows not how to do anything other, or out of sheer wonderment, despair or outrage, any more than one could say whether writing renders one more perceptive or more insane."

- W. G. Sebald, The Rings of Saturn (trans. Michael Hulse)

Spoken Word in Paris

2010-12-01T04:34:00.000Z

On Monday 15 November I went along to the Spoken Word gig in Paris. Held at a great little colourful venue, a corner bar with intimately packed tables and a small performance stage, it seems to attract a primarily non-Francophone and mostly, but not exclusively, English-speaking crowd. And refusing to be limited by its title, this essentially open-mic weekly series encourages performances of all kinds.

So there was music - both acoustic and electronic, live and recorded - dramatic readings, storytelling, motley performances and general standup mayhem, as well as poetry. In English, French and more. A bit of trouble was brewing outside; at one stage somebody was rushed to hospital (a victim, I later heard, of nothing more than too much drinking); somebody else was merrily talking on her phone during performances (this open-mic event involved no microphone); and during the break I was propositioned with something that included booze, cash, a sketchpad and other things which remained suitably vague.

In this edgy and fun, slightly anarchic environment, which somehow held together, I read a few poems. There are photos from the night in question on their facebook page.

So, What Happened to Succour?

2010-11-17T22:32:00.000Z

Succour's managing editor Anthony Banks writes:

Succour ran for five years and ten issues from 2004 to 2009. During this period it was the UK’s most exciting journal of new fiction, poetry and art – “a Granta for the Facebook generation” according to Time Out. Succour's editors in London, Manchester, Brighton, Exeter and Dublin were committed to seeking out and publishing the very best new writing and artwork.

Succour’s contributors could be roughly divided into three categories. The first was writers who had never had any work published before, who we discovered either through open submissions, at public readings, or on the recommendation of other writers. Then there were writers who had published one or two collections or novels, but who were still in a sense emerging writers and whose work we wanted to bring to a wider audience. We also published new work by more established writers, or writers with a cult following, who we invited to contribute to the journal.

Succour was always keen to explore the relationship between literature and visual arts, publishing texts and images by artists including Becky Beasley, Raphael Zarka, Eva Stenram, Eline McGeorge and Daniel Arsham.

In 2010 a group of writers who had appeared in Succour over the years were invited to take part in a new online project titled Genius or Not. This project is currently under development and will be online by the end of 2010.

Béal Festival

2010-10-31T13:01:00.000Z

An exciting-sounding new company, Béal stages its first festival over two days this week (Wednesday 3 - Thursday 4 November 2010) in venues around Dublin. Through four events promising to combine work from the fields of art, music and poetry, twelve musical pieces - nine of which were specially written - will be accompanied by readings from poets.

The participating poets are Billy Mills, Maurice Scully, Katherine Walsh and Emily Crossland. The full programme also includes renderings of John Ashbery's 'The System' (with improvised electronic music) and Gerard Manley Hopkins' 'Repeat That, Repeat'.

Neither Use nor Ornament

2010-10-07T14:44:00.000+01:00

Nick Pearson's exhibition Neither Use nor Ornament opens at the Dean Clough Galleries in Halifax, West Yorkshire, on Saturday 9 October.

"Minimal intervention"? "Refabrication"? Leeds-born, London-based artist Nick Pearson is a creative 'fence', filching objects from the real world and subtly re-designating them before palming them off on the viewer. Snatching conversational fragments and kidnapping the lives of redundant objects he re-presents them - like objects in a dodgy charity shop - as items that promise both utility and decoration but deliver neither. The art world calls it 'slippage'. It's always playful and it's sometimes profound (but only when you least expect it).

An exhibition catalogue with the same title will also be available. An update of the original 2004 edition, the catalogue includes reproductions and critical essays - as well as my contribution 'Why I Live in Egypt'. For this I lifted an extract from an article in the Irish Times magazine and slightly altered it in five successive stages, the presentation of which constitutes the piece itself.

The catalogue is available to order from Nick's website. The exhibition runs until 9 January 2011.

Ó Bhéal audio

2010-10-05T14:09:00.000+01:00

An audio recording of my reading in Cork (20 September) has been posted on the Ó Bhéal website.

Howl, the movie

2010-09-30T22:11:00.000+01:00

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

2010-09-27T11:08:00.000+01:00

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

2010-09-15T14:19:00.000+01:00

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

2010-09-11T12:02:00.000+01:00

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

2010-09-07T15:05:00.000+01:00

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’)

Subscribe to Wurm...

2010-09-02T10:29:00.000+01:00

Kit Fryatt of Wurm im Apfel writes:

Wurm gets no money at all from official sources. Arts Council, Poetry Ireland, nada. They've been generous in the past; I'm grateful. It's a rotten time for arts funding; nobody has it easy. Wurm is a pretty cost-effective operation though -- a couple of hundred euro will keep us going for the rest of the year and into 2011. So here's the deal:

You become a subscriber, a Wurmfreund as it were, and in exchange for 50 euro to those in gainful employment, 20 euro to students & those on fixed or low incomes (no means test) -- you'll get an acknowledgement on the website (undergoing redevelopment as we speak) free copies of Wurm Press publications until 2012, a piece of stylish Wurmwear, and that fuzzy, faintly Medici-ish feeling attendant on becoming a patron of the arts. Donations of any amount can be sent by Paypal to puisingormdana@yahoo.co.uk, or you can register as a Wurmfruend at any Wurm event. Do pass the info on to anyone else you think might be interested.

Here's why you should:

- it's the only regular poetry event in Dublin that makes a point of inviting poets who write in various experimental and modernist-influenced idioms. We're different.
- We're internationalist in outlook
- it's a paying market for poets, and all money goes to poets' fees and costs. There are few enough of these as there is; and funding cuts mean they're getting even rarer
- events are free, and are staying that way
- publications forthcoming include chapbooks by the delightfully up-and-coming Ronan Murphy and the securely established Harry Gilonis. Wurm Press will publish the first English translation of Astrid Lampe's Mosselman Hallo in 2011 (you'll also get Astrid's chapbook bilingual Hello Hallo if you haven't already got it).
- we are of course, not evil... not-for-profit, I mean
- you'll be helping to fund Wurmfest 2.0, Dublin's only modernist poetry festival

Thanks! hope you'll consider it; message or email me if you need any more info: wurmimapfel@gmail.com

Love & verse,

Kit

Facebook and Hate

2010-08-26T16:20:00.000+01:00

(source: Art Monthly, Jul-Aug 2010)

"Artist Paul Harfleet has been working on his Pansy Project for several years, planting flowers in the street where there has been an incident of homophobic abuse: he photographs the flowers and titles the images with the grotesque language of the abuse. The project has its own website and, for more than three years, its own group on Facebook. Recently, Harfleet received an email from Facebook informing him that the company has deleted his project's group because it violated the social-networking site's Terms of Use. The email helpfully explained that, 'among other things, groups that are hateful, threatening, or obscene are not allowed'. Harfleet generously presumes that Facebook has not intentionally acted with homophobic intent but that some kind of automated software has simply scanned the titles of his images and triggered the action. However, his emails pleading for common sense to prevail have met with machine-like silence. The incident is an object lesson in what may happen when unregulated services offered by private companies become so popular that they resemble national infrastructure."

Still Films

2010-08-20T12:46:00.000+01:00

Beginning today, the Irish Film Institute in Dublin presents a week-long season of works by the production company Still Films.

The centrepiece for the season is 'Pyjama Girls', a documentary film by Maya Derrington. It examines the lives of two inner city Dublin teenage girls who roam the streets wearing pyjamas. 'Pyjama Girls' will be showing daily until 26 August.

'The Rooms' is a new short collaborative project by Paul Rowley and Tim Blue, and will have its premiere on 22 August. It's a study of "a world abandoned that continues to operate" and was filmed in Italy, Greece, Germany, Spain, the United States and Korea.

Paul Rowley and Nicky Gogan's feature documentary about asylum seekers living in the former Butlins holiday camp in Mosney (an hour north of Dublin) 'Seaview' will be shown on 21 August. After touring festivals internationally, and in light of recent hunger strikes at Mosney, this is a timely re-screening of 'Seaview' in Ireland.

And on Tuesday 24 August, the founders of Still Films Nicky Gogan, Maya Derrington and Paul Rowley, will discuss their collaborative practice and screen a selection of short films.

Tickets and information from the Irish Film Institute.

Nobody’s Home, by Dubravka Ugrešić

2010-07-19T11:58:00.001+01:00

While in Berlin in October 2008 it struck me that the changes brought about by the fall of the wall may have been presented in rather simplistic terms. The general assumption has been that the Western way of life is on its way to obliterating the ways of communism, that capitalism has flowed into the Eastern Bloc and set upon liberating everything: the availability of goods, the ability to purchase them, information, opportunity, colour…

This last one, at least, is a construct. Is it possible that the growing indistinguishability of the two former halves of Berlin points to something lurking behind such constructs, something more unexpected?

In the title essay of Dubravka Ugrešić’s essential book Nobody’s Home (trans. Ellen Elias-Bursać, Telegram, 2007) the author suggests that communist systems of behaviour are alive and well, and are to be found in traditional bastions of capitalism: officialdom, bureaucracy, surveillance, fear, the failure of democracy, the restrictions of political, religious and other freedoms, long queues, half-empty shops… The essence of communism, she writes, was “the repetitive degradation of the individual in everyday situations, the opaque mysticism of things that have been banned, the impossibility of dialogue and mediation, the everyday smashing of heads against the blind wall of the absurd.”

Maybe there is something of the rant in this: but it doesn’t preclude its validity. When the flow of goods and information Eastwards (or outwards, if you imagine The West not so much in the west but in the centre) is not counterbalanced by the equal freedom of human movement Westwards (or inwards) then the inherent injustice of this will at some point, inevitably, come to the boil.

For now, argues Ugrešić, what we get is a cross-pollination of systems of behaviour which catches us unawares: the relative newness of capitalist rituals in Budapest or Tallinn with their care of service and air of opportunity – and the growing overcrowdedness in Amsterdam or Berlin with the resulting resentment towards migrant types peddling things or applying for state handouts.

Among the treatment of many other topics, Nobody’s Home includes a series of essays that consider the notion of ‘national literatures’, exposing the shaky ground it now stands on. Ugrešić then goes further to wonder whether labels for writers such as herself – ‘transnational’, ‘post-national’, ‘cross-border’ or ‘para-national’ – really mean anything.

The biographical note on the cover states that Dubravka Ugrešić “entered self-imposed exile when Croatia ’s late president, Franjo Tuđman, proclaimed Croatia to be ‘paradise on earth’ in the early 1990s.” The implied sentiment alone did much to persuade me to pay attention to this book: a highly-readable, witty, often caustic and provocative look at a world in transition and instability, multiple realities and conflict, familiarity and strangeness. Nobody’s home, indeed.

Poetry Upfront: A Note of Resignation

2010-07-14T12:09:00.000+01:00

When I conceived of a poetry series in the summer of 2005, the motivation behind it was to create a space in which people interested in reading and writing poems would use as some kind of refuge. I knew there was an interest in poetry but little in the way of events catering for it in north County Dublin, and I felt I had the energy to provide an ongoing forum. Around the same time I became aware that Jane Carroll, unknown to me before then, had a similar idea, so we pooled our efforts to come up with a venture we called Poetry Upfront.

In the (nearly) five years that have passed my priorities in terms of writing have shifted. Jane and I were never absolutely compatible in our poetics or our attitudes towards things such as the writing practice and editorial/curatorial input: but these differences energised our venture. As our sessions were coming and going the excitement first soared, then peaked and then began to wane. As far as I'm concerned we reached the peak around the middle of 2008. After that I found it harder to get excited by each upcoming session. There are specific reasons for this, which have no place in this note. But they did convince me that, for Poetry Upfront to continue being relevant, it had to change into a something more flexible and imaginative, and shed a somewhat provincial strain.

So, taking advantage of an enforced break, I came up with a 'second phase', which aimed to be more fluid in its machinations and forms. It renewed my interest, even though I knew that doing it right required a large input of energy and time, both creative and enterpreneurial; despite my growing writing-related and other commitments I was very keen to explore it. When I put the concept to Jane she agreed to go along with it, so we went ahead to plan and execute the Poetry Upfront sessions 'on the beach' and 'in the shop'. We later also held a more conventional event in our original venue - which many people saw as something like a homecoming.

My decision - taken some months ago - to quit from organising Poetry Upfront events is not one I arrived at lightly, as I do generally like to see projects through to some kind of conclusion.

The more I think about it, though, the more I recognise that this is my conclusion. Even at an early stage in the 'second phase' I could see that the reasons behind the loss of excitement from a year or two back still held, and in all likelihood would continue to hold. There are several poetry initiatives I would like to try out, and I may well do so in the near or far future: but I am now certain that attempting them under the Poetry Upfront banner would be counterproductive.

I was involved in some great sessions, met people who have become friends and collaborated with some excellent poets. I have also seen writers grow to much more accomplished and confident levels. For all this, it was worth it. But it's important to know when it's a good time to stop.

This feels like the right moment to stop.

P.S. It's also important to add that I intend to continue supporting Poetry Upfront - should it carry on its activities.

Poetry Salzburg Review 17

2010-06-25T11:04:00.000+01:00

After a delay of some months owing to printer-related problems, the Spring 2010 edition of Poetry Salzburg Review has now been published. Another bumper issue with some 180 pages of poetry, reviews and essays, it notably includes work from several poets based in Ireland.

PSR is always an intriguing read, often inspiring in unexpected ways. This time I particularly look forward to reading new poems from Joanne Limburg, Paula Meehan, Pascale Petit, Will Stone and the recepient of the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for poetry, Rae Armantrout.

'Live the Life', my contribution to Poetry Salzburg Review 17, is essentially a found poem. It was composed using the script of Jean-Luc Godard's film 'Vivre Sa Vie', in particular the sequence that details life in prostitution in 1960s Paris.

Brand 06

2010-06-16T11:44:00.000+01:00

Published twice a year out of the University of Greenwich , Brand is a magazine specialising in the short form. There’s short and micro fiction, poems, creative non-fiction, artwork and, refreshingly, performance texts and short plays. It has an edgy, urban aesthetic, and I feel has been getting stronger by the issue.

In her introduction to issue 6 just published, editor-in-chief Nina Rapi writes (in the context of addressing questions of collaborative and cross-genre writing): “Perhaps we should not be looking for either/or solutions but rather for both/and, openended-ness rather than closure, as unsettling as this may often be.” This strikes me as a fairly accurate description of what this magazine is trying to do.

Brand 06 includes a short poem of mine, ‘Measures for the Prevention of Crime’, alongside work by (among others) Gary Allen, Dzifa Benson, Linda Black, Angela Gardner, Sophie Mayer, Anjan Saha and John Saul, a short essay from Mikhail Karikis and an interview with Howard Barker.

There will be a launch of Brand 06 on 8 July at the Royal Festival Hall on London’s South Bank, during Text in Context: a Cross-Genre Symposium (part of the London Literature Festival).

Red Riding Hood’s Dilemma, by Órfhlaith Foyle

2010-05-31T13:41:00.000+01:00

About halfway through Órfhlaith Foyle’s first full poetry collection, Red Riding Hood’s Dilemma (Arlen House, 2009), there is a poem entitled ‘And Where Else?’ which reads like a biographical inventory, a listing of the poet’s places of residence from birth up to the present. It ends with:

…we’d say
our parents are Irish
but really,
we’re from somewhere else.

Órfhlaith Foyle’s poems are “from somewhere else”. And they spring from several elsewheres. There are poems here remembering time in Africa (‘After Sunday Mass in Malawi’, ‘Italian Nuns’) and Russia (‘Later in Leningrad’), as well as ones celebrating place (‘Romance with Paris’, ‘Missed Opportunity’, ‘I was Banned from my Great Aunt’s House in New York’). In each of these poems the sense of place, fragmented as it is in its portrayal through an immature lens – particular stages in personal development – remains ultimately elusive. Taken as a whole, however, they reflect the contemporary condition of the migrant who crosses borders and infiltrates cultures unknown to her – to grasp them fleetingly and assimilate them incompletely before she moves on again. They read like a rediscovery of humanity’s wandering instincts.

What facilitates this search is a self-empowered voice of a woman speaking through her experiences from girlhood through to adulthood. She confronts notions of love and its multiple failures, and records events mostly through the eyes and ears of an innocent. There is, indeed, a strain of naïveté running through this collection with its sometimes awkward line endings and forced rhymes – hinting perhaps at an attempt towards a process of re-birth. There are several visceral poems kicking out against a kind of straitjacketing imposed largely by religion – whose imagery is both played with and put under destructive force – and also by the traditions of patriarchy and family:

An uncle condemned me
– you invite the devil to sit down beside you
(from ‘Jesus in the Painting, Mary in Blue’)

Foyle, however, understands that as much as our new, looked-for experiences it is our background and early influences that shape our responses to the world:

I come from the fear of God also
and my mother’s tears
and my father’s sharp dreams
buried down
into mine and
mixed with words
that would like to
Burn – It – All – Down
– Sometime.
(from ‘I Come From’)

On occasion the collection is blemished by excessive introspection; there are poems making use of abstract language in an attempt to decipher the meaning of love, or dissect the break-up of a relationship, or examine concepts such as morality, evil, and our modern condition. One or two didactic poems have crept in which, irrespective of what they convey, sit uncomfortably within the language and mode of composition that defines the rest of Foyle’s poetry.

But this is perhaps all the more so because she often spoils us with morsels of simple, clear, forceful writing:

He moves about on strong feet.
His clothes smell of sweat.
He likes what my pen paints.
He knows I want his passion.
(from ‘Van Gogh Visits’)

But I spat out their goodness
like spare vomit from my lungs.
I developed my own Blasphemy.
(from ‘Someone Crept up to Me’)

Imagine me in a man’s arms
the buttons of my dress pressed into his shirt.
Music and evening sun
the kind of heat that gives sheen to everyone’s skin.
(from ‘Dance’)

And then there is the closing poem, ‘Experiences of a Man in Great Debt to Esther’, which gives a hint as to where Órfhlaith Foyle’s poetry might be moving towards as it evolves further: when she allows herself to look outwards, having re-imagined herself into an independent position and armed with all that she has gathered in her way, she promises a spate of poems of sustained richness, clarity and vividness.

For now, the elements that comprise Red Riding Hood’s Dilemma add up to an intoxicating collection, unafraid to hunt for juxtapositions of images and sounds that aim to touch hitherto unutterable depths. Whether they sometimes fail is almost immaterial: the process yields something valuable for both the writer and the reader.

Romania's Got Talent

2010-05-25T10:31:00.000+01:00

For the first reading linked to its Maintenant interview series, 3:AM Magazine presents three young poets from Romania: Elena Vladareanu, Ruxandra Novac and Adrian Urmanov. For those in the London area interested in contemporary European poetry this is a must. The venue is the Rich Mix Arts Centre (35-47 Bethnal Green Road, E1) and the date is Saturday 29 May. Start time is 7pm, and admission is free.

Paul Muldoon Critiques Ke$ha's "Tik Tok"

2010-05-18T10:48:00.000+01:00

Wurm Press launch

2010-05-09T10:45:00.000+01:00

Wurm Press is launching Antwerp, a full-length collection by Dylan Harris, and Caoimhghin Shea and Various Legends and Lyrics, a chapbook by Kit Fryatt.

Maurice Scully describes the work in Antwerp as "vivacious, energetic poetry that's a shock to the ear and mind, a delight. And funny."

Kit Fryatt is the winner of the 2009 Stinging Fly prize, and has been nominated for the 2010 Forward Prize for an individual poem.

The launch takes place on Thursday 13 May 2010 at The Little Room, 26 Benburb Street, Dublin 7. 8pm start, admission free.

*Update, 10/5/10*

Please note a change in the venue: the launch will now take place at 57 Smithfield Square, Dublin 7 (next to Space 54). Time and date remain as above.

HICA

2010-04-30T11:19:00.000+01:00

The Highland Institute for Contemporary Art (HICA) is an artist-run space located near Inverness in the north of Scotland. It aims to re-examine the term Concrete Art.

An exhibition by Jeremy Millar opens on Sunday 2 May 2010 and runs until 6 June. This exhibition considers "a sense of emergence, or unforeseen development, which is central to the creative process, no matter how pre-planned the work in question".

HICA is open on Sundays 2-5pm, or by appointment.

Three New Books from Dedalus Press

2010-04-28T09:47:00.000+01:00

The Dedalus Press has announced the publication of new poetry volumes by Paul Perry and Gerard Smyth, together with Grace Wells' first collection 'When God Has Been Called Away To Greater Things'.

Grace Wells' work was featured in Succour 10: The Banal, and she read at the Succour Salon in Dublin in January. She will also be taking part in the upcoming Succour Online Project (more on which in due course...) Grace was recently interviewed on the Women Rule Writer blog.

Paul Perry and Gerard Smyth were guest poets at Poetry Upfront back in 2007.

There will be a celebration to mark the publication of these books, with readings from the poets, on Tuesday 4 May 2010. The venue is Damer Hall, 112 St. Stephen's Green, Dublin 2, and start time is 7pm.

Do Poems Carry Passports?

2010-03-19T09:31:00.000Z

Occasioned by the opinion piece 'Poetry in a Multicultural Ireland' by Celeste Augé, published in the Poetry Ireland newsletter of March-April 2010, I include below extracts from my (unpublished) response to the first of the annual 'Best of Irish Poetry' anthologies (Southword Editions, 2007):

*

There are several problems with this concept, of course. First and foremost: what defines Irish poetry in the here and now? What is an 'Irish' poem (apart from one written or spoken in the Irish language)? Does it speak in a particular accent? Do poems carry passports? Should the collection of poems that greets the reader have any uniform characteristics? And if so, who decides what those are? Can anybody impose a boundary around the experiences that define Irishness in poetry, or in anything else for that matter? To be fair, in his introduction editor Maurice Riordan acknowledges a certain "cultural cohesion" in his selection, going further to wonder whether this is a good or a bad thing. But could this "cultural cohesion" be a result of his failure as editor, the collective failure of poetry editors in Ireland and the failure of the country's artistic community to produce and publish poetry that does not adhere to a limited set of concepts?

There is also the issue of judging the fifty 'best' poems from a pool of poetry. How could someone possibly do that? Is the writing of poetry, like gymnastics or figure-skating, a competitive endeavour?

The argument may be that one has to simplify things for a general readership. But at the same time we ask our readers to be knowing and alert - and they expect us not to patronise them. Unnecessary explanations or clauses dilute the poem and weaken the experience of its reading. Why not then treat these same readers with the respect they demand and give them something challenging to work with?

One solution might have been to employ a number of editors coming from different poetic backgrounds and modes of practice. That might have given a variety and freshness in the selection, something which I think is lacking in this volume. In following the taste of a single editor (however diligent, respected or experienced) the publishers have produced a (mostly) uniform volume which suffers from "cultural cohesion".

Poetry: what's the use?

2010-03-11T11:25:00.000Z

In times of hardship our tolerance for poetry, or any form of art, wanes. It could be said that they provide the ultimate test for its viability. It is during such conditions that the most necessary poetry comes to the fore while the kind simply borne of luxury fades away.

In his article ‘Night Thoughts’ Fred Johnston writes of how, during a period he spent in hospital, he was let down altogether by poetry: “I had absolutely no use for poetry,” he writes. This is an astonishing – and brave – admission from a poet. To be exact, the piece’s central thesis rests between this admission and a raging against “the industrialisation of poetry” with its “plots, the board-room coups, the malign intent, the graven ego” and “glittering prizes, residencies, competitions and festivals in exotic places” that makes poets view “the ordinary as banal and beneath us.” But Johnston looks mainly at his inability to create in an uncomfortable state, and less at the solace that words can offer. “Language, when it did emerge, came out of me in tight-throated squeaks, plaintive and urgent; ‘Let me go!’ not, ‘Let me create!’”.

Poetry usually comes unbidden. The initial impulse to write a poem comes from a place that can’t be accessed at our behest. Maybe certain conditions make us more likely to connect to it, but in the main poetry can’t be forced. The craft required to make a poem out of the initial impulse is what provides the ‘conscious effort’ part of the composing process. This is what can be worked at, over and over again. The first part of the process depends only on our openness to voices and the receptiveness of our mind and body.

And so it is with the ‘use’ of poems. The Greek folk singer Mariza Koch has described how she automatically began to recite poems by Nikos Kavvadias, one after another, while stranded in an abandoned tower at the tip of a small island during a stormy night. She says that his poems (which she regularly put to music and performed) became her “barrels” onto which she held for her life like someone shipwrecked. Kavvadias’ poems of life at sea became at that moment a matter of life and death - for her. And she explains that, by the morning, when the storm had died down and she could inspect the extensive damage to the marina adjacent to the tower, she knew that she would no longer be able to perform those particular poems, that they had been washed away like so many other physical things around her. Those specific poems promptly disappeared from her repertoire.

In her book ‘The Poem and the Journey’ Ruth Padel describes how Emily Dickinson’s “Civilisation – spurns – the Leopard!” came to her – to her mind and body – during a time of extreme fear, while in the jungle in Laos. “I felt I now understood physically why Dickinson put dashes in her poems,” she writes. “Each phrase was just enough for a breath, enough to say before the next search for a snake-free handhold. The dashes helped me find the next firm root, get my toe out from a liana, unhook a sleeve from a thorn, slide ten feet on bending bushes, dig a hand into leaves hoping no vipers were among them.”

Padel feels that the dashes became her momentum and her rhythm. During moments of extreme concentration I unknowingly construct a rhythm in my head. It is only in the moments immediately after relaxing that I become conscious of it, and realise that this rhythm may be made of just a beat or of words from songs or poems. Those particular rhythms and those words seem to come from a mysterious and inaccessible place.

Is this place also the hub of language? Coming round from an operation many years ago I began (I was subsequently told) in my semi-anaesthetised state to speak in English to my Greek/Cypriot-speaking family. We laughed this off, but I put it down to my experience of life in the Greek/Cypriot language finding no adequate way to express my feeling of relief at the success of the operation: that I could only do so through the set of linguistic rules I had previously used in conditions approximating those.

Such a shift in perception is what happens during extreme conditions; our need to deal with them brings us to a place where we may find the tools to do that. Words, silences and rhythms – the necessary ones, the ones that work for us – may or may not be there. Sometimes we may even need to invent this place. Going back to Fred Johnston’s piece, we find him writing that he now works poems through French. “Just as, in hospital, I found that I’d lost the voice necessary to create anything out of what I was experiencing, I’d some time since felt that I needed a different voice, a different tongue, to describe what I’d experienced in the world of Irish matters… I had to go outside of English to see anew the things I wanted to write about.”

One More Year, by Sana Krasikov

2010-02-04T10:59:00.000Z

This is a frustrating book. There's no question that these stories need to be told: stories of the instability of the lives of immigrants and emigrants, repatriates and natives of a vastly- and rapidly-changing world in a post-Soviet landscape. Krasikov makes sharp observations on everyday objects and gestures that reveal much about a character's history or aspirations. She understands the needs that lurk behind each desperate act, the circumstances and cynical mindset that engender such desperation and the drive for self-betterment that often overwhelms love and kindness.

And yet... Far too often a story or a section of one begins with a short piece of dialogue, which promptly gives way to a filling-in of the back story. The following is a typical example:

"No one told you about me?" Gulia said. "Half of Fergana knew, and you didn't?"
"I thought we could get along. My uncle has two wives in one house, and they live like close girlfriends."
"I'm not interested in your family or how you were raised."
"And how were you raised?" The woman started up off her chair. "To become a divorced prostitute and keep a man away from his children!"
Again, the children. Nasrin had announced her first pregnancy just weeks after Rashid and Gulia's own wedding party, when they'd gone to a mullah and then invited their friends...

(from 'Asal')

It's as if the author suddenly becomes self-conscious or loses her nerve, or doesn't quite trust the reader to read between lines, so she feels forced to explain to us, in a linear fashion, almost always in the third-person narrative from within the mind of the central character, how we got here. It's as if she is straining to make her story plausible. She begins with a sharp line-drawing and ends up with a photoshopped picture complete with neat foreground and background, coloured-in and with labels for everything.

On several occasions her stories feel like set-ups designed to take us to a pre-determined climax (which on occasion is, as in the story 'Maia in Jonkers', profoundly moving). These are cinematic tales, sometimes told from an imaginary camera's point of view (on several occasions a section would end with a description of a depleted landscape or of the view from a moving window).

I propose that most of these stories (with the notable exception of the last in the volume, the excellent 'There will be no Fourth Rome') might have been better served constructed differently: with much more specific detail, whose implications we might not quite be able to understand instantly, but which would leave us with enough hints towards interpreting the motives of the characters and the delicacy of their predicaments. This is a world that deserves to be shown on its own terms rather than forcibly made accessible to an American (or generally Western) readership.

It may seem unfair to complain about a book because of what it isn't. But there's a fascinating writer at work here with a terrific vision: Krasikov is a well of essential stories, with a profound understanding of this particuar juncture in history. It's a pity that the method of the telling leaves us (this reader, at least) unfulfilled.

Succour Salons in Dublin and London

2010-01-19T18:38:00.000Z

We will be holding a Succour Salon in Dublin on Thursday 28 January 2010.

The venue is The Sycamore Club, 9 Sycamore Street, Temple Bar, Dublin 2 and the time is 8pm - 11pm.

Readings from Lawrence Fenton, Miriam Gamble, Órfhlaith Foyle, Maurice Scully and Grace Wells.

Admission is free.

Hope to see you there!

*

A Succour Salon will also be taking place in London, on the same night, at The Betsey Trotwood pub in Clerkenwell.

Poetry Upfront: in the shop (pictures)

2010-01-11T14:55:00.000Z

Poetry Upfront: in the shop

2009-12-16T12:57:00.000Z

The next Poetry Upfront event will take place on Monday 21 December 2009 at 13 Drogheda Street, Balbriggan, Co Dublin.

A 'Poetry Shop' for one night only, the venue will be open between 6pm and 10.30pm. As a sort of antidote to the consumerism of this period we aim to provide an informal space dedicated to poetry with plenty of volumes and anthologies for perusal, recordings of poets reciting their work and an opportunity for our 'customers' to talk about poetry (or anything else they like!) There will also be an 'open-mic' session - expressions of interest in taking part on the night.

In addition, we would like to ask those who attend to join us in a spot of 'Poetry Exchange': contribute a poetry book to the kitty and you will receive someone else's contribution, at random, before the end of the night.

Admission is free, and there will be nothing for sale.

We hope to see all of you there. Please feel free to contribute to the event as you see fit. And spread the word!

poetryupfront@yahoo.com

Southword 17

2009-12-11T10:24:00.000Z

Issue 17 of Southword, published by the Munster Literature Centre, is now online. This is the second issue to appear exclusively online, and it features poetry contributions from (among others) Greg Delanty, Geraldine Mitchell, Valzhyna Mort, Gerry Murphy, Conor O'Callaghan, Billy Ramsell and Gerard Smyth. Its short fiction section includes the Sean O'Faolain competition winning entries. There are also John Minihan's photographs from the Frank O'Connor Festival and a section of reviews and criticism.

The issue also features my poem 'Dubious Words'. Within the whole Plath/Hughes mythology, Assia Wevill's voice has been largely muted. A recent biography tried to rectify this. It also suggested to me the use of the voice of Wevill's daughter for this poem, which in the end can't get away from reservations about its own existence.

Southword 17 will be launched at the Irish Writers' Centre in Dublin on Tuesday 15 December. There will be readings by contributors, while the website will be projected onto a screen. Start time is 7pm.

wurmfest

2009-12-02T16:01:00.000Z

Wurm im Apfel's wurmfest festival takes place over the coming weekend, December 4-6, at 'The Complex' in Dublin's Smithfield Square. This is a great new initiative providing an opportunity to encounter some really exciting poetic voices from across Europe. Programme details are available on the wurmfest website.

Cadences Vol 5

2009-11-29T19:16:00.000Z

Cadences is a journal of literature and the arts published annually by the Department of Humanities at the European University of Cyprus.

From the editorial statement: "Writers in Cyprus think, feel and express themselves in several languages, Greek, Turkish and English being three of the most prominent. Cadences is a bridge between them, a meeting point at which writers of the diverse communities of the island may find each other, and learn from their encounters with difference."

Volume 5, published last month, is largely dedicated to the work of Yiannis Ritsos, the year 2009 being the centenary of his birth. It features some of his original poems in Greek along with translations in Turkish; responses to his poems by contemporary Cypriot writers, in English and in Greek; and the winning poems from an islandwide schools competition dedicated to Ritsos.

But the issue also features original work. Included in it is my poem 'Nicosia Journal', which is a sequence in nine parts recording the varying responses of an adult emigrant during a pivotal return to the place of his childhood and youth.

Cadences Vol 5 is available to order from Moufflon Bookshop.

Succour 10: The Banal

2009-11-23T00:05:00.000Z

Succour 10: The Banal is now out.

From shoelaces and spreadsheets to trivia, taxi rides and telesales; from your lunchtime sandwich to the very last thing you see before you die... The work collected in this issue teases out the mystery, beauty and horror in the so-called banal.

Fiction from Duncan Brett, Kevin Brown, Gary Cansell, Abi Curtis, Cassandra Moss and Mark Staniforth.

Prose Poems from Annie Clarkson and John Clegg.

Poetry from Judy Brown, Isobel Dixon, Melissa Lee-Houghton, Christodoulos Makris, Shaunagh Darling Robertson, Ben Rogers, Lee Rourke, Maurice Scully, Cherry Smyth and Grace Wells.

Artwork from Derek Ogbourne and Martin Skauen.

The Banal is available from our stockists and the online store.

*

My contribution to The Banal is a 'sales pitch' for an issue of Paris Match from January 2009. A harrowing photograph from Gaza that appears in it is an image that literally pierces the poem, and acts as a momentary distraction to the salesperson.

Poetry Upfront: on the beach (commentary)

2009-10-24T14:04:00.000+01:00

Some people are sitting on blankets, sipping from hot flasks. A candle has been set, trembling, on the sand. The rain gains pace. Their hair and skin start to drip and they move for shelter. On the grassy edge of the beach, beneath a brick-stone wall, they form a circle. Light beams approach from the other end. Stalwarts and novices join in. Nearby, shady deals are done. The rain eases but the wind picks up, and words are thrown into it like spells. Waves of fine sand blow past. Bats gather above. Dogs frolic about. Headlights lick the wall. Passers-by snigger at the installation of candles and poems. (There are banshees, aliens infiltrating the beach, Seamus Heaney's eyes, mermaids returning to sea.) The cold deepens, and patience starts to break down, indulgence to wear thin. Mouths dry. In the distance the sea is black. A fresh gust blows each of them back to their habitats.

Poetry Upfront: on the beach

2009-10-06T11:19:00.000+01:00

Poetry Upfront has been in hibernation since last November; first our regular venue, Trax Cafe in Balbriggan, went through a change of ownership, and then we had some difficulty confirming dates for the re-start of the sessions. This prompted us to reconsider what Poetry Upfront means - and whether it should continue, change, or stop - and sought comments and suggestions from everyone on our mailing list.

We had a good response. One or two suggestions in particular energised me into thinking of a new phase for Poetry Upfront. The usual sessions at Trax were going fairly well; but after nearly four years I felt they were starting to become, well, usual. I wondered whether we could try and displace poetry a little bit, shake it out of a comfort zone it sometimes seems happy to inhabit, and expose it to slightly strange situations - bring it out of the confines of the cafe or pub or library or theatre. I was able to conceive different locations and scenaria for poetry sessions and wondered what the responses of writers, readers/audience and sometimes general public might be to them.

Such a change of emphasis would also largely free us up from the expectation of holding our sessions at regular venues and times. And when I put all this to Jane - my Poetry Upfront co-founder and co-organiser of our sessions - she was as enthusiastic as I was about this new direction. We want the occasional events with guest poets to continue, and we reserve the right to revert to our 'traditional' format whenever we feel like it. But for now we are all set for a renewal.

And so our first 'open-mic' session of this second phase of Poetry Upfront will take place on Monday 19 October 2009 on Balbriggan Beach. Start time will be 7pm and everyone is welcome. We thought we should also mention that poets and audience may need to bring with them a) blanket; b) flask with hot drink; and c) light source (flashlight, lantern etc), and that we have made alternative arrangements in case of rain.

We are also working on the two events that will follow Poetry Upfront: on the beach, but more on those in due course. I'm looking forward to arranging these more flighty Poetry Upfront sessions and I am curious as to where the enterprise will lead. I am ready for failures, but most of all I'm open to what they will suggest.

Succour 11: February 6th, 2010

2009-09-29T11:24:00.000+01:00

For Succour 11, our Spring/Summer 2010 issue, we would like to invite submissions which pertain not to a theme, as has hitherto been the case, but which adhere to a pair of conditions.

Condition 1: All submissions should be written on Saturday February 6th, 2010.
Condition 2: What you write should not be an attempt to execute an idea – for a story, for a poem, etc – that has previously occurred to you. Rather, we would prefer you to write whatever happens to come into your head at that particular time.

The idea for this issue was inspired by 20 Lines a Day by Harry Mathews, in which the author sets out to follow a rule Stendhal once set himself, to write ‘Twenty lines a day, genius or not’. Mathews undertakes this project in an attempt to overcome ‘the anxiety of the blank page’; it becomes part of his writing practice, his way of starting off, getting in the zone, before going on to whatever his main writing project may be. We would like submissions to February 6th, 2010 to be written in the same spirit.

We will be accepting submissions to February 6th, 2010 from Saturday February 6th 2010 until Monday February 8th 2010 – thereby allowing a couple of days for typing up etc.

Maximum word count: 400

Send your work to succourdublin@gmail.com.

The Boru Revue

2009-09-22T12:05:00.000+01:00

Hosted by actress Claire Jenkins, The Boru Revue takes place on the last Thursday of every month in the 'Loft' venue at Hedigans 'The Brian Boru' pub in Glasnevin. It features "poetry, drama, storytelling, comedy, music and many wonderful surprises."

I'll be reading a set at this month's event, on Thursday 24 September. Start time is 9pm and admission is 5 Euro.

Update: Thursday 24 September, 11am

I was informed by Claire this morning (this morning!) that she is unable to slot me in to the event. This after she had taken the initiative to invite me to perform. Now, having read some more of my work, she says that her audience "can be quite reserved" and that "tried and tested material works well". This development is, to say the least, inconvenient...

We're all Illusionists Now

2009-09-20T22:01:00.000+01:00

The explanation that Derren Brown proposed for his lottery prediction trick seemed simply to be an extension of the original trick. An explanation was never forthcoming, or necessary.

There have been countless articles, discussions and opinion pieces in print, online or in bars and staff canteens attempting to dissect the trick's every detail and explain or reveal how it was really done. The theories doing the rounds are various.

But it's all academic, isn't it? The trick's purpose was, in the first place, to delight and entertain, wasn't it? At the time that it was performed it seemed like magic. With every subsequent viewing it still looks like magic, but a little differently so every time. Scrutinising it is enjoyable, yes: especially if we are, or want to become illusionists too. Being unable to tell with certainty how it was achieved - even if we swoop on little clues here and there to proclaim a possible solution - goes a long way towards proving its worth.

Review of 'Round the Clock'

2009-08-26T13:33:00.000+01:00

Melissa Lee-Houghton has published a review of my poetry chapbook 'Round the Clock'.

Gwyneth Lewis and Cultural Outwardness

2009-08-18T13:09:00.001+01:00

I am thinking of Gwyneth Lewis' poem 'Mother Tongue'. I am thinking of the speaker's thirst for access to other languages, outside of the local or prescribed experience, and the sheer pleasure of imbibing words words words that we may not properly know yet but which alter our taste buds forever. I am thinking that we can always reach back into languages we have known - that we never lose the learning of them. I am thinking that the more ‘language-lives’ we have access to, the broader, richer and more multiform our frame of reference and the more relevant our writing to the world around us. I am thinking: the larger our kitty, the more we are likely to discover and explore. The deeper we can go. The greater the satisfaction in the writing act itself.

*

In marginalised societies specifically, inwardness is thought of as high virtue, insularity and stubbornness of vision signs of a courageous up-holding of heritage and traditional values. But when a hitherto marginalised community finds itself wielding a dominance of sorts, force to be exerted upon the further-marginalised – a caste-level down – then where-to for inwardness? Where are things to be said from and in which way are they to be understood?

"…what seems to me the most extraordinary aspect of the controversy about O’Searcaigh in Nepal is that an Irishman, well acquainted with the poverty suffered by his own nation, should fail even to realise that, in a third-world country, he could be perceived as a rich exploiter of those in contemporary poverty. Recent Irish legislation on immigration seems to show a similar national blind spot. Are the Irish, who fled the famine and went all over the world as emigrants, often becoming wealthy in the process, now proving less than hospitable to the new immigrants into their home country? Has the lyric tone evoked by O’Searcaigh – and refused, it now looks wisely, by Muldoon, Ni Dhomnaill, Heaney and others – helped to blind the poet to the change in the balance of economic power which has taken place in the new, tigerish Ireland ? The tunes you play in your poems do matter, because they facilitate or inhibit what you can say and the breadth of your human sympathies outside your own cultural circles: they can stop you thinking."

(Gwyneth Lewis, Criss-Crossings: Literary Adventures on Irish and Welsh Shores, Poetry Review, Autumn 2008)

To be shown our shortcomings is hurtful. It is also dangerous. It may destroy part of us, particularly if we’ve always been told how wonderful we are. It’s not easy to accept this jolting out of our comfort zone. But we must be ready to accept it or even look for it for the change it might bring about. Such willingness becomes our stepping stone towards maturity - artistic, cultural and otherwise.

In a recent interview Ricky Gervais, creator of The Office, made an interesting comment about the difference between being an amateur and a professional comedian. He said: “it’s a strange thing. I stopped being funny when I became a comedian.” What he means is that, in order to become funny in a sustained way, he gave up being personally hilarious. In much the same manner, I feel it’s important that poets have a healthy distrust of the lyrical which, as professionals, they know is not an absolute moral quality but simply an aesthetic effect to be manipulated. Like the painter and decorator whose house is in bad order, the sign of a good poet might be an artist who eschews “the poetic.”
(Gwyneth Lewis, Criss-Crossings: Literary Adventures on Irish and Welsh Shores, Poetry Review, Autumn 2008)

Succour Salons in London and Manchester

2009-07-27T11:07:00.000+01:00

There are two Succour Salons coming up this week:

Thursday 30 July, upstairs at the Betsey Trotwood pub, 56 Farringdon Road, Clerkenwell, London; with readings from Simon Barraclough, Joe Dunthorne, Kate Campbell, Ben Brooks and Robert Selby.
Friday 31 July, upstairs at The Briton's Protection pub, Great Bridgewater Street, Manchester; with readings from Annie Clarkson, Melissa Lee-Houghton and Jonathan Hamnett.

Both events start at 8pm and admission is free.

Sound Poetry by Jaap Blonk

2009-06-30T11:47:00.000+01:00

Wurm im Apfel and eek art collective present: Sound Poetry by Jaap Blonk.

This celebrated Dutch performer will present his own work and offer a sketch of the history of sound poetry. It's an opportunity to discover more about an interdisciplinary artform and hear a really accomplished and innovative poetry performance.

This event (supported by Poetry Ireland) takes place on Tuesday 7 July at 8pm. The venue is The Sycamore Club in Dublin's Temple Bar. Admission is free.

Succour 9: Fantasies out now

2009-05-22T11:31:00.000+01:00

Issue 9 of Succour, entitled Fantasies, is out now.

Succour 9: Fantasies is a collection of new work from some of the most exciting writers based in the UK, Ireland and further afield, who present a range of interpretations of the fantasies theme. Contributors include Órfhlaith Foyle, Laura Joyce, Rob A. Mackenzie, Gregory Norminton, Ray Robinson and Robert Selby.

A full list of stockists is available on the website, where you can also purchase copies of the journal or take out a subscription.