17th January 2020. Crossing the Irish Sea – in the age of climate challenge.
Category Archives: Portfolio
Review of ‘Heartland’, Parthian Books
Poem in The Ogham Stone 2019
I am delighted to have a poem in this journal produced by students on the MA in English and MA in Creative Writing at the University of Limerick. The 2019 edition has a particularly thoughtful and coherent design which draws the contents together visually by simple and appropriate means. The foliage motif (below) combines with an on-page ogham-style vertical element in an elegant colour scheme. The 2020 edition is underway.
TWO AUTUMNS
Beyond the classroom window
The young tree burns, orange against drab,
Its loosened leaves drifting like languid fire-flakes.
I am ten and I try my hand at a Pearsean ennui,
Picked up from Palgrave’s ‘Anglo-Irish Supplement’:
O, the sorrow of the world is on me
And I’m tired with life…
I am as old as the wind that ferrets in the trees,
As the hidden sun and the pale and empty sky.
Today I’m sixty-one and beyond the window here
My acer shoots from its crown
The green stars of its year’s new growth
Skywards on arching scarlet rods.
Between trees – more than fifty years, the Irish Sea.
I could die now: spouse companioned through the turbulent years;
Children reared; grandparents in their graves.
Wasn’t it the solstice yesterday? A shortening of light
But, I predict, tonight we’ll be astonished once again
At the landing spotlit by a seven-eighths moon
Lancing through the toilet window.
What is it that I’ve learned? Windows are good and I
Should get out of my own light.
Devolution of Broadcasting, Wales
In the midst of the general election hurly burly an important consultation is proceeding in Wales: an inquiry into whether Wales should acquire greater powers over broadcasting. The deadline for submitting evidence has been extended from today, 9th December to Monday, 20th December. Whatever its outcome, this inquiry marks a key developmental stage in the process of devolution in Wales. Continue reading Devolution of Broadcasting, Wales
Film Review 2019 BBC Radio Wales
All Things Considered – 9am on Sunday 8th December – reviews the year in Film. I had great fun doing this with Peter Francis, Warden of Gladstone’s Library in Hawarden and musician and tech entrepreneur, Nigel Ipinson Fleming. Roy Jenkins steered our debate.
ULSTER SCOTS WEEK – POEM
Re-entry, Ulster – on the fiftieth anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon Landing of 1969
Ma feither caa’d Wee Tam’s The Mune,
Fer the eyefu’ frae the gutter o’ thon Deil’s Den,
The mair, tae a weefla, Iniquity, a stern kirk-wurd,
Glamoured thaim cowp’d Deil’s Ain.
Yit, canny, A luik’d ap tae Him, the Lord
That wrocht the stars, the mune.
But thon ither god, the Yankee wan, ris then.
A lairnt new wurds − Trajectory, Jettison −
And I sloughed off my pleghmy, chagrining ain.
Fiftie year on, wised-ap, A’m bak tae yirth agane.
TRANSLATION
Re-entry, Ulster – on the fiftieth anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon Landing of 1969
My father called Tam’s pub The Mune,
Citing the view from the gutter of that Deil’s Den,
Though, to a boy, Iniquity, a solemn, churchy word,
Shed glamour on those fallen Deil’s Ain.
Shrewdly enough, I still looked up to Him, the Lord
Who made the stars, the moon.
But that other god, American, rose then.
I learned new words − Trajectory, Jettison −
And I sloughed off my own − my phlegmy, chagrining ain.
Fifty years on, and wiser, A’m bak tae yirth agane.
by Angela Graham
First Published in The Bangor Literary Journal August 2019
Issue 9: The Open House Festival Edition
Cover Art: ‘Discworld 6-5’ by Les Sharpe
the welsh agenda – Review of ‘Paul Murphy – Peacemaker’
My review of Paul Murphy’s autobiography appears in the Autumn/Winter edition of Current Affairs magazine the welsh agenda.
Baron Murphy of Torfaen is a Welshman with a particularly close connection to Northern Ireland. Continue reading the welsh agenda – Review of ‘Paul Murphy – Peacemaker’
Award from Arts Council N. Ireland & National Lottery
I am thrilled to receive an award from the Support for Individual Artists Programme (SIAP) of the Arts Council of Northern Ireland’s Lottery funds.
This will help to fund a project on Place and Displacement. I will be working in poetry, memoir and fiction.
I appreciate this support very much in what will be a challenging undertaking.
Heather Newcombe Poetry Award
I am delighted to have won joint Third Prize in the Almost Dancing Poetry Competition and Heather Newcombe Award. The Award honours the late Heather Newcombe, a poet who established the Let Me Take You To The Island Writing Festival on Rathlin in 1997.
Heather was a driving force in the Ballycastle Writers’ Group who run the Competition and Award. Entries were judged by poets, Joan and Kate Newmann.
The Group launched its anthology of work by the Group members, ‘An Unfinished Thought’ on 29th October.
BAFTA Cymru win for Green Bay Media
At the BAFTA Cymru Awards in Cardiff on 13th October, Velindre, Hospital of Hope, a series following patients through treatment for cancer, won the Award for Best Factual Series.
Commissioned by ITV Wales, the series was made by Green Bay Media and was the company’s final production prior to joining forces with Wildflame Productions Continue reading BAFTA Cymru win for Green Bay Media