BALLYCASTLE – POETRY TOWN 10^th – 18^th September 2021

This is a town with a Diamond at its heart

and the sea at its feet.

Here opposites marry –

harbour and headland; townland and street;

the Sea of Moyle, mercurial, flaunting

and Fair Head, a stoic, Knocklayd, a sentinel;

always a northness in the air,

always the whole island at your back;

Rathlin beckoning, Scotland a wet step away

and the moiling Atlantic unseen but westering.

This week, words went a wee dander round the town,

were flung – flaithulach − to the seafront breeze,

were reverenced, teased and treasured

for don’t they marry us to one another

time and again, tieing and undoing knots

to meet our needs, if we will let them.

A poem gets the thing said

that might have stayed unspoken,

puts love and rage, rapture and heartbreak

on the one page that we can focus on together.

Poetry Ireland selected Ballycastle, County Antrim as one of its Poetry Towns for the week of 10th – 18th September 2021. I’ve written this poem in tribute to the varied programme and participative spirit of the week

Kate Newmann is Ballycastle Poetry Poetry Laureate throughout.

Ballycastle Writers’ Group facilitated and hosted, and launched their anthology ‘An Unfinished Thought’.

Quotidian – Word On The Street brought Poetry Jukebox to the seafront @poetryjukebox #Quotidian

Supported by Poetry Ireland, the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, Flowerfield Arts Centre and Causeway Coast and Glens Borough Council.