It’s a pleasure to be included in this series of poets’ work put together during Lockdown by Hugh McMillan. Here PlagueoPoems showcases some of my work.
Hugh’s Poems from the Backroom showcases a poet almost every day and is a great means of encountering a variety of voices. Continue reading A Plague of Poetry features my work
On May 26th Letters With Wings ran an online poetry reading to raise funds to send letters to unjustly imprisoned artists and writers.
Raising funds to ensure the letters are sent: Click to contribute
Poets taking part: Celia de Fréine, Catherine Dunne, Lia Mills, Bernadette Gallagher, Moyra Donaldson, Deirdre Cartmill , Denis Stokes, Therese Kieran, Rafael Mendes, Polina Cosgrave, Chandrika Narayanan-Mohan, Alessandra Trevisan, Natasha Remoundou, Aisling Walsh, Gráinne Tobin, Simone Theiss , Cornelia Rohr and myself.
https://www.facebook.com/WingsLetters/posts/141363680866966
I contributed a poem to the Open Mic session which I wrote for Nedim Türfent. He has been in prison in Turkey for more than 1500 days.
Toi, enfant rebelleenfant indomptable, irréductible !toi, enfantsi ton dessein est d’avorter mon rêveen aucun casje ne ferais retour de mes songes, jamais
Livia De Stefani (1913 – 1991)
In this recording, Nandi Jola reads my translation of Notturno n. 4 for the Le Ortique project, a group of women authors committed to discovering forgotten women artists.
For more of De Stefani’s poems, see:
An online event on 7th July 6.30 – 8.30pm invites contributions of work by female artists whose work deserves greater recognition Le Ortique Open Mic
I am very much enjoying my encounter with the work of this passionate, uncompromising poet, Livia De Stefani.
Notturno n. 4
Non morirò. Vivo ancora. Ancora di te
del tuo profondo sonno fra le braccia dell’altra.
Ti odio. Nell’odio io incendio foreste
più fonde di quelle d’amore.
Al lume di fiamme vermiglie m’inoltro
nel fuoco vestita dei miei capelli.
Voluttà rinnovate, interminabili saziano
le affamate notti, alzano maree
fra le sponde dei giorni.
Non muoio. T’inseguo ti trovo ti schiaccio
e mi succhio il tuo sangue e lo sputo.
È amaro il tuo sangue, dà sete, dà sete.
******
Die – I will not. I live on still. Still on you
on your deep sleep in the arms of that other woman.
I loathe you. In loathing I set ablaze forests
deeper than those of love.
By the gleam of vermilion flames I give myself
to the fire wearing only my hair.
Endless voluptuous pleasures, tasted again, again, sate
the famished nights, flood tides
between the shores of the days.
Dying – I am not. You – I follow you find you crush you
suck up your blood – spit it out.
Bitter, your blood – makes me thirst, thirst.
translated by © Angela Graham
podcast version by © Nandi Jola (South African born poet and writer based in Ireland) .
For a discussion of Livia De Stefani’s poetry:
In 2 poems by Gaynor Kane we find the glowingness of whin in these contrasting views of the same countryside.
Gaynor is from East Belfast. She came to writing late, after finishing a (mid life crisis) degree with a creative writing module. In October 2018, her micro pamphlet, Circling the Sun, was published by Hedgehog Poetry Press. Tradition appears in her poetry pamphlet, Memory Forest, on last wishes and burial rites.
Tradition
A whitewashed cottage holds the family tight,
Him – all boxed in oak and brass,
and the priest – who’d visited often that final week.
Everyone else spills out across the yard,
against paddock fences, down the lane
where daffodils bud, their heads bowed.
Burnished whin bushes catch the low sun.
Oil slicks ripple on pothole puddles.
Three hee-haws, long and low, cut silence.
Whinnied responses stuttered from four in hand,
drafts as dark as Guinness, their plumed
headgear like black clouds dancing.
Plaited tails, the smell of leather and Brasso,
oiled hooves shine, the clop of shoes shifting weight.
They breathe in sombre air, exhale acceptance.
Glass carriage, reflecting dark
pallbearers in top hats and tails
fit with Dickensian demeanour, gloved hands.
The procession takes the obedient pace
of cows to milking, along the long lane.
Every man takes a lift, order called by respectful nods.
Rural men, mostly farmers with dirty fingernails,
performing the graceful choreography
of a symbiotic ceremony. Cars convene
Ardkeen to Ballyphilip, to an ancient graveyard
on Windmill Hill, overlooking the mouth
of Strangford Lough, where he is laid to rest.
https://www.hedgehogpress.co.uk/2019/09/26/autumn-books-memory-frost-by-gaynor-kane/
Gaynor says:
The Low Country is the name for the lower Ards area of the Ards peninsula – from Greyabbey to Portaferry. We moved from Belfast to Kircubbin to get away from sectarianism.
Cross Roads
When I left school, I crossed a bridge
to work. I was thrown into a world filled
with names I struggled to pronounce.
There I met a boy, from the other side of town.
Friends at first – we talked about our weekends,
shared stories, laughed at youthful antics.
Then I moved, back across the bridge, back
onto familiar roads. We stayed in touch.
Later, we had our own home, mid-terrace,
on a road with coloured kerbs, it didn’t matter
which. Inside was neutral, magnolia walls, beige
carpets and a coffee coloured bathroom suite
City folk, we lived in fear of angry balaclavas;
crossfire cutting communities in two.
Sirens resonated across the Belfast sky.
We took to the roads looking for a haven.
In The Low Country, whin bushes shone under
a hay-bale sun, the lough glimmered. Harbour
boats waltzed on golden strands of summer.
Red and black flags adorned main street houses.
A loyal arch, arced across that same road;
we exchanged knowing glances, we wouldn’t
be taking chances. Surveyed the site
and soon after foundations were footed
Years later we migrated; held hands, gold bands,
under a calypso sun and returned as swans.
Added to our brood, just once;
let her choose
which cross to wear,
if any
Cross Roads will appear in Gaynor’s debut poetry collection Venus in pink marble, soon to be released by Hedgehog Poetry Press. Website: www.gaynorkane.com
In Yvonne Boyle’s thought-provoking poem, whin serves as an emblem of both love and conflict. It appeared in the Easter 2018 edition,’Spring’s Bride’ of The Bangor Literary Journal .
Yvonne says, The whin or gorse blooms in spring and it’s also: ‘when a young man’s fancy turns to thoughts of love..’ (Alfred Tennyson). I had been talking with my partner about Easter and eggs. I remember my mother dying eggs with gorse blooms in my childhood but I had never thought to do it myself again until he suggested it. And I kinda liked that he knew about ‘old customs….’
Yvonne has had poems published in The Dunfanaghy Writers’ Circle publications, The Bangor Literary Journal and The Community Arts Partnership’s Poetry in Motion Anthologies (2017, 2018). She is a NI Arts Council (SIAP) Awardee 2018/9 and a member of Women Aloud NI.
Want to know about furze? Find all you could want in FURZE: a Survey of its History and Uses in Ireland by A.T. Lucas. This detailed and fascinating book was published by An Cumann le Béaloideas Éirinn (The Folklore of Ireland Society) in 1960. More than 200 pages of information and analysis.
My thanks, once again to Róise Ní Bhaoill for telling me about this book.
Continue reading Gorse, Whin, Furze 5 – Names – a shared love in Irish, Ulster Scots, Scots English
Two contemporary poems and some fantastic music from this album –
In Gorse Blog 2 we met ‘The Blackbird of Belfast Loch / Lon Dubh Loch Lao’. Mary Shannon’s poem ‘Syllables Rising’ was inspired by Ciaran Carson’s translation set to music by Ulaid and Duke Special.
SYLLABLES RISING
Old Irish syllabic verse in the margin
of a ninth century manuscript rises as
the Scribe’s and Poet’s word merge.
Twelve centuries on the Belfast Blackbird’s
dulcet song rises from the verge.
Notes let go, swirl around Malachy’s
medieval wall and as the little bird takes
flight, the lough’s ink-black shallows
are washed with light from sunset’s
stained-glass palette.
Lon dubh loch lao perches for choral
evensong on an altar of sunlit whin:
his sweet tune carries on warm winds.
As dusk falls, inky-feathers fly to nest
as centuries old eye-rings scan the
hedgerows for Pangur Bán.
The poem appears in Poetry in Motion Community anthology 2019/20 compiled from entries to the Seamus Heaney Award for New Writing.
Mairéad Breen brings gorse and hawthorn together:
SPRING DELIGHTS
This time of year I fall in love with
the jazz of Maytime blossoms
on gorse and hawthorn bushes
that make a show of rough ditches
hemming lush emerald fields, and
patchworking proud rugged slopes
that lord it over grassy valleys
lazing under warm June sun.
Homely gorse, mostly overlooked,
cinderellas in spring with blazing
clumps of orange-gold blooms that
linger for months, everywhere.
Happy hawthorn’s my favourite –
sprays heavy with pink-white flowers
dangle, dance and tease
and ooze nectar-sweet perfume.
© 2019, Mairead Breen. All rights reserved.
Poets’ Biogs:
Mary Shannon is a member of Wilde Writers◊ creative writing group. She won The Heather Newcombe Poetry Award 2019 and was Runner Up in The Bangor Literary Journal Aspects Festival 2019. Poems published: Community Arts Partnership: 2018/19 and 2019/20; Lagan Navigation Trust: 2018 and 2019. In 1999 she produced and contributed to an anthology of children’s poetry to raise funds for the N.I. Children’s Hospice. She enjoys art and crafts and her painting ‘Flowers For a Lady’ hangs in the Cancer Centre, Belfast City Hospital. @MaryBShannon
Mairéad Breen A native of Co Armagh, Mairéad Breen settled in South Down several decades ago. She’s a peripatetic teacher of young people with special needs and on her daily work journeys is captivated by the golden displays of gorse that enhance and enliven the countryside for much of the year, a reminder of her childhood by Slieve Gullion where whins flourished and blazed on nearly every ditch, field and mountain slope. She began writing poetry relatively recently and writes short stories, flash fiction and memoir. Some of her writing has been published in anthologies and online.
◊Wilde Writers describe themselves as “a reincarnation of two creative writing groups of the wonderful Joan Carberry (tutor, poet, short story writer and all-round legend): the Whiterockers (West Belfast) and the Ballyhackers (East Belfast). These groups go back many years and formed a refuge for (among others) the recently retired. The groups merged when Joan retired and fell under the wide, embracing wing of poet Shelley Tracey and includes dreamy poets, forensic memoirists and short story and flash fiction fiends. Since the lockdown the current group has successfully moved into Google Classroom with the ever-patient Shelley.”
I’m delighted to have won 2nd prize in the Grey Hen Press Poetry Competition with my poem, Autun Cathedral, Magi
I haven’t got a picture of a grey hen so I’ve headed this post with a shot of my favourite cocktail bar, Ora, in Berlin. Continue reading 2nd Prize Grey Hen Press Poetry Competition 2020
Responding through Collaboration – 2nd Blog for Creative COVID-19 blog
This is the second of my blogs for this University of Wales site at the Centre for the Study of Media and Culture in Small Nations.
I’m delighted to have 2 poems in the new anthology: ‘North Star: short stories and poetry by female Northern Irish writers’ released on 4th June 2020.
With 45 contributors, the book’s six sections reflect the counties of Northern Ireland. It is currently number 1 in new and hot releases coming soon on Amazon within anthologies and number 5 in Women’s short stories out of 1,000 titles listed in that genre.
In the Tyrone section is my poem ‘Ballycastle Granny: her husband, Thomas Graham of Gortin’. This won Joint 3rd Prize in the Almost Dancing Poetry Competition and Heather Newcombe Award 2019 organised by Ballycastle Writers’ Group.
My grandfather lived in Gortin where he worked with his brother, John Graham in their saddlery business. John’s his wife, Letitia ran the Post Office.
My poem in the Antrim section is ‘The Scottish Referendum: A View from Carraig Uisneach’. This is set on Ballycastle Beach. It’s about the relationship between this north-eastern area of Ireland with Scotland.
This anthology is unique among collections by Northern Irish women in its dynamically wide embrace of writing talent.
Conceived and produced during lockdown, the North Star anthology comes from women’s writing collective, Women Aloud NI.
Chairwoman, Angeline King Kelly, whose idea it was, says: “The submission process for North Star was open to WANI’s 165 members, without selection. Every woman has a story to tell. Many of the most fascinating stories from Northern Ireland are locked within the minds of people who do not perceive themselves as storytellers or writers. I believe we have opened a door to those people, in addition to nurturing the talent of some of the most respected writers in the country.”
‘North Star’ is available to buy in hardback, paperback, and kindle edition on Amazon. The Collection is also available to buy in local bookshops such as No Alibis and The Secret Bookshelf.
Gorse (in Irish. ‘aitinn’) in some Irish music.
My thanks once again to writer and folklorist, Róise Ní Bhaoill for these links. She tells me she finds gorse referred to in Irish more in songs than in poetry. The three examples here are an absolute treat.
This wonderful tune will set your heart racing.
Seán Ó Riada, “Cnocáin Aitinn Liatroma” – The Whinny Hills of Liatrom
Continue reading Gorse, Whin, Furze 3 – a shared love in Irish, Ulster Scots, Scots & English