CHRISTMAS
The smallest words mean the most
Joy
Hope
Love
These things
Not things
May you receive them all
A star of particular promise
A light that has sought and found you
The child of your heart
Arrived
Waiting beyond the door.
Category Archives: Media
Christmas Stars
CHRISTMAS STARS
The stars, a rowdy, cheerful crowd,
ran to their places, prompt to the call,
and how they sing! since then,
a nightly choir.
Only the comets − their slow tears −
betray the sorrow underneath that steadfastness,
for haven’t they seen it all?
− what we do down here,
warping the darkness that they love
into sly coverts for our filthiness.
Poor stars. Don’t grudge them their reprieve
each year, when their paragon,
their Star of stars, leader of kings,
sets out once more and triumphs;
finds his place, finding the child,
perfect as every new-born.
Here! the Star declares to each of us,
Surely you see – surely – that you
are a Child Awaited, you
arrived − naked and loved − and you,
gift-bearer of nothing,
can stoop under this lintel,
step clean through the needle’s eye.
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
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.
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
My Pitching for Creatives Workshop for CULT Cymru
I’m looking forward to delivering this one-day hands-on Pitching Skills workshop. In Cardiff on Thursday, 28th November. £25 for union members. £50 non-members. It’s always a privilege to encounter the passion and inventiveness of the participants and to see how their pitches develop. Continue reading My Pitching for Creatives Workshop for CULT Cymru
Finalist in PENfro Book Festival Poetry Competition
Judge Rhiannon Hooson has chosen Elizabeth Wilson Davies’s poem ‘Heartland’ as the winner of this year’s poetry competition. My poem, ‘After Iconoclasm: The Jesse Tree Window’ and 19 other poems will be published in the Festival Anthology by Parthian Books.
Continue reading Finalist in PENfro Book Festival Poetry Competition
Poem in Black Bough #2
It was an inspiring theme from Matthew C. Smith, editor – the 50th anniversary of the Moon Landing to be dealt with in no more than 10 lines in an imagistic style. I wrote Moon, Landing from the perspective of the moon coming to earth rather than humans going to the moon. See Broadside 5. Black Bough Poems
Moon, Landing 20th July 1969
I was moon-hungry, ten years old,
So I set a mirror on the beach
And lay in wait that night.
Moon landed there, looked up
And was a child! Like me, an only child,
Tentative and curious, hoping to play.
To have him as my friend, I saw
I’d have to let him go
And come at will. Chastened, I prayed
That all the astronauts would lose their appetites.
On the same theme I also wrote a poem in Ulster Scots which will be in #9 of The Bangor Literary Journal, launching August 18th and First Death of The Troubles, occurred 14th July 1969 about the context of the Moon Mission in Northern Ireland – this is on my website.
A Telling Week: 50 Years On
This is a week of momentous anniversaries, of the Moon Landing and also of a significant escalation of unrest in Northern Ireland, including two deaths in controversial circumstances.
The call-out for poetry for Issue 2 of Black Bough Poetry, for Imagist poems on the theme of the Apollo mission, prompted me to write three poems (one in Ulster Scots). One of these, ‘Moon, Landing’, is in the issue and another is here below. I wanted to consider the context in which I experienced the Moon Landing, and anniversaries which make us reflect on progress and also how we deal with memories, and with events, resolved or unresolved. Continue reading A Telling Week: 50 Years On