Category Archives: Poetry

Best of the Books 2019 The Lonely Crowd

Poetry, Print, Prose, Uncategorized

I’ve recommended three poets in Part Two of this fascinating list of reading tips from Welsh journal The Lonely Crowd: Glyn Edwards, Glen Wilson and Jean Bleakney.

Books of the Year 2019 / Part Two

Damian Smyth of Arts Council of Northern Ireland notes writers from Ireland who feature in Parts One and Two of this exceptionally-useful series of bestofs … much here to pursue, purchase & read . These include Caitlin Newby and Scott McKendry.

Notice taken here of Eilís Ní Dhuibhne’s gripping memoir Twelve Thousand Days: A Memoir of Love & Loss;  Ciaran Carson’s final collection Still Life and & Frank Ormsby’s The Rain Barrel.

Books of the Year 2019 / Part One

 

 

 

ULSTER SCOTS WEEK – POEM

Online, Poetry, Portfolio, PortfolioPrint

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

Heather Newcombe Poetry Award

Awards, Poetry, Portfolio, PortfolioPrint

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.

 

Poem on the Prorogation of Parliament

Poetry, Portfolio, PortfolioPrint

The Prorogation of Parliament

That day when the wedding guests exploded;

That day when I let a wee girl ricochet

From and towards her mother’s spew of blame;

That day I didn’t shelter

A railway worker from a racist shower …

 

Some close at hand, some far.

Kabul or Coleraine station, the same acid rain.

 

That day in Coleraine station when I witnessed

The airiness its architect enticed inside;

A guard whose smile kept all our doors ajar

And, in town, a window of bottles,

Wittily displayed — such light-filled things.

 

These close at hand. In far

Kabul or Coleraine station, the same inherent shine?

 

Today, when democracy exploded,

I was tread-milling for an email thrill

When I caught the acrid taste of tipping-point.

In the rank mulch of small misdeeds

The great ones grow. Wake up, wake up, my soul.

 

Some close at hand, some far.

Kabul, Coleraine, the Commons, I must reach those I can.

 

Poem in Black Bough #2

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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

Blog, Media, Poetry, Portfolio, PortfolioPrint, Print

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 →