Category Archives: Poetry

SIAP Award from Arts Council N Ireland 2020/21

Poetry, PortfolioPrint

The Arts Council of Northern Ireland has given me a Support for the Individual Artist Award towards the drafting of a collection of poetry on the theme of SANCTUARY.

I am honoured to receive this funding and greatly appreciate the encouragement.

A Garw Valley cairn by Phil Cope

This collection  will not be written by me alone. The funding enables me both to involve four other poets who will each contribute a poem, written in collaboration with me, and also to benefit from mentoring by Glen Wilson, author of the poetry collection An Experience on the Tongue (Doire Press) and winner of the Seamus Heaney Award for New Writing 2017.

Glen Wilson

Continue reading SIAP Award from Arts Council N Ireland 2020/21 →

My sonnet read on Poetry Pause

Listen, Media, Poetry, Portfolio, Writing

Poetry Pause is run by Emma Baines, Philippa Davies and Jean Riley near Narberth, west Wales. In Episode 7 the focus is on Carol Ann Duffy and has a powerful sonnet from Mab Jones and one from me.

Continue reading My sonnet read on Poetry Pause →

Wales in Places of Poetry Anthology

Blog, Poetry

Launching today.

Places of Poetry book launch

1. Jo Bell · Got
2. Alun Lewis · The Mountain over Aberdare (1942)
3. Philippa Davies · Aberfan: 9.10 a.m. 21/10/1966
4. Hilary Taylor · Coal Valley
5. Paul McGrane · Industrial Heritage
6. Maureen Fenton · Views from Newport Wetlands
7. Laura Wainwright · Is Coed
8. Peter Gaskell · Thoughts on a King’s Idyll in City of the Legion (Caerleon)
9. Jeremy Dixon · Gentlemen
10. Fawzia Muradali Kane · Ogmore
11. Jim Young · Worm’s Head (Pen Pyrod)
12. James Roberts · At Carreg Frân
13. Erika Guttmann-Bond · Brenin y Brenhinoedd
14. Henry Vaughan · The Water-fall (1655)
15. Kathy Miles · Lithic
16. Alwyn Marriage · Across the Mountain
17. Freddie Jones · Winter in Snowdonia
18. Gillian Clarke · Caernarfon
19. Ness Owen · Mamiaith (Mother Tongue)
20. Eabhan Ní Shuileabháin · Growing Up
21. Joanna Ingham · Choughs
22. Anne Phillips · Fog in Llanbadrig
23. Gerard Manley Hopkins · In the Valley of the Elwy (1874–77)
24. Steven Thomas-Spires · Border Language (Iaith Ffin)

4 Poems in The Blue Nib

Online, Poetry, Portfolio

I’m delighted to have 4 poems published in the Abhaile section – ‘poetry from the home place’ – of The Blue Nib.

https://thebluenib.com/4-poems-by-angela-graham/

Tracy Gaughan selects poetry from established and emerging writers from Ireland and the UK.

One of the poems is from the book I’m currently writing on Place and Displacement.

Tracy comments: ‘Angela Graham’s imaginative eloquence of language embodies an ‘at-homeness’ in both the universal and the particular’.

Abhaile is a great means of sampling work from a range of poets. I found among them Hugh McMillan and Caroline Johnson. I’ll give them a wave over there in Scotland. I’m looking forward to my time off next week when I can read everyone’s work.

Poem in Letters With Wings fund-raising Poetry Reading

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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.

In the event a poem by Nedim, ‘Child, Don’t You Know?’ was read in Kurdish.
Letters with Wings later said,
“We are very pleased to let you all know that Cornelia Rohr, one of our readers on the 26th, was in contact with Nedim Türfent’s sister and sent the video of our live event. She phoned later with Nedim and told him about it. He was very happy and sends us many kind regards.”
Extract from the translation into French:
Toi, enfant rebelle
enfant indomptable, irréductible !
toi, enfant
si ton dessein est d’avorter mon rêve
en aucun cas
je ne ferais retour de mes songes, jamais
Nedim Türfent • Child, don't you know? | KEDISTAN

Le Ortique – launches podcasts with my translation of Notturno n.4 by Livia De Stefani

Blog, Listen, Poetry

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:

da Poesie in diesis di Livia De Stefani (ita/eng)

 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:

Livia De Stefani: poesia per ritornare (alla poesia) / Livia De Stefani: poetry to come back (to poetry)

 

2 poems in ‘North Star’ an anthology of writing by Northern Irish women

Blog, Poetry, Portfolio, PortfolioPrint

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, Whin, Furze – a shared love in Irish, Ulster Scots, Scots & English

Blog, Poetry

Recently I had a poem about gorse on the Pendemic.ie site which describes itself as, ‘Not a literary magazine for ordinary times, but journaling the extraordinary.’ in these COVID-19 times. My poem describes the gorse that flowers copiously in Ireland in Spring.

I had many  responses on Twitter, sharing a love of gorse and of poetry inspired by it, old and new.  I’d like to bring some of them together here to share that pleasure further, as a simple record. This is a mere fraction of the gorse-related poetry one might find. Continue reading Gorse, Whin, Furze – a shared love in Irish, Ulster Scots, Scots & English →