Featuring some of the best contemporary Ulster-Scots poets, including Charlie Gillen, Anne McMaster, Angeline King, Angela Graham and Liam Logan, Negative Waves and Sub-Culture Productions have curated a large collection of Ulster-Scots audio and video recordings highlighting and preserving their important work. The digital project has been made with support from Northern Ireland Screen’s Ulster-Scots Broadcast Fund.
The link above gives access to video and audio recordings.
On the 5th August a great time was had by all at a showcase of contemporary Ulster-Scots poetry organised by poets themselves. This was the first time that some of us, who have been in regular contact in the last few years, had met in person. The event was characterised by a very supportive atmosphere which really helped everyone shine. For one poet, it was the first time he had read in public and he did so with aplomb.
Left to right below, Angeline King, Ronnie McIlhatton , Steve Dornan, Al Millar, me, Robert Campbell, Rob Morrow, Anne McMaster and Liam Logan.
COLONY
Your words in my mouth
are bitter
a double dispossession:
of the land itself,
of its relationship with me
My words in your mouth
are strange
a double reiving:
of my tongue itself,
of its cadences and music
This is the first stanza of my poem in the current issue of Poetry Wales summer 2023. ‘Colony’ goes on to describe how the language of the coloniser enters the colonised, establishing a kind of internal territory, invisible but powerful.
The poem then envisages the ‘journey’ of the language of a colonised people into the coloniser, where it affects the coloniser’s inner life in ways unexpected in the act of colonisation.
These processes are colonisations at the most intimate levels. What hope is there for a just and mutually positive outcome?
Please consider reading the whole poem in Poetry Wales
Elizabeth Kemball reviews ‘Sanctuary: There Must Be Somewhere’ (Seren Books) in ‘Poetry Wales’ Summer 2023
Extract – ‘Angela Graham’s timely collection … unflinchingly addresses challenging issues of the current climate, from the pandemic to war in the Ukraine with a tender voice that is respectful of the subject matter… Through Graham’s collaboration with the five other poets who feature in this collection, the additional voices add to the exploration of what sanctuary is to each of us and how much this adapts and transforms in the face of upheaval and global turmoil… this collaborative approach only strengthens the message and quality of the work… In the poem ‘Since The Evacuations from Kabul’ we are asked the question that is essential to these poems
Is there a scathing truth we have to face,
that outside every sanctuary there’s a hell
where howling crowds who crave the sacred space
clamour to join the saved?
This stanza deftly cuts to the root of sanctuary: if it is a place then it is also a privilege, do which of us are allowed in?’
Writing of the inclusion in the book of a poem by each of Mahyar, Csilla Toldy, Viviana Fiorentino, Phil Cope and Glen Wilson:
‘This collaborative approach only strengthens the message and quality of the work within, as Graham explains in the foreword ‘TO eb permitted to engage at increasingly deepr levels challenges poth parties… something new emerges… and we go ahead in the pursuit of the true, the real, the poetically beautiful’ – this too is true of the idea of sanctuary, which becomes more rounded with the inclusion of multiple voices…
‘Angela Graham ends … with a poem about home. ‘Home’ is a hopeful piece that emphasises that at the heart of sanctuary is humanity: ‘We are a home for one another. And this holds true for everyone’. These final lines are perhaps the most poignant in the whole collection and remind us… that in turbulence of mundanity, whether human or animal, we each must carve a space to fit ourselves, around each other.’
https://www.serenbooks.com/product/sanctuary-there-must-be-somewhere-paperback/
The pace of current events worldwide seems to have accelerated. That is probably not the case, merely an impression, since what qualifies as an event must depend on the point of view from which circumstances are being judged. Undoubtedly , the upheavals in Russia and their impact on other countries are major events. Their impetus shifts bewilderingly fast. How can poetry keep up?
I felt compelled to write a poem in immediate reaction to news that Yevgeny Prigohzin had launched a march on Moscow. I had scarcely finished it when the headline was that he had called it off.
I wrote this article about my experience of crafting a poem about events that were changing with extraordinary speed. It was published by the Institute of Welsh Affairs. It includes my poem, Prighozin’s Galley Slaves.
Zoe Brigley, co-editor of Poetry Wales, edited the first draft of this article.
Peterloo Massacre, print published by Richard Carlile, 1 Oct 1819 (Manchester Archives, CC BY-NC 2.0)
It is an honour to have my poem Tha Watch Hoose Atap Tha Cliff Highly Commended in the Ulster-Scots category of the Frances Browne Poetry Competition.
The Frances Browne Festival is an annual celebration of the 3 tongues of the locality: Irish, English and Ulster-Scots. The Festival is enabling a welcome surfacing of ability and engagement in a very constructive spirit.
https://www.francesbrowneliteraryfestival.com/poetry-competition
I have written a set of poems about the war in Ukraine. The poem in this issue is prompted by a photograph. That an image arrests the attention is commonplace but some images demand greater engagement. They put our imagination to work. They challenge, and call for us to do something. But usually it is too late to help the particular situation which was photographed. What can we do with the feelings that have been aroused?
For this particular poem, A Matter of Degree, I have used a formal rhyme scheme for each stanza: abb/acc/add/aee and each line has four beats. Perhaps this constriction is an attempt to control the horror while I interrogate the event, its aftermath and my own reactions. The first stanza is below.
The magazine can be bought: https://crannogmagazine.com/buy-current-issue/
A MATTER OF DEGREE:
Bucha, near Kyiv, April 2022
A naked woman in a fur coat, dead.
Condom wrappers on the floor above.
Whatever happened, it wasn’t love.
Just scant words from the news but in my head
they kept on pressing to be understood;
something for me to grasp here, if I could.
The condom-users gone, a woman dead.
But why in fur? A pornographic hook?
She wanted it so much she chose this look:
deluxe seduction, high-class come-to-bed.
Is that the fantasy they made her play:
the lustful woman who leads men astray?
Photograph of a Russian soldier on the outskirts of Kharkhiv, February 26th 2022
Rotting inside his uniform — he would be
but his final lover, the snow,
has lain on him so intimately
he is possessed entire;
his face veiled;
his right arm flung out on frozen linen
in his last abandon.
His up-turned wrist, his naked palm — florid — mimic life
but his fingers have scooped deep in a font of snow
as though he’ll rise and bless himself, thumb a swift cross
on our foreheads, eyes, lips, hearts,
shudder, and stumble on.
He’ll not be rising.
In the corner of the frame some pre-fab storage units
hint that he died in the back lot of a retail park.
Ochre and khaki, his stricken tank, behind him
(he did not leap far)
is motionless and only metal now.
I see the stillness, and the snow, a stalled assault,
already a year ago.
From all of this I can’t wring any meaning.
ENVOI:
Second Photograph: Shifted Point of View
Further shamed:
newly framed,
he lies dead
by a road.
Slick tarmac
army track;
human sack
slung off-road.
The first photograph spoke of human fragility, and callousness, and pointless enterprise. Yet there was a tenderness present in the gentleness of the snow. The second photograph showed harshly how close the body was to passing military vehicles — utterly disposable. I had been working on a response, in Ulster-Scots, to the the famous ninth-century Irish-language poem ‘Int én bec…’, known as ‘The Blackbird of Belfast Lough’. This is in the ancient Irish metre ‘snámh súad’, which the late Ciaran Carson rendered as ‘poetic floating’. It is technically very challenging: eight three-syllable lines; a tight rhyme-scheme; the word that ends the fourth line must be re-presented as the last word of the eighth line, with shifted meaning. The form’s tautness reinforces its valedictory ‘punch’ and the poem-and-envoi form is appropriate to my ‘double-take’ on the original photograph.
Later I had something else to say about these photographs and their effect on me.
POSTSCRIPT
In winter, when I was very young, I’d find
the inside of my bedroom window slicked with ice, opaque’d.
I’d stand close up to scrutinise that alien terrain,
its glistening battlements and outposts,
not knowing that the tiny engine of my breath
was sapping it, until, with a sudden bloom,
the glass would clear and I’d be looking through
to the other side.
In the aftermath of snow the air is numb.
I’ve lived with these two photographs,
returning to re-see, reflect and, suddenly,
I’m looking at myself:
I, lying on the hard, wet ground;
I, framing, and shifting the vantage-point;
I, who shoot / am shot.
In the aftermath of snow the air is clear.
The photographer and I at once distinct
and consubstantial; the photographed
and I – yes, the same applies.
Then / now; there / here –
I have been, suddenly, let through.
Does this amount to meaning? I see
that nothing human is apart from me;
even the most discarded, most absurd.
In the aftermath of snow the air bristles, and breathes.
It was a pleasure to read at the launch of FREE VERSE an anthology of poetry to mark the tercentenary of the birth of Wales’s most influential philosopher and political theorist.
The launch took place at the Pontycymmer studio of artist, Kevin Sinnott whose work captures the vertiginous geography of the valleys. His studio window proudly proclaims his place in London, New Your and Pontycymmer. The local streets rise up from the narrow main road at the steepest of gradients and this sense of teetering on the edge of some precipitous fall or plunge gies a tremendous energy to his paintings. In this one below, a couple hover over valley streets.
Kevin Sinnott’s wonderful painting of Richard Price in the context of his times and those he influenced features as the anthology’s cover.
I chose to write about an incident in Richard Price’s life whose spontaneity shows how deeply rooted was his fellow-feeling for his contemporaries. He didn’t hesitate to risk his own interests to help a stranger. He as an intellectual who had his feet on the ground.
Here’s the background to this anthology, edited by Prof. Kevin Mills and Prof Damian Walford Davies:
“2023 marks the tercentenary of the birth of Dr Richard Price (1723−91), one of the most undervalued architects of the modern world. In political, philosophical and theological works he defined and advocated for many of the political and intellectual freedoms we take for granted. In our increasingly illiberal times, recovering his humane and enlightened work is an imperative.
“The poems included in this exploratory volume go some way towards engaging with that urgent task. In a rich variety of modes and styles, they both scrutinise and channel Price’s legacy − philosophical, political, theological, actuarial and moral − testing the contemporary relevance of his contribution just as they measure contemporary social and political mores against his example.
“Prompted by Price, we are encouraged to consider the value of human life; the worth of the individual; the lessons of history; the operations of power; the force of language; the nature of testimony; the implications of artificial intelligence; and the horizon of human possibility.
“Firmly rooted in Price’s intellectual legacy, these poems remind us that our cherished freedoms are fragile and must not be taken for granted. Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792−1822) famously called poets ‘the unacknowledged legislators of the world’; the epithet applies equally to Richard Price, and here, for the first time, contemporary poets join their voices with his in seeking out, and giving memorable expression to, liberal values. The volume’s Introduction assesses Price’s impact and reputation in his own day, identifying him as a necessary voice in the work of agitating for an equitable and sustainable future in a warring and environmentally degraded world.”
Contributors: Abeer Ameer, Zoë Brigley, Phil Cope, Mari Ellis Dunning, Kristian Evans, Angela Graham, Rae Howells, Mab Jones, Richard Marggraf Turley, Kevin Mills, Robert Minhinnick, Taz Rahman, Gerry Ray, Tracey Rhys, Damian Walford Davies, Hilary Watson.
I’m delighted to have a poem in this 5-volume pamphlet series published by Parthian Books and edited by wells expert, Phil Cope.
This is part of the Ancient Connections project, the ambitious exploration and reinforcement of links between Wexford on the Irish coast and Pembrokeshire across the Irish Sea in Wales.
My poem appears in Y Gerddoriaeth Hynaf / Is Ceol Sine
It explores and celebrates how holy wells have inspired poets for hundreds of years and includes a selection of old and new poems, in Welsh, English and Irish, including by Lewys Glyn Cothi, Gwynfardd Brycheiniog, Ieuan ap Rhydderch, Angela Graham, Tony Curtis, Grace O’Reilly, Eirwyn George, Dafydd Williams, Julian Cason, Lorraine O’Dwyer, Brian Jackson, Phil Carradice and Phil Cope. The Volume is illustrated by Phil Cope’s compelling photographs.
My poem considers the link between the culture of wells in both places and some aspects of what wells ‘do’ for us.
A WELL IN PEMBROKESHIRE, A WELL IN WEXFORD
This one is the pupil of an eye.
It exists to gaze at heaven.
Even the winter snows
kiss it and leave; no ice
forms here, for the pulse at its core
keeps its sight clear.
My face, hovering, it knows
will pass; all shadows do.
Only the sky endures.
And this one is a summery mirror
avid for something to reflect
− branches, birds, our gawping –
and it giggles, when anything touches it,
shiggling out a little overflow.
All on the surface? The reverse.
The negative of every image
is banked and catalogued in its vault.
These wells hear the sea that roils between them.
Like siblings in the dark, they reach
for one another’s hand
far below the boisterous tides
and spell on each other’s fingers
all they have seen and understood.
We think it is we who do
the looking. When the time approaches
for the world to blister, God
will command that everything be screened;
that the wells, erupting, stream
the banners of their spoils. We’ll see
ourselves, forever at the brink.
Holy Wells of Wexford and Pembrokeshire is a series of five chapbooks commissioned by Ancient Connections, an EU funded arts, heritage and tourism project linking north Pembrokeshire with north Wexford led by Pembrokeshire County Council with partners Wexford County Council, Pembrokeshire Coast National Park Authority and Visit Wexford. The series coincides with the launch of a new pilgrim route; Wexford-Pembrokeshire Pilgrim Way between Ferns in County Wexford and St Davids in Pembrokeshire. The holy wells explored in this series through fiction, essays, photographs, poetry and prints are all on or close to the new pilgrim route.