Celebrating Live Encounters

Congratulations to the online Journal Live Encounters which is now celebrating its eleventh year. Founded by Mark Ulyseas, it never fails to bring joy to my heart when I read the wonderful poetry there. It is further enhanced by Mark's stunning photography. A huge amount of work has gone into the present editions, featuring 130 poets and totalling 768 pages.The guest editors are Terry McDonagh and Mary McDonnell and I am so delighted to to have my poem 'All Hallows' included in it. The cover by Emma Barone celebrates the uniqueness of the journal as you will see here:

There are so many of Mark's images that deserve a wider audience. I was particularly taken by the photo of nutmeg, wrapped in its mace armour. I am producing it here by kind permission.

Corona Cinquain Sequence

Corona Cinquain Sequence

Virus

Droplets deadly

Lurking there in the breath

Unknown enemy replicates

Covid

Blue tit

Inquisitive

Pecks at the windowpane

Opens the morning into our day

Bright bird

Panic

Useless senseless

Piling trolleys mile high

Toilet rolls the new currency

Terror

Sunshine

Hope-giving days

Recharge the sky all round

Hearts expanding in the light of it

A gift

Lockdown

Self-isolate

Cleaning painting baking

A time for every purpose now

Holed-up

Silence

Gives the birds space

To fill their day with song

Each branch their Roman balcony

Heart time

Children

Locked in no friends

Supports taken from them

Parents alone at their wits’ end

Regress

            Young hare

Colour of soil

Bounds into our night world

Sits on the ridge while dark falls down

Saves us

Facemask

The next fashion

Catching the sneeze sickly cough

Makes us all look like aliens

Hiding

            Catkins

            Take to the air

            Falling like snow on grass

Land like birds onto fresh turned clay

Tree birth       

Numbers

Heart-breaking counts

Families grieve alone

Coffins crowd high in parking lots

More deaths

            Create

            New ways to live

            Gardens become the way

            To bring us closer to ourselves

Slow time

Easing

Glorious news

Letting us out at last

Hopefuls running into the streets

To live

            White deer

            In the forest

Glimpse beyond the trees

Miracle on our day’s walk

A path.

Photographs courtesy of Peter Moore 2020

This sequence of cinquains was first published in the July edition of Live Encounters

Launch of Belmullet Heritage and Historical Society

When my poetry collection Bone Road was published by Arlen House last year, my greatest wish was to read in Belmullet. This was where the story started of my great-grandparents  who emigrated from Elly Bay to the US in 1883 with their six children as part of the Tuke Emigration Scheme. This verse memoir charts the course of their leavetaking and homecoming  and I wanted to acknowledge where my ancestors left from.

I couldn't have been more delighted when an invitation came from the Belmullet Heritage and Historical Society (Coiste Oidreachta Iorrais) to be part of their launch night with researcher Rosemarie Geraghty on 18 January. Rosemarie is an expert in this field and has done tremendous work bringing the past and the present together through recording the passenger lists of all the ships and  and contacting as many of the descendants as possible.

   

Ian McAndrew Photo: Peter Moore

Belmullet will be 200 years old in 2024 and the launch of the society was a very positive  and successful step towards  its celebrations.  I would like to thank the committee,
Ian McAndrew, Katherine Mangan, Mary Barrett, and Rosemarie Geraghty for their wonderful hospitality. Check out Blacksod Bay emigration for more information on this great work.

Here are three poems from the collection
 
Hunger for Somewhere Else

They’re glad to see the back of

all the wind-crippled whins,

turn their heads from

the rain over Achill head,

smoor the final fire.

They’ve had their bellyful

of stinking haulms,

grateful now to hand back

their hungry piece of grass to the landlord

and watch the dog on a scatter of stone,

a fetch in the tumbled-down scailp,

a fling of dunlins on sand

waiting for the boat to sail.

  

Rosemarie Geraghty Photo: Peter Moore

Leaving

The longest day still lighting up their dawn,

they follow the carts of hopefuls,

along the famished track

down to the sea.

Beyond the calm waters of Elly Bay,

the S.S. Waldensian lies anchored,

brighter than any golden hoard

offered to Manannán, the sea god.

There are scant tears,

for their passage is paid;

new clothes on their backs,

landing money promised.

The whole family going:

my great-grandparents, six children,

ten-year-old Brigid, my grandmother

– that’s Tuke’s deal –

 

Geraldine Mills Photo: Peter Moore

 Outfitted

Waiting for high-water

the chosen clusters

are ferried by the blue jackets

on the Seahorse gunboat.

They leave the bay

then out through

the Narrows of Achill,

where the water runs

with unmerciful force.

They climb aboard the steamer,

men in forward, women aft.

Outfitted with a straw bed,

a pillow to lay their heads,

enough marine soap

to wash the whole of Erris

out of them.

A swell builds mid-Atlantic.

Through spume and spindrift they sail,

fog too thick for soupers,

they sight an iceberg.