SUMMER SOLSTICE

       

Summer Solstice

This is the contract between light and dark,

day and night.

Each accepts when the world belongs

to the other.

This is day’s time, we know no sleep,

swallows cutting

the sky are giddy with it.

Touched by the hand of Midas, everything

turns to gold:

Common cats-ear, bird’s-foot trefoil

buttercup.

The sun’s monstrance gilds the high garden,

the cherry tree.

A prayer big enough to cover our best selves.

From The Other Side of Longing, a collaboration with Lisa C.Taylor

Published by Arlen House, 2011

Individual Artist's Award

I wish to acknowledge Galway County Council Arts Office  for awarding me an Individual Artist's Award to work on my third short story collection.

My gratitude to them for their continuous support  throughout the years.

Reading with James Joyce on Bloomsday

Not many people can say that, but  yes, I will be reading with James Joyce on Bloomsday and another 109 Irish writers who plan to set a new Guinness World Record for the Most Authors Reading Consecutively From Their Own Work . It has been organised by the Irish Writers' Centre and it start at 10:00am on Friday 15th and finishes at 2:00pm on Saturday, Bloomsday.

It will be streamed live from the Irish Writers' Centre so everyone will get a chance to follow the readings if they cannot make it to the event and  it will be great fun. James and I will be reading  between 6:30am and 7:00am  so we will be vying with the dawn chorus. I will be reading from The Weight of Feathers (Arlen House, 2007) and James Martyn Joyce will be reading from his debut collection of short stories, What's Not Said which has just been launched by Arlen House.

This  masterly collection draws a different kind of attention to the small world of land purchase, building and resentment entrenched in the Irish psyche. These interlinked stories are populated by skinny-denimed squirrels and sawn off shot guns, where plasterers and electricians swarm over the shell of a house like fat flies cleaning out a carcass.  

With a gimlet eye he uncovers an Ireland of greed, betrayal and consequences with writing that is sharp, unsettling, lyrical, yet not without humour, throwing a spotlight on lives that fester behind the ordinary…where what he didn’t know couldn’t kick his door in at 4.00am and nail him to the bed with lead rivets. 

From the beautifully nuanced Dust Woman to such disquieting examples as Benny’s Case, What’s Not Said and Give Them Nothing, Joyce limns the shadow seam of Ireland with inference rather than statement, leaving the reader to search between the lines and bring into the light what’s not said, what can’t be said and even if it’s not said it always filters back. Now that’s what a good short story is all about.

Touched by Light

                                    
                                             Bird Sanctuary in Winter by Charlotte Kelly

When you are in the presence of true artists it is clear they become the medium through which the inspiration flows. Their very essence is brought to bear on the whole work. None of them explain or make it easy for us and they call upon us to look beyond the image and bring us to another place within ourselves.  In Elements of Place,  an exhibition currently on show at Kenny's Gallery, Liosbán Retail Park, Tuam Road, Galway, we are called to witness  the work of Leah Beggs, Joan Hogan and Charlotte Kelly through their interpretation of Connemara, the Corrib and Barna, respectively. Though the work is informed by their own experiences of the local, the quality of it ensures that it could happily take its place on the universal stage.

What Leah Beggs does superbly is that she directs us to the edge and challenges us to pull back the veil of another world that we may look at it differently.From the smaller pieces such as Land Meets Sea or Linear Landscape to the larger canvases she takes us from the ordinary world of solid matter to the essence of place.  There is a wonderful stillness in her work, a sense of the spirit of the place that is her great power.  

Born where the world looks out to Galway Bay and beyond, the sea was the first sound  Joan Hogan heard before her birth eye ever opened to its pulse. So it is not surprising that she has been drawn to its life force. The sea is in her ear, her eye, she finds a way to capture its power, its energos on canvas and it lifts out of the deep to show itself to us. She is not afraid to use strong vibrant colours and uses them with great deftness which she balances before she hands it over to the viewer. She then lets the painting continue its life in the eye of the beholder. Through her work she brings us to the edge of ourselves.

 

What speaks to me in Charlotte Kelly's  work is the way she gets to the core of a lived life.  There is a sensed understanding of the world around her whether it is her walks in Rusheen Bay or Barna Woods and it is very clear that she has absorbed place into her veins for it just pours out with each brush stroke. What I love about her work is the contract she holds between dark and light and this has developed even further from her previous exhibitions.  She brings an alchemy to her painting so that a bare canvas is transmute to gold.

It was an inspired choice to bring these three extraordinary artists together in one exhibition. They stand strongly on their own merit, but the synergy of the work together is a tour-de-force. The exhibition continues until 14th June.

Where You Meet Yourself

There are days you can't remember who you are.
You spend hours looking for old  pieces of yourself

behind the cushions of the sofa, the bathroom mirror,
the eye of the potato, that safe soft place

where you hid the purse of possibility,
but words slip away,

you empty out pockets full
of useless rhyme and incident.

You open your mouth and feathers fall out,
- primaries and coverts into the air -

Lifted up on the thermal of your breath,
they roost in the crown of your head

then take themselves out the window
and play puck with the plums in the high garden.

You try to follow them and meet yourself
coming back with a poem

that wants to give itself to you,
but your hands shake too much to grab onto it.

When Someone Believes in your Writing

There are days I wonder why I write at all, but I plough on nonetheless in my own self belief that this is what I want to do no matter what. Then out of the blue I get an email that one of my stories has been a runner up in the Willesden Herald International Short Story Competition and I get that rush of energy that says all is right with the world again.

When the judge is the esteemed Roddy Doyle who has considered it in the top three then I get the courage to keep going. I wish I had been able to travel to the Awards Ceremony on the night, especially as actors from the Liars' League read out extracts of the winning stories. My thanks to Silas Hawkins for bringing my story Frost Heave to the audience with great drama and pathos.

Thanks also to Stephen Moran for all his hard work in keeping me up to date on events. All those who were shortlisted get five copies of the book, and a handsome book it looks from the cover above.

Here you can listen to Silas reading the extract:

Frost Heave

Poetry Workshop at Anam Cara - Registration Open

I cannot believe my week in Seattle is almost over. And what a wonderful week it has been. Thanks to my dear friend and wonderful poet Susan Rich, who has treated me royally in her home, I have had the time of my life. Susan and I have not only read together but also taught classes at the Richard Hugo House which were a great success and I got a glimpse of what an inspiration she is as a teacher. The good news is that she is coming to Ireland to give a poetry workshop in Anam Cara, Co Cork this summer so this is a one time opportunity to learn from a masterly poet. All details posted below.

A Poetry Writing Workshop Concerning Visual Art

Speaking in Pictures: A Poetry Writing Workshop Concerning Visual Art
Leader: Susan Rich (http://poet.susanrich.net/)
One-week Residential Workshop Retreat
Arrival: Saturday, 4 August 2012
Departure: Saturday, 11 August 2012

The question is not what you look at, but what you see.
Henry Thoreau

Poetry and painting are sister arts according to the Greeks. It’s a natural collaboration to focus on ekphrastic poetry. Ekphrastic poetry simply refers to our poems inspired by visual images. Together, we will discuss traditional and experimental models of the form by Elizabeth Bishop, Robert Hayden, Lisel Mueller and Rainier Maria Rilke; we will study recent examples by contemporary poets, and sharpen our powers of observation and description.

Finally, through a series of provocative exercises, we will write our own poems on a variety of works of art. For the purposes of this workshop, art includes sculpture, painting, collage, printmaking, and objects des arts. All levels of writers are welcome — from beginners to very advanced practitioners.

Testimonials:
“Excellent delivery of info and preparation of materials.· Susan established such a safe learning environment, which really helped the ability to learn and enjoy the experience.· This was an exceptionally helpful program!”·-- Cindy S.
"I truly appreciate what you do to nurture other poets. This is truly one of the best retreats I have been on." -- Angie V.

“Thank you for providing this life-changing opportunity.·· Your generosity and enthusiastic interest has been such a blessing for me…You have given me a great gift–the courage to say what I am, and more importantly, to *live* what I am– a writer.·”· -- ·Kelley

Leader’s Bio:
Susan Rich is the author of three collections of poetry, The Alchemist’s Kitchen (2010), which was named a finalist for The Foreword Prize and the Washington State Book Award, Cures Include Travel (2006), and The Cartographer’s Tongue / Poems of the World (2000), which won the PEN USA Award for Poetry. She has received awards from The Times Literary Supplement of London, Peace Corps Writers and the Fulbright Foundation. Her featured appearances include the Cuirt Literary Festival in Galway, Ireland and the University of Sarajevo, Bosnia. Recent poems have been published in The Harvard Review, Poetry Ireland, The Southern Review and the New England Review. Born and educated in Boston, Massachusetts; Susan now makes her home in Seattle, Washington. More information is available about Susan at her website http://poet.susanrich.net/ and her blog http://thealchemistskitchen.blogspot.com




For more information and to book a place in this workshop retreat, please contact Sue at anamcararetreat@gmail.com or +353 (0)27 74441.

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