Only Connect

The Cathal Buí Hedge School — named for Cathal Buí Mac Giolla Ghunna (c. 1680 – 1756) an Irish speaking poet, singer and quick wit —  celebrates the man himself with a reading of his well-known poem The Yellow Bittern (about a bird who died not able to drink from a frozen lake, the moral…

Here is Poetry

A gorgeous journal arrived to my deep mulberry front door a couple of weeks ago, filled with page after page of poems you want to eat, each one almost more wonderful than the next. I am so pleased to be part of the Crosswinds Poetry Journal: I truly am in great company! Not only that,…

Poetry Day

‘There will be time’ was the theme for Poetry Day Ireland 2020 — today. And as there is a time for everything, today was time for rejection: #25 — hooray! I was hoping to get to 25 by the end of the month but I thought the end of April was 1/4 the way through…

Haiku Blooming

Ulysses, according to poet Rachael Hegarty, “is one long haiku.” Seven hundred and thirty pages does put James Joyce’s novel at a slightly higher syllable count than a traditional haiku, the spare Japanese poetic form of 5 syllable line, 7 syllable line, 5 syllable line, but haikus let us taste what the writer tastes, hear…

It’s Another Poetry Day

And so this happened: Actually, it seemed to take forever to happen, but finally it did! Every month several poems and a short story are chosen as that month’s winners of the Hennessy New Irish Writing awards. Six poets and twelve fiction writers are chosen each year to qualify for the overall Hennessy Award in…

It’s World Poetry Day…

… so here’s a poem! and a bit of a sneak preview of my next post. Enjoy! In Your Own Dreamtime Somewhere between creation and birth in your own dreamtime your journey outward began. Before you ever saw the light of day, the sun rose, set on you on three continents. You crossed oceans once,…

One thing leads to another

It all started after Christmas, though you could say it had roots as far back as my set dancing years more than two decades ago. In that end of year time of looking both inward and ahead, I decided another season had come to do something more for my writing, so one evening in front…

Friends Remembering Friends

Every year, the seasons of Advent, dark winter, World AIDS Day, and Christmas are launched for myself and my colleagues (www.acet.ie) in a small room in a community centre in Rialto, a village in Dublin that sits on one of the epicentres of drug devastation in this city. The event is a memorial to people…

Workshops Can Work

I’ve sat through many creative writing workshops, the first in a classroom surrounded by forest on the side of a hill, in what was then called Malaspina College. I was 18, and revelling in my escape from awkward, geeky teen to more presentable almost adult. That workshop was mostly women (and come to think of…

Drinking from the Same Cup

World AIDS Day 2015 To mark our 20th anniversary in 2012, ACET (AIDS Care Education & Training), a charity working with people affected by HIV (and where I am administrator), compiled a book of 20 stories from clients, volunteers, staff and others who had been part of our journey. The ACET staff walked through the gathering…