Writing 3.0

I've been fierce cultured this month. Fingal County Council are running a series of readings, workshops etcetera during October calling it Writing 3.0 and best of all it's FREE! As all the best things in life are of course.

So I was at a poetry Open Mic in the Council Chamber where poets Colm Keegan and Dave Lordan gave virtuoso performances. There was a good turn out and I don't think the chamber has ever heard such honesty and passion. Maybe more cultural events there could soften some of the grubbiness of politics. Then yesterday I attended the 'Drivetime Diarists'at Farmleigh House. Up to this I was thinking of voting for David Norris for President (unless Rebecca De Havalland is serious about standing)but Fergus Finlay really impressed me. He read a lovely piece about his daughter and then talked about his little grandson, even playing us a recording of the wee man singing 'Ireland'. Yes, maybe Ireland is ready for a male President again. As long as he doesn't want all us women to be dancing at crossroads!

Joe O'Connor had us all in stitches. That man is so funny. I really get his sense of humour, if he's ever stuck for a few bob he could do comedy routines. He puts a smile into my day. The beautiful Olivia O'Leary read a few pieces too. Her intellect is so keen and she is so elegant and ladylike. She was so brave all those years ago to dare to challenge those ****ards in the hierarchy of the Catholic Church. 'Gwan Olivia. I'd be embarrassed to stand beside her as I'm totally in awe of her.

Then this evening I went over to hear the lovely Nuala Ni Conchuir (sp?)read from her marvelous novel 'You'. Nuala's little daughter Juno stole my heart away, she watched and listened to her Mammy talking and there wasn't a peep out of her. A happy little soul.
So home I came, culturally sated as 'twere, and turned on the goggle box in the corner and there was my dear friend Rebecca De Havalland telling her sceal to Brendan O'Connor. She was totally relaxed and natural and her usual intelligent articulate self.Rebecca rocks.

Off to the car boot market in Balbriggan in the morning. You can only fit so much culture into one weekend!

Poets Do it Better.........

I had the privilege last night to tune into RTE radio One's Arts slot. It was a great show, featuring a piece on Pat McCabe and some book club. It was a 'weekend' book club, where you stay in a nice house in the country, eat lovely food, drink wine and chat about books. Sounds like my kind of weekend. Anyway the book the group were reading was 'The Seige of Krishnapur' by JG Farell, and I smiled.

I felt I had come full circle with this book because it was the novel I was reading on the first writing workshop weekend I ever attended. It was in Dingle and I finished JG Farrell's magical book that weekend and started writing my own novel(no comparison!) Eoin McNamee facilitated the workshops and I'm happy to say that I kept both the opening paragraph and the last paragraph of the novel much as I wrote them then. I still think they're rather good. Now if only I can get a publisher to agree!

Then came serendipity#2. Colm Keegan (who blogs here) http://theblogsthejob.blogspot.com was reviewing two new books of poetry and he read Grace Well's visceral poem which details some horrific domestic abuse. My novel 'The Heron's Flood' -(my title, the agents call it something else) deals with, among other things, domestic violence so I considered myself relatively aware of the nuances and horror of the whole subject.

But Grace's poem shows the violence in such an immediate light and the language used punches out the horror so well that I think it should be made compulsory reading for everyone. I could not help but be both moved and maddened by it, I felt my blood boil and my heart weep for the abused.When will it stop, people? When will the abusers stop mentally and physically torturing people they purport to love?

Listen to it here. http://www.rte.ie/radio1/arena - thurs May 27th Colm makes a great job of reading it, he is a very fine poet and writer himself and it was interesting to hear the poem in a male voice. It added a new dimension, for of course it is not only women and children who are victims.

After all that I was very glad to sit out my back garden as dusk settled and contemplate the Hawthorn tree in full bloom. Thank God for Nature, its capabilities to soothe our souls. Wish I could do it justice in a poem...........

Off to York for the weekend, mebbe I'll be inspired