| “The Chinese New Year 2013 marks the year of the Snake graceful and dark at the same time. As one year bows out to another I often reflect on past occurrences failures and wins, silly mistakes, see if I have learned from them. Death brought many clouds of grief at losing my brother so suddenly family gatherings feel strained we all want to talk about him but don’t for fear it will create even more sadness. Like a lost bead on a necklace, the space a constant reminder of his passing. Death is a leveler of sorts a stopper of tracks just like the new year as it approaches vows will be made and broken there will be make-ups and break-ups. Haves and have-nots, peace and war. With my anthology of wishes I push on. I wish 2013 be the year man returns to listening to his intuition like the ancestors did working from within using inner radar learn to be more spiritually aware of others. Respect the songs of others like the birds in the sky their choruses are many and they live freely. Slow down and awaken to the new.”. 2013 is © Aine MacAodha Thanks to Aine for her poem 2013 to mark this New Year on Poethead. I am adding Aine’s website landing-page, Poetry and Links. Aine has published Fire of the Gaels on Poethead previously, and I have included her in my Index of Women Poets.
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Category: How Words Play
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Letters by Colm Toibín and Hugh McFadden on Arts Policy in Ireland.
The following letters published in the Irish Times re Arts Policy in Ireland.
Where is the arts plan?
“Sir, – At Listowel Writers Week on May 31st the Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht spoke about the importance of the policy of maintaining a system of one-remove between politicians and decisions about arts funding. It seems curious then that Culture Ireland, which was, as a result of a report commissioned and accepted by government, run as an independent body has now been brought into the Minister’s department from where it will be run directly. I think those of us who have worked with Culture Ireland have a right to ask on what basis this was done. Is there a document, for example, which shows how this move might save money or create efficiency? Is there a document which deals with possible problems in the future, should a minister, from whatever political persuasion, wish to decide what artists represent Ireland abroad and what artists should not?
Since there are 113 national archives in the world and only two of them are merged with a national library, it might also be helpful to see a document which would show how money could be saved by such a merger here – the Canadian merger actually cost 15 million Canadian dollars – or how services would be improved, or how nothing would be damaged. The ethos behind a National Library – the making of books and manuscripts available to scholars – and the function of a National Archives – the preservation of documents emanating from government departments – seem quite distant from each other.
As a novelist, I plan what I do. I would not dream of starting a novel without a blueprint, and I put a great deal of thought into that. Would it be too much to ask the Minister, or indeed his civil servants, to produce a document which would explain the reasons for merging some cultural institutions, abolishing boards, and bringing them and Culture Ireland directly under the Minister’s and the civil servants’ own control? – Yours, etc,”
COLM TÓIBÍN
Cancellation of the 2013 Éigse Michael Hartnett Poetry Prize
Hugh Mc Fadden’s letter (15/12/2012)
“Sir, – Not content with cutting funding for the health services, making life more difficult for the sick, the very young, the elderly, disabled, halt and lame, our benighted leaders are busily cutting funds for the arts.
Grants to some publishers and magazine proprietors have been cut for 2013, thereby jeopardising the future of literary writing and the livelihoods of Irish writers.
The latest news on the literary front is that Limerick County Council’s Arts Office has been forced by lack of funding to cancel the Michael Hartnett Poetry Award for next year, as they informed this correspondent this week. Who voted these governmental Philistines into office? – Yours, etc,”
HUGH McFADDEN
My response to weak arts policy in Ireland.
I find the general response to the unconsidered and undebated continuation of previous governmental policies interesting. Arts in Ireland have moved toward a simple bureaucratised functionality based in the 2003 Arts Act. The mere fact that such letters are scant, confined to comment or letters pages, and not really looked at in terms of reportage indicates a lack of consideration for protecting and nurturing the arts and their fragile infrastructure.
Response to inadequate arts policies reflect Irish intellectual response to such issues as blasphemy legislation, the destruction of Tara, and the run-down of critical institutions – a paucity. How utterly sad that short-termism and bureaucracy dominates Irish political (or supposed intellectual) thought.
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Thanks to Mariela Baeva for her legacy project In The Hug Of Arms , an anthology of writing dedicated to the child victims of conflict. I am honoured to be a part of this work with a poem that was initially published in a group called Two Songs of War and a Lyric, by the SouthWord Journal at the Munster Literature Centre. The Poem Gernika was written to be read out at the 75th commemoration of the Guernica Massacre in 2012.
About Angelita
The image Mariela Baeva chose for her cover is of a small girl from Anzio called Angelita who died from shrapnel wounds at the end of World War II. The contributors to the Anthology are from, Uganda, Somalia, Ireland, Russia, Belgium, Angola, the municipality of Anzio (Italy), Pakistan, Lebanon and Bulgaria. The texts are in English, French, Urdu, Somali, Russian (with translations into English).
- There’s more information about the Anthology at this link.
- PEN International newsletter is here , PEN
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We Protect the Weak We protect the weak and call it love or ethics.
For the safety of our students this door
must remain closed at all times. Ani yalda tova. I am a good girl,
I tell the Israeli jeweler who is impressed with my Hebrew.
Someone nearby says, Fuck Israel. I offer, I am a bad girl. Ani yalda ra.
To dance is a kind of paralysis. Muscles contract
in a certain way and we call it beautiful.
The men on the beach made me think
they were dancing tango, but instead one
was helping the other will his feet to remember
walking. If I had withered hands and always gave you
your pen with my teeth would you think it beautiful?
For the continued safety of our money
these checkpoints must remain closed
at all times. For the quality of our progeny these legs
must remain closed at all times. These minds.
This mouth. This heart. Why don’t you substitute
your for these and this? See how it feels. Ani yalda ra.
Feel that. Feel me feel you. Tell me I’m good
and bad. Tova and Ra. Let us be both…
© Kimberly Campanello
Kimberly will be reading at the National Concert Hall, on Thursday, December 6th 2012. Kimberly will be read her poems on the sheela-na-gigs in Strange Country, a new work by composer Benjamin Dwyer for uilleann pipes, tape, and poetry. More information and booking details can be found at www.nch.ie.
We Protect the Weak was previously published in the pamphlet, Spinning Cities (Wurm Press, 2011). Kimberly read this poem at Catechism, Readings for Pussy Riot, in Dublin.
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Kimberly
Campanello was born in Elkhart, Indiana. She now lives in Dublin and London. She was the featured poet in the Summer 2010 issue of The Stinging Fly, and her pamphlet Spinning Cities was published by Wurm Press in 2011 . Her poems have appeared in magazines in the US, UK, and Ireland, including nthposition , Burning Bush II, Abridged , and The Irish Left Review .
Pic by Brian Kavanagh
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The Éigse Michael Hartnett Facebook group linked to The Metre archives this week. Here are poetic treasures including essays, interviews, translations and reviews. The link that I just embedded above contains two Hartnett translations, Clocán Binn and Cén Áinius , introduced and discussed by Michael Smith. Metre was edited by Justin Quinn and David Wheatley.
I decided to add the site onto my Irish Poetry Imprints blogroll so that my readers can do their own exploring rather than have me discuss the poems that I like.
Clocán Binn Calling bell
Brought here by wild wind nightly
I would contest your clarion
Rather than war with women.Translated by Michael Hartnett
I am linking my favourite download here with a recommendation to read the entire. The essay discusses a few preoccupations of mine with regards to dissipation of (unrenewable) poetic energies, performance, audience and response.
O’ Driscoll quotes George Mackay Brown who interests me, and who is represented on this blog with his poem, The Masque of Bread. I feel that George Mackay Brown is quite a neglected poetic voice, given the cragged and ruggedness of his expression, and his use of symbol (especially in his use of light symbol).
O’Driscoll brings Pliny’s letters into his discussion, and the art of Vona Groarke. I tend to subscribe to the Yeatsian adages about solitary writing myself, but it is interesting to look at an aspect of poetic writing which I feel intrigues many poets. Wallace Stevens had a horror of public-reading and is quoted here saying that he had no interest in being a troubadour and that he found public readings of poetry ghastly.
I remember coming up against the reading or not reading issue in college whilst studying Julian of Norwich, who I believed to have written or dictated her works just for the inner ear, where the reader of the pages she offered could discern The Revelation of Love‘s musicality all by themselves. Needless to say my theory was met with a consternation (which I have not forgotten).
I have linked the entire O’Driscoll essay here.
There is an under-developed Sound and Voice category on this blog which I have linked. I hope to add some new Kit Fryatt links there soon. I am also becoming fascinated with contemporary textual and sound poetry as a result of finishing the Modern and Contemporary Poetry at Pennsylvania course which I detailed in my Open Salon Blog.
About Metre
Metre was a magazine of poetry that ran for seventeen issues from 1995 to 2005. For most of that period it was edited by Justin Quinn and David Wheatley. It presented original poetry, reviews, interviews and essays. Published and printed in Ireland, edited by two Irish people, it nonetheless billed itself as ‘A Magazine of International Poetry‘: the desire was present from the outset to provide a platform for the best of Irish work alongside the best from the UK, US, Australia as well as work in translation.
The magazine could not have continued without the generous support of the Arts Council of Ireland/An Chomhairle Ealaíon, and occasional support from the Arts Council of Northern Ireland. Also, patrons and sponsors generously contributed to our costs from the outset.
This site presents a database of PDFs of original contributions to the magazine, and is hosted by the Faculty of Arts, Charles University Prague, under the auspices of the Centre for Irish Studies.
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Last evening, 09/11/2012 , a poem called A Lament, written by me, was staged at the 2012 Béal Festival of New Music and Poetry. I am adding the Béal Festival website here. There will be shots and a recording available soon.
My thanks to Elizabeth Hilliard and David Bremner for their support in staging the poem and for a wonderful evening of music and poetry. I particularly enjoyed listening to Tom Johnson, and to The Sea-Farer.
Thanks to the wonderful women who spoke the poem with such powerful dignity, Dove Curpen, Réiltín Ní Chartaigh Dúill, and Emilie Champenois. Special thanks to Rita Barror who staged A Lament, and who helped with moving the poem from text to performance. Waltons Music school gave us a flexible rehearsal space which I am absurdly grateful for, and until this week I did not even know existed.
A Lament has always been companion to Two Songs of War and a Lyric, published by SouthWord Literary Journal in 2012, and deals with the subject of violence and conflict, especially on women and children. I wish to thank Mariela Baeva who is anthologising part of the series along with the PEN International Women’s Writers Committee, for her interest and support.
I hope to have pics and an audio at some near point, until then thanks everyone for making it possible.
Some Publications and readings by C. Murray
2012 Béal Festival -
This year I wrote a cycle of poems relating to war and to women. I titled part of it Two Songs of War and a Lyric for the SouthWord Journal, although it is intimately related to an earlier sequence of art poems, and to the 75th anniversary of Guernica which was marked in 2012.
The second poem in the art series , Gernika, was written for Euskal PEN and was read during the 75th anniversary commemoration of Guernica this summer of 2012. The first and last poem of the sequence, A Lament, was written some time ago and had been put in a folder. A Lament is too awkward a piece to submit to most journals as it is written for three voices and does not slip easily into the submission guidelines of many reviews. A Lament was written firstly as a poem and then as a chorus. It was conceived to weave in and out of the sequence which was published initially in SouthWord Magazine. Lament is an inherent part of the sequence because it involves the voices of the women who inhabit the poems in Two Songs of War and a Lyric.
As if, Sabine, Gernika , A Lament, and Through the Blossom-Gate are meant to work together, and are about loss and recovery. Here is what has happened to the original cycle, the Lament, and the unpublished cycle of seven poems since I sent them out.
Gernika
- Gernika was read on the Anniversary of the Guernica Massacre in 2012
- It was published in a batch of poems titled, Two Songs of War and a Lyric
- It will be anthologised forthis project
A Lament
- A Lament is a companion poem to Two Songs of War and a Lyric, published SouthWord in 2012.
- It will be programmed at the Béal Festival , November 2012. Notice here.
- Cycle of seven poems , at Bone Orchard Poetry
The 7 cycle is provisionally entitled Eamon Ceannt Park Cycle , after the park that the dream-sequence was written in. I had planned to send it out, as it is ready. However, in all the entire sequence including the lament amounts to thirteen inter-related poems written over the period of a year or two. They inherently form one piece. There is also an emergent coda for the entire. (Completed)
I am glad the poems have found homes and that they resonate with people. I hope to publish the thirteen poems together at some point, but I see that I will have to make my own arrangement for them, as they hardly fall into a traditional submission-shape. The most important thing for me is that they maintain their integral unity and coherence. I am editing them into a folder and deciding how I will eventually publish them in their integrity as a whole piece.
I included the list where the poems appear separately beneath this post.
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Béal Festival will be programming an experimental Lament for Three Women’s Voices, by myself. The lament is related to a cycle that SouthWord (Munster Literature Centre) published in the Summer of 2012. The original piece was called Two Songs of War and a Lyric
‘Béal Festival 2012 is a festival of new music and poetry. The whole festival takes place over three days (Nov 7th – 9th) in the Banquet Hall at Smock Alley. The format is open-plan, trying wherever possible to allow different aesthetics and approaches to rub against each other.
Featured composers include: Robert Ashley and Tom Johnson with a European première of Ashley’s recent opera World War III as well as a newly-commissioned work by Johnson for vocal ensemble.’
Day 1: Wednesday 7th November from 6.30 pm
TheOpenRehearsals – short performance by improvised music theatre collective
Gráinne Mulvey – The Seafarer (soprano and electronics) World Premiere
Claire Fitch phone
Aodán McCardle – ‘nil’ ‘abair’ (a set of poetry readings / improvisations using projection)
Leuclade – Segundo Hechizo8.00 pm – a method: the road climbs
Haydn: String Quartet Op 64 No 6
Georges Aperghis: Recitations (exc.)
Tom Johnson: Formulas for String Quartet
Tom Johnson: Counting Music
readings by Billy MillsPerformers: Elizabeth Hilliard (soprano), ConTempo String Quartet, Aodán McCardle, Billy Mills
Day 2: Thursday 8th Nov
from 6.30 pm
TheOpenRehearsals a forty minute set from TheOpenRehearsals of their unique style of improvised opera
7.30 pm World War III: Just the Highlights
Robert Ashley: World War III: Just the Highlights (European Premiere), The Producer Speaks and When Famous Last Words Fail You
Performers: Tom Buckner (baritone) Vincent Lynch (voice and piano) Aodán McCardle
9.30 pm
Christopher Fox: MERZsonata
Aodán McCardle: Purgatory (a new work in response to Robert Ashley)
Bernadette Comac: The Virtual Performer
Day 3: Friday 9th Nov , from 4 pm
Derek Ball: Autour de la chambre de Sarah (for cello, piano, speaker)
Dennis Wyers: Beyond Strings: In Search of M-Theory (for soprano / spoken female voice, live processing and triggered sounds)
Sinead Finegan: Both beautiful, one a gazelle (for violin, speaker)
Christine Murray: Lament (for three female voices)
Michael Holohan: Plurabelle (tape piece)
Nicola Monopoli: Vocal Etude (tape piece)
Maurice Scully reading his own poetry
TheOpenRehearsals7.30 pm The air moves us : we move the air
Ailís ní Ríain: Eyeless
Scott McLaughlin: Phon 2
Sean Doherty: Saccade
David Bremner: Round
Tom Johnson: Tick Tock Rhythms
Christopher Fox: A Glimpse of Sion’s Glory
Billy Mills: Loop WalksPerformers: ensembÉal, Orla Flanagan, Iarla Ó Lionáird, Maurice Scully, David Bremner, Elizabeth Hilliard, Sinead Finegan
Info about Béal : http://bealfestival.wordpress.com/
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Edit : I am attaching here the Béal Festival programme for 2012 (PDF)
I wrote a Lament for Three Voices which will be programmed at the Béal Festival 2012. The directors of the Béal Festival, David Bremner and Elizabeth Hillard, have found me two singers who are interested in the piece and we will begin rehearsing soon.
This is an exciting time, although there are nerves about getting the lament right. I know how it should sound. I know that it is not a recitative piece, and that a lot depends on how the words are spoken and upon the spaces between the words. We came to the decision that the piece is for singers, rather than for poets to perform. I am happy about this as I felt that this was important too, but I do not know many singers and I am too long out of practice to attempt the piece.
Lament is a multi-layered chorus for three women’s voices. There is a possibility inherent in the piece that the women are phantoms and that they are unaware of it. The poem was too complex to submit for journal-publication, so I am delighted to be able to programme it in 2012.
Women singers who may be interested in performing a new piece of spoken word and have some rehearsal time over the next weeks can contact me c(dot)elizabethmurray(At)gmail(dot)com or via DM on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/celizmurray
Chris Murray 