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Category: new poetry
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World Put to Rights
The dream that burst riverbanks
held you; blackstrap molasses,
antidote for your poison.Your plummets spraying wetness
like a coin in a cascade
woke no-one, not even us.The church spire grew legs, scaled bricks,
ran to your side, spotlighted.
I put glass over that glow.Quiet-huff of your refuge,
flailing arms, spluttering snores.
Ungainly crooning tunesto the realms of purity;
I found too sickly-sweet. You
fought the humdrum, from your seat.You would sleep outside, would sing,
stand on ledges mollified.
I won’t sing, no matter what.Float on, keep your whistles of
booze-hounds. When I awaken
I will join you, watch for me.World Put to Rights is © Kelly Creighton , all rights reserved.
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You can read more about Kelly at the following link.
Kelly Creighton/ Ceallach O Criochain is an Irish artist, writer of fiction and poetry; born in Belfast in 1979 she writes about contemporary relationships and local landscapes. Kelly has previously published poems and short stories in anthologies and magazines.Currently her poetry is in literary ezines including A New Ulster, Lapwing Publications. Recently her work was feature of the week in Electric Windmill Press.Kelly is editing her novel Yielding Fruit, a historical fiction set in West Yorkshire, she is also compiling her first collection of poems.
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Bone Orchard Poetry is variously active on discussion sites and uses social-media well. This is what writers refer to as bloody good innovative web-use. Editor Michael McAloran keeps the blogzine brief in description, ‘ An explorative blogzine of the Bleak/ the Surreal/ the Dark/ Absurd and the Experimental. ‘ There you have it encapsulated in a single minimal statement, a blogzine dedicated to new writing that focuses on the actual work of working writers.
I had been aware of Bone Orchard Poetry for a period of time. I decided to investigate it, and I submitted a single poem. Turns out a single poem isn’t enough. This is probably the best thing about Michael’s editorship of the Zine, I got an email back suggesting that a single poem submission doesn’t really tell the reader anything about the writer at all. He suggested I re-submit with a small grouping of poems. This I did. I sent a sequence based in a dream, actually based in the reality of a grief-experience. The poem initially had one extra verse, and there was a turn contained within that verse. I am still holding onto the original cycle in a folder, as I am very unsure of the turn issue in the poem.
Eamon Ceannt Park Cycle is based in a seven day walk through an unfamiliar/familiar park, in winter. This sequence does not always occur in waking reality, it is a dream-reality. Maybe the rest is nightmare. I am adding a link to the entire sequence here, and a brief excerpt from ECPC(#III).
Eamon Ceannt Park Cycle
III.There is a man in the stone..The dew is playing fire at her feet,wetting her legs..A legion of rooks guard his stone..© C. Murray.
Go read the site, I note that Kit Fryatt is a contributor , she will be familiar to Poethead readers for her poems which I published here and here. I added the Bone Orchard Poetry link to Irish Poetry Imprints on my blogroll.
Other poet-contributors to Bone Orchard Poetry are, PD Lyons ,Luis Cuauhtemoc Berriozabal, Kevin Reid, Gillian Prew, John W. Sexton, Alyssa Nickerson, Craig Podmore, , Michelle Greenblatt, Heller Levinson, David Scott Pointer, Natasa Georgievska, Carolyn Srygley-Moore, Anthony Seidman, Aad de Gids and David McLean
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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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This is a brief note about the And Other Poems blog which is owned and written by Josephine Corcoran. What a breath of fresh air the blog is, judging by contemporary availability of good poetry (and critique). To say that poetry is sorely neglected in the face of market-forces is a wild understatement, but more polemic anon.
“And Other Poems is simply a quiet, uncluttered place to read poems by different writers posted by Josephine Corcoran. The blog’s aim is to give readership to poems which would not otherwise be available, for instance poems no longer elsewhere online, out of print poems, poems published in print but not online, and new, unpublished poems by established writers. Poets have given permission for their work to be featured and copyrights remain with the poets.”
I had been seeing some of Josephine’s link on Twitter for a period of time, and as always was gladdened to see the advent of blogs and websites dedicated to the reader of poetry. Quite a few blogs and websites deal in modern and contemporary poetry in all its wonderful variety. Whilst some people may look on this avant-gardeism as a niche-activity, it is important that the poetry-reader can access all types of poetic-writing. It has been a while since I looked at how poets use online tools to disseminate literature but I see a radical improvement and diversification in the area. Josephine knows her poetry which is excellent for her readers. I recommend a perusal of her blog and of her list of poets which is wonderfully diverse. I am adding here the And Other Poems index , and of course a link to my poem i and the village (after Marc Chagall) which she kindly published on 11/09/2012.
I have never presumed that poetics are a niche-activity , but that a wholly conservative approach to critique combined with a mechanistic desire to advance contemporary fiction book-sales dominate newspaper editorials/reviews, at least in Ireland. The fact that many readers seek poetics through varieties of means, combined with news that 30,000 people signed up to PENN State’s Modern and Contemporary Poetry Course in 2012 would suggest that market-forces are just wrong. Or actually repellent ! Editors would rather clever women review silly books, than look at poetry or actual literature. If poetry readers seek adequate reviews of women authors and their books they must look elsewhere than the media, hence the blogs, the small presses, the literary journals and forums dedicated to poetry.
There is a list of blogs and websites dedicated to poetry on the right sidebar of this site. Links to And Other Poems are embedded in this post and given below :
- And Other Poems
- List of Poets and Poems from And Other Poems
- Joesphine Corcoran
- Modern and Contemporary Poetry at Pennsylvania University
- Online Poetry
Irish Poetry Imprints (Online and Print)
- CanCan
- Cló Iar-Chonnachta
- Crannóg Literary magazine
- Dedalus Press
- Gallery Press
- Irish Pages
- Michael J Maguire
- Partial Shade
- Poetry Ireland Review Newsletter
- Post
- Revival Literary Journal
- Salmon Press
- Southword
- The Burning Bush Revival Meeting
- The Columba Press
- The Dolmen Press
- The Gallery Press
- The Penny Dreadful
- The SHOp , Poetry Magazine
- The Stinging Fly
- Wurm in Apfel
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Olivia Guest of Jonathan Clowes Ltd. has informed me today that they are willing to extend my Doris Lessing licence and so I have returned the poems here. Thanks to Olivia and Jonathan Clowes for an extended opportunity to share Doris Lessing’s work on Poethead.
I spent some time in 2011 looking for permission to host two Doris Lessing poems on Poethead. In 2011 Lessing’s literary agents, Jonathan Clowes Ltd. very kindly permitted a limited copyright for ‘Fable’ and ‘Oh Cherry Trees You Are Too White For My Heart’ to be carried on this blog for a longer period.
I have blogged about Doris Lessing, Nobel Laureate, writer and poet both on this blog and on Open Salon blogs. I thought to publish the Lessing search-engine terms and statistics since my publication of the poems in 2011.
Doris Lessing’s Poems, statistics (to date) - Poems by Doris Lessing : 1,363 Views
- I have been reading ‘Fourteen Poems’ by Doris Lessing this week : 783 views
- ‘Fable’ and ‘Oh Cherry Trees You Are Too White For my Heart’ by Doris Lessing : 445 views
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Bridie is on her way to prayer,
past the purple bells that grace the wall,
they will not be still
raising their arms up to the breeze
that blows in from the mountain.
© C. Murray, all rights reserved.Published Revival#23 , August 2012.
Bridie is on her way to prayer, by Christine Murray is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.Links to Irish poetry Journals , both online and print, are in the Poethead sidebar under Irish Poetry Imprints.
‘Bridie’ is companion to Descent from Croagh Patrick, published Crannóg in 2011
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Months-dead grandfather
I couldn’t have written this when you were alive,
& you kept living,
unknown to me,like someone not obscure but obsolescing
whose death surprises mainly by his
having been alive till now (I googled Lawrence Ferlinghetti
today – he’s still alive:–). & unknown to my mother
. she has a half-sister
. three weeks younger, alike unknownFatherhood is a bit of a mystery
when you put it about like that.From you I have serial faithlessness
from you she has a name
. & a maiden name
. that I am asked to say when asked by one of the ‘team’
. on the Credit Card
. Hotline, it being typically something unknown
. to other people, even those we’re close to,
. (I made one up)
& her hoary orphan paranoia.
© Kit Fryatt , all rights reserved
Untitled poem by Kit Fryatt is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at http://wurmimapfel.net/.
Chris Murray 