Michael Farry

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October 08

Blog Archive

October 2008

31 October 2008

Navan Public Library has a treature trove for anyone interested in poetry - a collection of Poetry Archive CDs. These include CDs of Seamus Heaney and Michael Longley but also poets like George Szirtes, Don Paterson, Ruth Padel, Sean O'Brien and more. At the moment I'm listening to Don Paterson (left). You can hear and read four of his poems here. A most interesting poet, combination of darkness and lightheartness, fine use of rhyme. I have a copy of his book Landing Lights (Faber 2003). Much better to be able to see the poem on the page as it is being read. Otherwise you lose the sense of shape of the poem, the line breaks and the stanza arrangements.

In light of my recent visit to Florence and Dante references interesting to see that Paterson has included a version of a Canto from the Inferno - XIII the Forest of the Suicides. The poem's epigraph is from Sylvia Plath and Paterson changes Dante's Piero delle Vigne into a woman obviously Sylvia Plath. Paterson makes no attempt to duplicate Dante's terza rima but translates into quatrains rhyming ABAB. He does however use terza rima with great skill in another poem "The Last Waltz".

24 October 2008
Just back from a trip to Florence. What does one read while in Florence (Apart from the guidebook of course)? Dante's Divine Comedy, what else. I started the Geoffrey L. Bickersteth translation which tries to reproduce Dante's terza rima verse and rhymes. This is a tall order and results in an English version which is stilted and contains many inversions in the struggle to find the rhymes.

For example the first three lines of the first canto of the Inferno is rendered thus:

At midpoint of the journey of our life
I woke to find me astray in a dark wood,
perplexed by paths with the straight way at strife.

Contrast this with Ciaran Carson's recent translation:

Halfway through the story of my life
I came to in a gloomy wood, because
I'd wandered off the path, away from the light.

I do like the "astray" in the first translation.

Anyway Florence is full of reminders of Dante, statues, a centotaph, a memorial on the wall of the Duomo, excerpts from his great poem on wall plaques, a Dante House Museum, and a church where he may have been married and where Beatrice is buried.

15 October 2008

The latest issue of the Boyne Writers Group magazine, Boyne Berries 4, has just been published. It contains just over sixty pages of poetry and prose by authors, most of whom come from Ireland. It does have contributions from the USA and Bangladesh.

The magazine will be officially launched by poet and publisher Peter Fallon in the Castle Arch Hotel in Trim on Thursday 23 October 2008 at 7.30pm.

More details on the website of the Boyne Writers Group.

13 October 2008

Just finished two books by Terry Eagleton "Literary Theory An Introduction" and "After Theory". Wonderfully enjoyable and chellenging they are concerned with much more than literary theory. The first was originally published in 1983 and challenges the idea of a clearly defined body of writing called literature. "Literature, in the sense of a set of works of assured and unalterable value, distinguished by certain shared inherent properties, does not exist."

The second book is an attempt to look again at truths which, according to Eagleton, have been neglected in the age of theory. These include truth, virtue, objectivity, morality, death, evil and non-being. He has some particularly sharp comments on American attitudes: "Everyone is urged to feel good about themselves, whereas the problem is that some of them don't feel anything like bad enough".

You can hear and download a series of lectures on religion by Terry Eagleton delivered at Yale University earlier in 2008 on the Yale University section of the iTunes Store.

Still to read is Eagleton's wonderfully titled "The Meaning of Life - A Very Short Introduction".

11 October 2008

Attended a reading yesterday by John F Deane in the Out to Lunch series at the Irish Writers' Centre, Dublin. His latest book of poetry, "A Little Book of Hours" has just been published by Carcanet and he read exclusively from this volumn. I admire his uncompromising stance, if that's the correct term, and his insistence of the continued relevance of the religious especially the Christian tradition. He admitted that God keeps coming into his poems and his references to George Herbert and Gerard Manley Hopkins indicate that he sees himself as continuing a long tradition of similar poetry. He also refers to his Achill roots contrasting this with his suburban Dublin residence.


I stand
awed again that this could be the still
point of all creation . . .
(Harbour: Achill Island)

Ah my dear - I have come to rest on this
well-arranged and fancifully-named estate, this arabesque
outpost of the city . . .

(A little Book of Hours VI i)

10 October 2008


I'm participating in the LitLab initiative which was established by Meath and Cavan Arts Office for writers in the two counties. This year the workshops are taking place in County Cavan at Bailieborough Library to facilitate writers from both counties. This involves a series of experienced writers including Shane Connaughton, Neil Donnelly and Michael Harding, facilitating workshops in poetry, factual writing for radio, playwriting and scriptwriting. In addition a workshop on editing and exploring options for publication or performance will also be held.

The coordinator is Heather Brett and the poetry workshops are facilitated by Noel Monahan. Heather and Noel (pictured right) are involved in Windows Publications and both are accomplished published poets. The first poetry workshop was held last Tuesday. I really enjoy workshops which challenge you by presenting a topic or theme or even mode of attack which I find great for generating a poem from an unexpected quarter. A poem of mine which arose from a workshop by Pat Boran in Longford got a commendation in the Francis Ledwidge competition last year.

5 October 2008

Just heard from Limerick that a poem of mine will be included in the next issue of the poetry magazine Revival. I'm delighted. I've had two poems published in previous issues and was determined to go down and read this time if chosen but I'm disappointed to find I can't - something else on that evening. The launch date is the 15th Oct 2008 at the White House pub in Limerick. My poem is called "Retiring Teacher" and among other things plays with the contrast between teaching copperplate handwriting and wordprocessing on a computer. You can order the magazine on the website. Submissions are now being accepted for Issue 10 of Revival, deadline 30 November 2008.

4 October 2008

I attended the Dromineer Literary Festival last night to collect my second prize in the poetry competition. A wonderfully well organised occasion in a beautiful lake side setting. Unusually the prize winning poems and stories were read by members of Nenagh Players drama group. My poem concerned my sister's death from cancer and I found listening to Niamh reading it a moving experience. I had never heard it read before. Made me think we should hear others read our work more often. The poetry judge was poet Tony Curtis (pictured left) and I was so taken by the hospitality that I stayed overnight and attended his poetry workshop this morning.


Tony says he does very few adult poetry workshops these days. I found him very encouraging, helpful and at least two of his exercises resulted in what I hope will become good poems. We even wrote Haikus. My title was Fisherman's Song and this is what I came up with:


Don't be taken in
The fish are incidental
The silence the catch.


Tony's latest collection of poetry is The Well in the Rain.

3 October 2008

Myself and two other members of Boyne Writers Group, Orla Fay and Brendan Carey Kinane, took part in the All Ireland Poetry Day Readings last evening. The Meath event took place in Bellinter House and featured Peter Fallon, Tom French and Yvonne Cullen. We three were added as winners of the Meath Library Éist Poetry Competition. An enjoyable night, I read my poem first which meant I could relax for the rest of the evening.

Tom French chose a cross country theme starting with poems based in Dublin and ending in the north west tip of County Mayo. Tom has three poems featured on the new Manchester Review online journal. He's in good company the issue also has a chapter of a forthcoming John Banville novel.

I'm not familiar with Yvonne's work but she read an interesting selection including extracts from a forthcoming book on memories of circus and travelling show characters. I once had a walk-on part in a play staged by a fit-up company in Coolaney, Co. Sligo. They needed boys to act as alter servers and walk across the stage when prompted. We did it very well and were possibly the best thing about that production.

Peter Fallon - poet, editor, publisher and translator - gave his usual polished reading with a concentration on rural Meath. He has kindly agreed to officially launch the fourth issue of our magazine Boyne Berries on 23 October in Trim.

2 October 2008

Just got the latest issue of the American magazine Poetry. It is always an interesting read and is clearly a magazine not a book. Some poetry magazines intimidate me by their size, I prefer the magazine feel. Poetry has poems, reviews, articles and letters to the editor. The review section by Jason Guriel starts by discussing the issue of poets producing "poetry" rather than "a poem" quoting a number of recent comments to this effect - "A poem, not just poetry. That's what our era is lacking". The magazine also has a very enjoyable reply article by William Logan who dared criticise Hart Crane in a review in the New York Times Book Review. I have only recently read some of Crane's poetry myself. It falls in to the category of "must read" but "try not to be influenced by it". Logan points out what he calls Crane's "vague rhetoric, his naive sentiment, and his semi-religious adolescent yearning". The issue also publishes a short exchange of letters between Robert Lowell and Elizabeth Bishop. And there are some poems in the issue also. Details of the magazine and much more, including some very interesting podcasts, on the Poetry Foundation website.
I have the honour of having been published in Poetry, just a letter to the editor I'm afraid, in March 2008.



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