Saturday, December 31, 2005

Guest Poets At The White House No.4 Keith Armstrong

Keith Armstrong reading at the White House with host Barney Sheehan and fellow poet Ian Horn

KEITH ARMSTRONG. Born in Heaton, Newcastle upon Tyne, where he has worked as a community development worker, poet, librarian and publisher, Keith Armstrong, now residing in the seaside town of Whitley Bay, is coordinator of the Northern Voices creative writing and community publishing project which specialises in recording the experiences of people in the North East of England. He has organised several community arts festivals in the region and many literary events featuring the likes of Yevgeny Yevtushenko, Douglas Dunn, Linton Kwesi Johnson, Katrina Porteous, Ian McMillan, Edward Bond, Edwin Morgan, Uwe Kolbe, Attila the Stockbroker, Brendan Cleary, Adrian Mitchell, Jackie Kay, Linda France, Frank Messina, Benjamin Zephaniah, Liz Lochhead, The Poetry Virgins, and The Poetry Vandals. He was founder of Ostrich poetry magazine, Poetry North East, Tyneside Writers' Workshop, Tyneside Poets, East Durham Writers' Workshop, Tyneside Trade Unionists for Socialist Arts, Tyneside Street Press and the Strong Words and Durham Voices community publishing series. He has recently compiled and edited books on the Durham Miners’ Gala and on the former mining communities of County Durham and the market town of Hexham.He has served on the Executive Committee of the Federation of Worker Writers & Community Publishers and he is a committee member of the North East of England Labour History Society.He qualified as a Chartered Librarian at Newcastle Polytechnic and was employed in this field at Newcastle University Library, Blyth Public Library, International Research and Development Company (I.R.D.,Newcastle), Merz & McLellan Consulting Engineers (Killingworth), Gateshead College and Sunderland Libraries, before becoming a community worker with Newcastle Neighbourhood Projects (part of Community Projects Foundation), research worker with Tyneside Housing Aid Centre, and then Community Arts Development Worker (1980-6) with Peterlee Community Arts (later East Durham Community Arts).As an industrial librarian at I.R.D., he was christened 'Arts & Darts' , organising an events programme in the firm incuding poetry readings, theatrical productions, and art exhibitions by his fellow workers, as well as launching Ostrich poetry magazine using the firm's copying facilities and arranging darts matches between departments!He has been a self-employed writer since 1986 and he is currently studying for a PhD on the work of Newcastle writer Jack Common at the University of Durham where he received a BA Honours Degree in Sociology in 1995 and Masters Degree in 1998 for his studies on regional culture in the North East of England. He was Year of the Artist 2000 poet-in-residence at Hexham Races, working with painter Kathleen Sisterson. He has also held residencies in Durham, Easington, Sedgefield, Derwentside, Teesdale, Wear Valley, Chester-le-Street and Sunderland.His poetry has been extensively published in magazines such as New Statesman, Poetry Review, Dreamcatcher, Other Poetry, Aesthetica, Iron, Sand, The Poetry Business, and Poetry Scotland, as well as in the collections The Jingling Geordie, Dreaming North (with Graeme Rigby), Pains of Class and Imagined Corners, on cassette, LP & CD, and on radio & TV. He has also written for music-theatre productions, including ‘O’er the Hills’ (with Dreaming North - Graeme Rigby, Rick Taylor, Paul Flush, Joan McKay and Keith Morris, with guest Kathryn Tickell,) and ‘Wor Jackie’ (with Mike Kirkup) (1988) for Northumberland Theatre Company; ‘Pig’s Meat’ (1997 & 2000) for Bruvvers Theatre Company; and ‘The Roker Roar’ (1998) for Monkwearmouth Youth Theatre Company. Other commissioned work includes ‘Fire & Brimstone’ (with Linda France, Paul Flush and others) (1989) and ‘The Hexham Celebration’ (with Paul Flush and others) (1992), both for the Hexham Abbey Festival; ‘Suite for the River Wear’ (with Dreaming North) (1989) for BBC Radio; and ‘The Little Count’ (with Andy Jackson and Benny Graham) (1993) for Durham County Council. He won the Kate Collingwood Bursary Award in 1986. He was the Judge for the Sid Chaplin Short Story Awards in 2000.He has performed his poetry on several occasions at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and at Festivals in Bradford, Cardiff, Cheltenham (twice at the Festival of Literature - with Liz Lochhead and with 'Sounds North'), Durham, Newcastle upon Tyne, Greenwich, Lancaster, and throughout the land. He has read in Newcastle at the Morden Tower and The Blue Room, at Durham's Colpitts Poetry, Tees Valley's Write Around & Writers' Cafe, Leed's Wicked Words, Sheffield's Antics, York's Riverlines, Liverpool's Stamps, Bradford's Grey Sheep Cabaret, London's Apples & Snakes, at the Universities of Bath, Durham, Newcastle and Warwick, in Edinburgh at the Scottish National Poetry Library and the Royal Oak and Diggers venues and in Limerick at TheWhite House.He has received an Arts Council of Northern Ireland grant to visit Belfast and Northern Cultural Skills Partnership grants to attend conferences in Bath, Leeds and London.In his youth, he travelled to Paris to seek out the grave of poet Charles Baudelaire and he has been making cultural pilgrimages abroad ever since. He has toured to Russia, Georgia, Bulgaria, Poland, Iceland (including readings with Peter Mortimer during the Cod War), Denmark, France, Germany (including readings at the Universiites of Hamburg, Kiel, Oldenburg, Trier and Tuebingen), Hungary, Ireland, Spain, Sweden, Czech Republic, The Netherlands, the United States, Cuba, Jamaica and Kenya. He has long pioneered cultural exchanges with Durham’s twinning partners, particularly Tuebingen and Nordenham in Germany and Ivry-sur-Seine and Amiens in France, as well as with Newcastle’s Dutch twin-city of Groningen. In fact, he has visited Tuebingen some 30 times since he first spent a month there in November 1987 as poet-in-residence supported by Durham County Council and the Kulturamt, and he has performed his poetry in the city’s Hoelderlin Tower and, on three occasions, as part of the annual Book Festival. He has arranged for writers such as Katrina Porteous, Julia Darling, Michael Standen, Alan C. Brown and Linda France to join him in Tuebingen. In 2002, he visited New York City to give readings with the aid of a Northern Arts Award. He has also won Northern Arts Awards to visit Berlin in 1990, in 2001 to pursue his studies of Dutch regional culture, and in 2003 to visit Prague (with poet Paul Summers). His travels to Denmark, Germany, Holland and Sweden have also been supported by the British Council. By way of cultural exchange, he has arranged for visits to North East England by poets from Scotland, Germany, The Netherlands, the Czech Republic, America and Russia.He often works and travels with folk-musicians from North East England, including Jez Lowe, Marie Little, Chris Ormston and George Welch, and he has written the lyrics for an album, 'Bleeding Sketches', by folk-rock band ‘The Whisky Priests’, with whom he has toured extensively in The Netherlands. He has also visited the European Parliament in Strasbourg to perform his poetry with musicians Pete Challoner and Ian Carr. He has recently inspired songs by Jez Lowe and by Joseph Porter of Blyth Power. In 2004, with the support of Arts Council England, North Tyneside Council and Northumberland Coast Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, he worked with Berlin artist Rolf Wojciechowski on a text sculpture which involed readings on the beaches along the Northumbrian coast from Marsden to Cullercoats and from Druridge Bay to Berwick.Though a regionalist inspired by the landscape of his birth and its folk and musical traditions, he is very much a European and his work is much influenced by writers such as Hoelderlin, Hesse, Brecht, Baudelaire, Prevert, Esenin, and Mayakovsky.

CONTACT: NORTHERN VOICES, 93 WOODBURN SQUARE, WHITLEY LODGE, WHITLEY BAY, TYNE & WEAR NE26 3JD, ENGLAND.TELEPHONE: (0)191 2529531 for further information and bookings.EMAIL: KeithArmstrongnv@aol.com


Thursday, December 29, 2005

Creative Reading Workshop - Galway


CONTEMPORARY POETRY EXPLORED

A series of ten evening workshops suitable for those of all ages with an interest in contemporary poetry but who may appreciate a little guidance will commence in Galway Arts Centre on January 20. If you have ever wondered what that poem you have just read was all about then this is the course for you. What has happened to rhyme? Is contemporary poetry difficult and obscure? These workshops, led by Gerard Hanberry, will look at the work of some of today’s leading poets including Seamus Heaney and Paul Muldoon and will explore ‘how to read a contemporary poem’.

The exploration of contemporary poetry should also prove useful to writers taking their first steps into verse; the sessions will be relaxed and enjoyable with space for questions and discussion. The workshop tutor, Gerard Hanberry whose new collection Something Like Lovers was recently published, is an award-winning writer with two poetry collections. He is also a teacher and the holder of a First Class Honours MA in Writing.

Details from Maeve Mulrennen at Galway Arts Centre (091)565886 or e-mail info@galwayartscentre.ie or gerryhanberry@hotmail.com

Thursday, December 22, 2005

WhiteHouePoets Christmas Poetry Slam 2005 Results




Barney Sheehan presenting a DVD recorder to the new White House Poets slam champion John Carmody.

White House Poets Slam Champion 2005

The annual White House Poets Christmas poetry slam took place on Wednesay last
at the White House bar and attracted a record entry of 17 poets, all vying for
the top prize of a DVD recorder and the honour of being crowned the slam
champion of 2005.

Amid scenes of seasonal good cheer and merriment an enthuastis and appreciative audience packed into the famous old world bar and saw John Carmody walk away with the top prize. Always a favourite with the crowd John was delighted to have won having just missed out last year, to another regular at the White House, Canadian Robin Parmar.

The competition was run off in two parts, first a prelininary round and then a final. Five poets made it through to the final, John Carmody, Ger Sheehy, Andrew Curtin, Padraig Meehan and Mark Deane. In a tense final round John Carmody was the winner closely followed by Ger Sheehy in second place.

Barney Sheehan, the man most responsible for popularising poetry in Limerick, thanked everyone for coming and for making the weekly Poetry Revival reading the most successful in the country. He looked forward to another year of readings in 2006 and encouraged those who have not yet found their poetry voice to stand up at the microphone and let us hear your poems in 2006.

This year also saw the WhiteHousePoets launch their own anthology, Microphone On, creating a
permanent record of all those who have read at the White House over a period of 18 months.

Saturday, December 17, 2005

White House poetry Revival Wed 21st Dec 2005


WhiteHousePoets Christmas Poetry Slam

Barney Sheehan is looking for your rhymes , half rhymes, villanelles, ballads and sonnets for this years annual WhiteHousePoets Christmas Poetry Slam.

So stretch your iambic pentameters to new heights at this poetry extravaganza at the White House bar next Wednesday 21st December at 9.00pm. This is your chance to let the world hear your thoughts on life, love, politics, greasy chips, in fact anything that inspires you to write poetry and with lots of prizes and craic on the night it promises to be the most exciting event of the Christmas. For those who don't know what a poetry slam is, it simply is a poetry reading with a competitive element. Five judges picked a random on the night will judge your effort on performance, content and audience reaction. The poet with the highest mark wins the slam.

As usual the reading is preceded by an open mic session in which anyone who wishes to read is invited to do so.
Complementary finger food is provided and proceeding commence at 9.00 pm.

For further information contact Barney Sheehan at 086 8657494 or Dominic Taylor at 087 2996409

Email whitehousepoets@eircom.net Website http://www.limerick.com/whitehousepoets
Blog http://whitehousepoets.blogger.com/

How To get There
The White House pub is located in the centre of Limerick City at 52 O'Connell Street. Its exact location is on the corner of Glentworth Street and O'Connell Street, opposite the Ulster Bank and the Bank of Ireland. It is approximately 5 minutes walk from the train and bus station - exit the station and go down Davis Street, pass Taits Clock continue on down Glentworth Street and the White House is on the right hand corner at end of street.

Poem Of The Week 'Dada and the “Hall of Fame” award' by Donal O Flynn


Dada and the “Hall of Fame” award

How hard you found it rise so slowly from your crippled chair

Out of a world of spirals and circles intertwined, came the word
Which jarred and knarled for want of oil, for awhile….
But the same steep steps that made the squares, forged new shapes.
Time and space were turned and moulded in mute attire.

The way forward went back and time lost meaning, three one two…
Jumble and tidy went awash in a green sea azure.
Layri laughed happily in cuckoo land, one three two…
Ah ha! For the want of a word.



A song came to me,
“Rambling Rose ---- how you ramble – no one knows”
Your speech took you back, they had reminded everyone you were born in 1914…


“I remember …how…how......how me and… and …and Billy O’Neil….It was in 1931…
You forgot and then bumbled rambled with the Roses for the longest stunted time

Briary thorns cut deep in you
Dog Roses wrapped themselves tight around you
finally choking you…for the longest minutes…

Then someone mercifully shouted … “Give us a song Dan”

Further moments silence…………. Recollection.

You gave us a faultless rendition of “The West’s Awake”

Water retention and bloating large nappies incongruous
The peace of his room and the lock clicking shut gone forever
The nightmare when conscious of lost past all round him is torture
Stark colours that are lost forever in night vision

The inscrutable Sphinx holds the secret, four two three
The desert coins song in the blistering air
“Sing a song Dan” “Sing a song Dan”

The old pointer sits ramrod the hidden pheasant paralysed
Nudge pounce fly sky sky
Fly high fly high fly high.
Bang. ….. ……. Your dead.

Donal O'Flynn is from Charleville, Co. Cork. He has for a long time been developing the craft of his particular form of poetry. He hopes to have a collection accepted for publication in the next year. An engineer, he has lived and worked in the Middle East, the Far East, Africa and America.

Thursday, December 15, 2005

Guest Poets At The White House. No. 3 Jane Hirshfield

Many national and international poets have called into the White House when in Limerick. Pictured above, in The White House, is Jane Hirshfield during her recent visit to Limerick as a guest of Cuisle - Limerick City international Poetry Festival.

Jane Hirshfield is the author of six collections of poetry, including After (forthcoming from HarperCollins in early 2006), Given Sugar, Given Salt (finalist for the 2001 National Book Critics Circle Award, and winner of the Bay Area Book Reviewers Award), The Lives of the Heart, and The October Palace, as well as a book of essays, Nine Gates: Entering the Mind of Poetry. She also edited and co-translated The Ink Dark Moon: Love Poems by Komachi & Shikibu, Women of the Ancient Court of Japan, Women in Praise of the Sacred: 43 Centuries of Spiritual Poetry by Women, and Mirabai: Ecstatic Poems. Hirshfield’s other honors include The Poetry Center Book Award; fellowships from the Guggenheim and Rockefeller Foundations, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Academy of American Poets; Columbia University’s Translation Center Award; and the Commonwealth Club of California’s Poetry Medal. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The Nation, The American Poetry Review, Poetry, four of the past six volumes of The Best American Poetry, and many other publications, and has been featured numerous times on Garrison Keillor’s Writers Almanac program, as well as in two Bill Moyers PBS television specials. In fall 2004, Jane Hirshfield was awarded the 70th Academy Fellowship for distinguished poetic achievement by The Academy of American Poets, an honor formerly held by such poets as Robert Frost, Ezra Pound, William Carlos Williams, and Elizabeth Bishop.

Sunday, December 11, 2005

White House Poetry Revival Wed 14th Dec 2005


White House Poetry Revival
Wed 14th Dec 2005 9.00pm

This weeks special guest is 'The Ghost Of Christmas Past'

This week we have a special open-mic session with a seasonal theme, so bring along your favourite Christmas poems, verses etc. and delight us with some yuletide cheer.
Barney Sheehan makes a special guest appearance as the 'Ghost Of Christmas Past' and will read from 'A Christmas Carol' by Charles Dickens.

As usual the reading is preceded by an open mic session in which anyone who wishes to read is invited to do so.
Complementary finger food is provided and proceeding commence at 9.00 pm.

For further information contact Barney Sheehan at 086 8657494 or Dominic Taylor at 087 2996409

Email whitehousepoets@eircom.net Website http://www.limerick.com/whitehousepoets Blog http://www.whitehousepoets.blogger.com/

How To get There
The White House pub is located in the centre of Limerick City at 52 O'Connell Street. Its exact location is on the corner of Glentworth Street and O'Connell Street, opposite the Ulster Bank and the Bank of Ireland. It is approximately 5 minutes walk from the train and bus station - exit the station and go down Davis Street, pass Taits Clock continue on down Glentworth Street and the White House is on the right hand corner at end of street.
Map
http://www.limerick.com/streets/map.html

Poem Of The Week 'Drive By' by Steve Murray


(Drive by)


'twas often times
in Charlie Byrnes (book shop)
I would amble through the (crowded)
section (titled) 'new irish writing'.
Past the (bustling) best sellers (sector)
by the tables where poets mutter
(to themselves) flicking through
(pages of) Chaucer (and Yeats).

What's more, (I hasten to add)
'twas often times I would release
(on my travels) a long, steady,
(drawn out) slipstream of silent,
(fetid), flatulence and survey the unfolding
(facial) expressions of undulant rancour,
(revulsion) and down right disgust
from the (sparsely) populated section titled 'Shakespeare',
where I watch smiling (to myself)
with that feeling (of peculiar pride)
that (only) flatulence can inspire.
A ritual (affectionately) termed

'The drive by'.

Stephen Murray was born in Dublin in 1974. He was educated in Richmond , Surrey and was three times award winner in the WH Smith and Observer Young Writer of the Year Award. He moved back to Ireland in 1996 to his family's native Limerick and currently lives in Connemara, Co Galway where he works as a stonemason. In April 2005, he won the Cúirt International Festival of Literature Poetry Grand Slam for “Love Noir” and, as the Cúirt Slam Champion, traveled to perform in Chicago in autumn 2005. He is regular MC at the North Beach Nights poetry slam in Galway.

Tuesday, December 06, 2005

Guest Poets At The White House. No 2. Eva Salzman

Many national and international poets have called into the White House when in Limerick. Pictured above, in The White House, is Eva Salzman (on the left) during her recent visit to Limerick as a guest of Cuisle, Limerick City international Poetry Festival. Also in the picture is Barney Sheehan and friend.

Eva Salzman grew up in Brooklyn and on Long Island where she was a dancer/choreographer. At Stuyvesant H.S., her teacher was Frank McCourt, and later, at Bennington College and Columbia University, where she received her MFA, she studied with Derek Walcott, Joseph Brodsky, C.K. Williams, Edmund White, Elizabeth Hardwick, Stanley Kunitz, Carolyn Kizer, Stephen Sandy and Jorie Graham. Her books include The English Earthquake (Bloodaxe) Bargain with the Watchman (Oxford) and, One Two II (Wrecking Ball Press), illus. Van Howell, all Poetry Book Society Recommendations/Special Commendations.
For further informantion visit http://www.writersartists.net/esalzman.htm

Sunday, December 04, 2005

Songs From The Ashes CD For Sale

Songs inspired by Frank McCourt's best selling book 'Angela's Ashes'. The CD 'Songs From The Ashes' captures perfectly the mood of the book and the Limerick of the 1930's and 1940's.

I can only tell you how honoured I am that you undertook and completed such a demanding project. My wife Ellen and I just scratched our heads in wonder... Frank McCourt, New York

These songs were inspired by Frank McCourt's best selling book 'Angela's Ashes'. The CD 'Songs From The Ashes' captures perfectly the mood of the book and the Limerick of the 1930's and 1940's. The songs are performed by local band Burning Embers who have come together especially for this project.

To Purchase a copy of this unique CD
contact:

Phoenix Records at phrec@eircom.net

Track listing

Angela's Ashes - The Shame - Songs From The Ashes - Tribute - Malachy's Song - Oliver's Gone - Angel On The 7th Step - Angela's Dream - The Streets of Limerick - A Long Wave Breaking - For The Comfort That's In It - Songs From The Ashes - Reprise

White House Poetry Revival Wed. 7th Dec. 2005


White House Poetry Revival
Wed 7th Dec 2005 9.00pm


This weeks guest poet is Geraldine Mills

Geraldine Mills is a native of Galway. She writes both poetry and fiction.
She is a regular contributor to RTE's 'Living Word' and Lyric FM's 'Quiet
Quarter'. Geraldine has published two collections of poetry, 'Unearthing
Your Own', (Bradshaw Books, 2001) and 'Toil The Dark Harvest', (Bradshaw
Books, 2004). She was the Hennessy/Sunday Tribune Millenium New Irish Writer
of The Year for her story 'The Lick of The Lizard', which is the title of
her collection of short fiction, published recently by Arlen House.


As usual the reading is preceded by an open mic session in which anyone who wishes to read is invited to do so. Complementary finger food is provided and proceeding commence at 9.00 pm.

For further information contact Barney Sheehan at 086 8657494 or Dominic Taylor at 087 2996409 email whitehousepoets@eircom.net Website www.limerick.com/whitehousepoets Blog Http://whitehousepoets.blogspot.com

Poem Of The Week 'Neglect' by Louis Mulcahy


Neglect.

Neglect so often
The fate of those we cherish.
Like vest or glove noticed
Only when unravelled,
Or in the wound of loss,
Or threat of departure.

The dearest disregarded.
Limb or digit overlooked,
Though centrally involved
In every conscious act.
Intangible attraction.
Satellite cleaved.

Not obsession’s passion.
Nor selfish avarice.
Singularity obscure
Within the deeper wirings
That knows, appreciates,
Draws near the glowing fire,

And when, occasionally,
The embers’ blush declines,
Alerted by the cold,
Lifts head in mild surprise
And, suddenly aroused,
Desires to tend with care.

Louis Mulcahy born 1941. Reared in Wexford. Moved to Limerick in 1953, on to Dublin in 1963 and to Dingle in 1975.
Louis worked in Television for the duration of his stay in Dublin and then moved to Kerry to set up his pottery ‘Potadóireacht Na Caolóige’.
He started writing in the late nineties. Since then has written dozens of not so short stories, some running to novella length, together with his autobiography and having recently discovered the compressed joys of poetry, has temporarily abandoned a novel.
His other main interest is classical singing.
In 2004 the National University of Ireland conferred upon him the honour of Doctor in Law for his contribution to the artistic and cultural wellbeing of the Kerry Gaeltacht.
He is married to Lisbeth, who is a tapestry weaver. They have three children and four grandchildren. He intends to live to a hundred, because he has a lot he wants to do.
You can see some his other life on www.louismulcahy.com

Thursday, December 01, 2005

Guest Poets At The White House. No. 1 Simon Armitage


Many national and international poets have called into the White House when in Limerick. First up this month is Simon Armitage who during his visit to Cuisle, Limerick City international Poetry Festival, in 2004 dropped in for the open-mic session. Pictured above is Simon with Barney Sheehan and Limerick City Arts Officer, Sheila Deegan.