Saturday, March 31, 2007

White House Poetry Revival Wed 4th April 2007


White House Poetry Revival
Wed 4th April 2007 9:00pm


This weeks guest is poet John W Sexton.

John W. Sexton: born 1958. Poet, short story writer, dramatist, children’s novelist, radio scriptwriter and broadcaster. He is the author of three collections of poetry, The Prince’s Brief Career, Foreword by Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill, (Cairn Mountain Press, 1995), Shadows Bloom / Scáthanna Faoi Bhláth, a book of haiku with translations into Irish by Gabriel Rosenstock, and most recently Vortex (Doghouse, 2005). He also created and wrote The Ivory Tower for RTE radio, which ran to over one hundred half-hour episodes. His novels based on this series, The Johnny Coffin Diaries and Johnny Coffin School-Dazed are both published by The O’Brien Press, and have been translated into Italian and Serbian. Under the ironic pseudonym of Sex W. Johnston he has recorded an album with legendary Stranglers frontman, Hugh Cornwell, entitled Sons Of Shiva, which has been released on Track Records. He has been nominated for The Hennessy Literary Award and is currently Fiction Editor for The Cork Literary Review and Co-Managing Editor at the experimental on-line haiku journal Triptych Haiku.

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.blogspot.com/
MySpace http://myspace/thewhitehousepoets

Thursday, March 29, 2007

Poetry Revival Slide Show 28th Mar 2007

BARNEY SHEEHAN LIVES FOREVER by DERRICK BROWN


BARNEY SHEEHAN LIVES FOREVER
by derrick brown-USA
(brownpoetry.com)

Two tired Americans stumbled through the stone streets
of Limerick Ireland.

Our money dissolved.

The books beat against our backs in our rucksacks,
heavy as the great castles in the skyline,
the ones fighting off renovation.

The Irish breeze chased us into every pub and we sat and drank slowly until we forgot we were cold.

My jacket
was lost
or floated away drenched in Swiss river water, British gasoline and German wine.

Who knows what black angel spent the night on guard
teeth chattering
eyeing my jacket
until she caught my head and laid me in the cobbled gutter gently
and removed it as payment.

In the morning bus, the fields raced us
a blur of flared gold and swinging emerald light,

We were starving for new epic territory.
Beauty swallowed us in Ireland and Barney Sheehan, a former jockey with hell in his veins and sainthood in his heart
turned us into family.

We were living off the kindness of strangers and drink tickets and long embraces and conversations of religion and death grazes.

He showed us the pride of Limerick with the bright energy in his vinegar tongue.

“Now boys, do ya want some eggs boys, Oh sure ya do, sit down and eat it up, go on, you know I ran for mayor once, I woulda been absolutely fantastic, I would. eat those eggs now! Cmon ya skinny little… I’ll smack em down your throat, what do ya want to do boys, oh I’ll tell you. Were going to see the city is what were going to do. Now cmon, you’re not done eating, Oh I…”

The streets of Limerick were coiled like a sea monster.
My Pal walked as fast as Chicago and kept up with Barney’s amazing pace better than I.

I stopped him and said I may never ever see this place again
so I need to take it in and walk real slow.

Barney Sheehan took us to the white house pub,
where the people listened as if it mattered and that night
it sure felt like it did.

In the window, he had hung an Irish flag and next to it,
An American one.
We thanked him and it felt appropriate to hug him.

“We’re all the same. Everyone in America is Irish. You’re home. Consider yourselves home, boys.”

The poetry and beer was incredible.
You could feel the words wedge right into peoples chests.
This was Limerick,
far from the soft girls in Dublin that
danced with us in a boat house until the sun bolts came on.

Far from those who will join the ranks of the wonderous and the vanished.

Far from Long Beach California.

Barney gave us a perfect tour later until a mesh of starlight fell across the island.

The streetlamps guided us through the tendrils of Limerick.

Cars whispered somewhere.

The soft hills were inhaling the night. Morning dropped all over us,

Barney showed me my Brown family crest and something inside felt ancient and my blood struggled towards the page, to try and touch it.
It felt like I had never had a history until that moment.

It is fair to say that Barney gave me history.

The next day, I went to river in a noon as overcast as wool.

The choirs of Irish rallying around me with the great acidic jesting that only the Irish can do well.

A country with an arm spanning west held me as still as the Lake of Innisfree.

The small tide came to me and loosened the soil.

Near the middle of the lake, two swans, one moving fast, the other slow.

The meandering and focused one, the drifting swan moved on to somewhere,
a glimmer in the wings
We are treading.
I wondered about Barney and what good words meant to his life.
I found this poem.
When You are Old
When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.
-YEATS

Barney
I do not know when I will return to Ireland
but I promise I will return
If you keep your promise
to live forever,


THE END

Sunday, March 25, 2007

White House Poetry Revival Wed 28th March 2007




White House Poetry Revival
Wed 28th March 2007 9:00pm


This weeks guest is Aosdána poet and author Brian Lynch.


Brian Lynch was born in Dublin in 1945. His first book, Endsville (1967),
was shared with Paul Durcan, while his play, Crooked in the Car Seat, was
nominated for a Harvey Award in the 1979 Dublin Theatre Festival. Caught in
a Free State, a 1984 four-part RTÉ/Channel 4 series about German spies in
Ireland during World War II, won a Jacobs Award and the Banff International
TV Festival Award for best drama. A feature film, Love and Rage, starring
Daniel Craig and Greta Scacchi, was directed by Cathal Black in 1999. He Has published two books on the artist artist
Tony O'Malley. His novel, The Winnerof Sorrow, about the poet William Cowper, was shortlisted for the Hughes and Hughes
Novel of the Year Award 2006. His long poem on Northern Ireland,
'Pity For The Wicked', was shortlisted for the 2007 Christopher Ewart-Biggs
Memorial Award.. He was elected to Aosdána in 1985,
nominated by Michael Hartnett and Samuel Beckett.

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.blogspot.com/
MySpace http://myspace/thewhitehousepoets
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The White House Poets acknowledge the support of:


p://myspace/thewhitehousepoets

Thursday, March 22, 2007

White House Poetry Slide Show 21st March 2007

Saturday, March 17, 2007

White House Poetry Revival Wed 21st March 2007


White House Poetry Revival
Wed 21st March 2007 9:00pm

This weeks guest poet is Australian Geoff Page


Geoff Page is an Australian poet who has published seventeen
collections of poetry as well as two novels, three verse novels and
several other works including anthologies, translations and a
biography of the jazz musician, Bernie McGann. He retired at the end
of 2001 from being in charge of the English Department at
Narrabundah College in the ACT, a position he had held since 1974.
He has won several awards, including the ACT Poetry Award, the Grace
Leven Prize, the Queensland Premier’s Prize for Poetry and the 2001
Patrick White Literary Award. Selections from his work have been
translated into Chinese, German, Serbian, Slovenian and Greek. He
has also read his work and talked on Australian poetry in
Switzerland, Germany, Norway, Sweden, Britain, Italy, Serbia,
Slovenia, Austria, Hungary, Singapore, China, Korea, the United
States and New Zealand.

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.blogspot.com/

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Thursday, March 15, 2007

Poetry Revival Slide Show 14th March 2007

Sunday, March 11, 2007

White House Poetry Revival Wed 14th March 2007


White House Poetry Revival
Wed. March 14th 2007 9.00pm


This weeks special guest is poet Mark Whelan.


Mark Whelan is a Limerick born poet. With Paul Sweeney he was instrumental in establishing the foundation for what is now known as Cuisle Limerick City International Poetry Festival, of which he is a committee member, and in re-establishing the literary journal The Stony Thursday Book of which he was guest editor for its first four editions. Works have been translated into Spanish, French, and Farsi. He was invited to read at the Ardentisima poetry festival in Murcia in 2004. He has one published collection by Anam Press Scarecrow Diptych illustrated by John Shinnors with introduction by poet Jo Slade.

The White House Poetry Revival has being going now for almost four years. Every Wednesday the famous old world bar is transformed into a centre of culture as poets recite their latest work. Barney Sheehan and Dominic Taylor , the people behind the revival of poetry at the White House, continue to attract the best of Irish and International poetry to Limerick. The White House Poets would like to acknowledge the involvement of the Arts Council, Poetry Ireland, Foras na Gaeilge, Limerick City Council and the White House Bar for their continued support that has helped make the White House one of the pre eminent venues for poetry in Ireland.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 MySpace:http://www.myspace.com/thewhitehousepoets http://www.limerick.com/whitehousepoets/Blog http://whitehousepoets.blogspot.com/Podcast: http://druidpaddy.blogmatrix.com/
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The White House Poets acknowledge the support of:


Thursday, March 08, 2007

White House Poetry Slide Show Wed 7th March 2007

Thursday, March 01, 2007

White House Poetry Revival Wed 7th March 2007

CLICK HERE FOR LARGER VIEW:


White House Poetry Revival
Wed. March 7th 2007 9.00pm


In association with Poetry Ireland.


This weeks special guest poet is Eileen Sheehan.


Eileen Sheehan
: Killarney, Co Kerry. Her poetry is widely published in magazines in Ireland and abroad including Poetry Ireland Review, The Shop, The Stinging Fly, Southword, The Stony Thursday Book, Revival, The Rialto, Staple, Pelagos, Versal and l’Estracelle. Her work appears in many anthologies including, The Open Door Anthology of Poetry (ed Niall MacMonagle) and Winter Blessings by Patricia Scanlan. She is on the Poetry Ireland Writers In Schools Scheme. She is winner of the Brendan Kennelly Poetry Award 2006. Her collection Song Of The Midnight Fox is published by Doghouse Books.

The White House Poetry Revival has being going now for almost four years. Every Wednesday the famous old world bar is transformed into a centre of culture as poets recite their latest work. Barney Sheehan and Dominic Taylor , the people behind the revival of poetry at the White House, continue to attract the best of Irish and International poetry to Limerick. The White House Poets would like to acknowledge the involvement of the Arts Council, Poetry Ireland, Foras na Gaeilge, Limerick City Council and the White House Bar for their continued support that has helped make the White House one of the pre eminent venues for poetry in Ireland.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.blogspot.com/Podcast: http://druidpaddy.blogmatrix.com/
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The White House Poets acknowledge the support of:







.

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