I have an essay titled 'Poetically Charged News Cycles' in the current issue of the American poetry journal The Raintown Review.
The individuals and publications mentioned in this essay include: Dante Alighieri, Seamus Heaney, Hillary Clinton, Rhona McCord, Clare Daly, Don Share, Luke 'Ming' Flanagan, Irish Left Review, Sarah Clancy, The Truth & Other Stories (Salmon Poetry), Dave Lordan, The Bogman's Cannon, Barack Obama, King Charles I, Walt Whitman, Vladimir Mayakovsky, John Milton, Maria Johnston, Gerry Murphy, My Flirtation With International Socialism (Dedalus Press), Stephen Murphy, Gerry Adams, Michael D. Higgins, The Irish Times, David Bowie, Charlie Hebdo, Derek Byrne, Elaine Feeney, The Radio Was Gospel (Salmon Poetry), Patrick Cotter, Don Share, Poetry, Southword, Norman Podhoretz, & The 1916 Proclamation.
Here is an extract:
“It’s probably best that I nail my underpants to the mast at the get-go as
an active participant in the events I describe rather than pretend to be any
sort of objective observer. In any case, in these fraught times here in Ireland
the objective observers are mostly languishing in the particularly hot corner
of Hell to which Dante consigned those who in a time of crisis, such as now,
have nothing to declare but their neutrality. Since the late summer of 2013 the
apparently stable edifice that was the Irish poetry world has been struck by a
number of earthquakes–and several significant aftershocks–which have left the building
looking shaky.
First, the death of Seamus Heaney who, whatever your
poetic aesthetic or politics, was undeniably a world-class poet who dominated
Irish poetry in a way that is rare. Heaney wasn’t just our best poet; he was
our second, third, fourth, and fifth best poets as well; and was to a large
extent the currency on which Irish Poetry Inc. traded with the rest of the
poetry world. His passing was like the retirement of a great player from the team
built around him; a few games into the next season the fans, media, and even
the chairman of the board suddenly realize how threadbare the rest of the
existing lot look without him, and the dread sets in.
The second big happening
was the going up in flames last autumn of the fantasy, beloved of many Irish
media or arts liberals –our equivalent of those Americans who orgasm at the very
idea of a Hillary Clinton presidency–that unlike the French and the Greeks and
whoever else, the Irish never protest…" Those interested in reading more can buy copy of the magazine here.
