Chichester, Wednesday April 23rd

Chichester Open Mic poetry reading at New Park Centre, Chichester Wed April 23rd, 7.30 – 9pm. Reading from guest poet Kevin Higgins 7.35-8pm, followed by open mic, with a final poem from Kevin Higgins. Bar and chat, book stall, etc.

Venue:

New Park Centre

New Park Road

Chichester

West Sussex

PO19 7XY

How to get there

Kevin Higgins facilitates poetry workshops at Galway Arts Centre and teaches creative writing at Galway Technical Institute. He is also Writer-in-Residence at Merlin Park Hospital and the poetry critic of the Galway Advertiser. He was a founding co-editor of The Burning Bush literary magazine and is co-organiser of Over The Edge literary events in Galway City.

His poetry collections include The Boy With No Face (2005), Time Gentlemen, Please (2008), Frightening New Furniture (2010) all  published by Salmon. His work also features in the generation defining anthology Identity Parade – New British and Irish Poets (Ed Roddy Lumsden, Bloodaxe, 2010). Mentioning The War, a collection of his essays and reviews was published in April 2012 by Salmon and has been described by prominent member of the Irish Parliament (Dáil) Clare Daly as “a really good and provocative read. It will jolt you; it will certainly touch you; make you laugh; maybe make you snarl a little bit as well, depending on where you come from or what your background is.”

Kevin’s poetry has been translated into Greek, Turkish, Spanish, Italian, Japanese & Portuguese. The Ghost In The Lobby is his fourth collection of poems. 

Praise for Kevin Higgins’s poetry: 

“His contribution to the development of Irish satire is indisputable…Higgins’ poems embody all of the cunning and deviousness of language as it has been manipulated by his many targets... it is clear that Kevin Higgins’ voice and the force of his poetic project are gaining in confidence and authority with each new collection.” Philip Coleman

“With backstage guardians in Paul Durcan (see his titles) and Patrick Kavanagh, Kevin Higgins's work has a buoyant spoken immediacy (often taking the form of dramatic monologues), his poems springing out of colloquial address and celebrating the ordinary through a use of quotidian bric-a-brac, which he often pits - with positive effect - against larger (but no more important) forces…Comedy is part of his poetics, and what I especially like in his work is its swiftness of wit, its tone of buoyant contrarianism and jubilant disappointment”, Eamonn Grennan, The Irish Times 

“It is a profound compliment to the quality of Kevin’s writing that you can disagree with the content and yet find yourself still reading on and appreciating the style. You’d have to say that he is one of the lead poets of his generation in Ireland at this stage.” Clare Daly T.D. 

 “Gil Scott Heron’s The Revolution Will Not Be Televised as re-told by Victor Meldrew”. Phil Brown, Eyewear

“Higgins picks apart the human condition, its disappointments and indulgences, with vigour and acumen.” Roddy Lumsden

“good satirical savagery”. The Cambridge Introduction to Modern Irish Poetry, 1800-2000

Tuesday 29th April, 6pm at Pearse Street Library: two new poetry collections come to Dublin

Pearse Street Library is very accessible by public transport and close to the city centre. For exact directions see here.

About Woody Allen

“All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” So said Leo Tolstoy in the opening sentence of Anna Karenina. It's clear that Woody Allen knows a thing or two about unhappy families. Today's New York Times has published an open letter from Allen's adoptive daughter Dylan Farrow in which she alleges that he sexually abused her when she was seven years old. You can read Dylan Farrow's Open Letter here.

I have a confession to make: I'm a Woody Allen fan, especially of the films he made in the seventies and eighties. It's easy when such allegations are made against people one doesn't like, such as, say, the late Father Sean Fortune.

Unlike Woody Allen, Father Fortune has no fans. Though he had plenty of apologists in and around County Wexford and in the Catholic Hierarchy when it mattered. 

Some people have said that the resurfacing of these allegations would make them refrain from ever again watching any of Woody Allen's films. Dylan Farrow's Open Letter ends with the sentence: "Now, what's your favorite Woody Allen movie?" It is understandable that she might say this. For others, though, to say that you can't separate the art from the artist is, well, the sort of stupid one would expect from people who watch Eastenders, vote for UKIP, take all of Michael D Higgins's statements at face value, think Michele Bachmann is great or that the Iona Institute have a point.   

It is on the obvious side to say that many artists are not nice people. For legal reasons I can speak only of the dead. Edgar Allan Poe, Paul Gauguin or Henri Toulouse Lautrec - in the unlikely event of their reincarnation - would not be the best people to put teaching creative writing or painting to your teenage daughter. And as for the Marquis de Sade, well, he definitely wouldn't get the Garda clearance necessary to work as a tutor on Poetry Ireland's Writers-in-Schools scheme; yet it has to be a good bet that his Justine will still be in print long after most of Maya Angelou is discreetly forgotten. It's not about who you'd rather have round for dinner. 

And it's not just the sex. Emily Dickinson was, well, racist in her attitude against Irish and other immigrants to the United States in the late nineteenth century. The novelist Jack London said "I am first of all a white man, only then a socialist." Ezra Pound was a loud and active supporter of Benito Mussolini and the French novelist Louis Ferdinand Celine became a quite deranged anti-semite and a big fan of Nazism. So much so that even some Nazis thought Celine a tad extreme. His  novel Journey To The End of The Night, published in 1930, had one perhaps surprising fan though: the Jew and Bolshevik Leon Trotsky who warmly reviewed the book. Read for yourself.  As you'll see from the last paragraph, he was not content just to be a fan: 

"Céline will not write a second book with such an aversion for the lie and such a disbelief in the truth. The dissonance must resolve itself. Either the artist will make his peace with the darkness or he will perceive the dawn."

None of this invalidates Journey To The End of The Night, or makes any of the hundreds of mediocre-but-worthy tomes composed by harmless types  during the 1930s a better novel than Journey To The End of The Night. Know the artist's biography. Know where their art comes from. Sure. But the art itself is separate from the issue of whether you would want to have the artist around for Fondu or to leave them minding your five year old. 

Perhaps the thing that most disturbs me about this latest episode is the way the allegations have surfaced i.e. via an Open Letter to the New York Times rather than a complaint to the police. 

The UK Socialist Workers Party (SWP) have, of late, gotten themselves into grotesque tangles because of their attempt to deal internally - through the party's 'Disputes Committee' - with allegations of serious sexual impropriety made by a young female member of the organisation against one of the SWP's leaders. Just google the words 'Comrade Delta' and see for yourself. Allegations of this sort cannot be dealt with either by the Disputes Committee of the SWP or by Open Letters to the New York Times. 

If there is a case to answer, it should be answered in a court of law, for it is the only institution so qualified. Courts don't always bring justice, of course. But they bring more justice more often than online comments, secretive internal committees or righteous villagers with blazing torches. 

poem about a literary worthy 

Granard Co. Longford thirty years ago tomorrow

The 1983 anti-abortion Ammendment to the Irish Constitution had nothing to do with Ann Lovett's death, thirty years ago today, while giving birth alone, at the age of fifteen, in this grotto in Granard, County Longford in the same way that Governor George Wallace of Alabama and Governor Ross Barnett of Mississipi and Governor Lester Maddox of Georgia had nothing to do with lynchings. Funnily enough, they were against abortion too.

Poem: 'Irish Government Minister Unveils Monument To Victims of Pro-Life Ammendment'

The Ireland the Iona Institute want back

'What The Virgin At Knock Would Say If She Could Speak' 

5C Vicarage Parade, Tottenham, London N15

I have a new poem 'To A Smarties Mug' which is superficially about, well, a tea/coffee mug which once lived at 5C Vicarage Parade, Tottenham, London N15. It's about a lot more than that of course.

Anyone who ever lived at, or visited, said address should buy a copy of Skylight 47 poetry paper, in which the poem is just published, and immediately consult his or her solicitor. 

The poem may also be of interest to those who know the Tottenham area. 

Or even if you're unlucky enough to have never been to Tottenham, you may still be interested in buying a copy of the current issue of Skylight 47 which can be purchased here via Paypal at a most reasonable price.

Poets For Sale: All Offers Considered

I have an opinion piece on the subject of corporate sponsorship of poetry in the new issue of Skylight 47, to be launched next Thursday, January 23rd, 6.30pm at Galway City Library. 

The piece is titled ‘Poets For Sale: All Offers Considered’ and includes the words ‘mankini’, ‘rotund’, ‘gentlemen’, ‘farmers’, ‘Fidelma’, ‘Healy’, ‘Eames’ and ‘transactions’.
Come to the launch next Thursday, January 23^rd, 6.30-8pm in Galway City Library, or if you can’t make the launch, do buy a copy. It can be purchased online here.

 Below are the photos I got when I googled ‘mankini’, ‘rotund’, ‘gentlemen’, ‘farmers’, ‘Fidelma’, ‘Healy’, ‘Eames’ and ‘transactions’