Seattle launch of 'The Ghost in The Lobby', my fourth poetry collection

My fourth poetry collection, The Ghost in The Lobby, published by Salmon, will be launched by Professor Marck Beggs at the big Salmon Poetry event at this year's AWP Conference in Seattle at the end of the month. 

 Marck Beggs

The launch takes place at the big Salmon Poetry event on Friday, February 28th, 7pm at the conference, which is the biggest annual literary gathering in North America. 

Here's the details from the AWP website:

"F310A Salmon Poetry: A Reception and Reading to Celebrate our Spring Poetry Collections

Kirkland Room, Sheraton Seattle, 3rd Floor
Friday, February 28, 2014
7:00 pm to 8:15 pm 

Our Spring Poetry Collections: Featuring Raina Leone, Cameron Conaway, Stephen Powers, Philip Fried, Jean Kavanagh, Kelly Moffit, Lex Runciman, John Menaghan, John Fitzgerald, Kevin Higgins, Jo Slade, Ed Madden, Joseph P. Woods, Jo Pitkin, Mary Pinard, Dan Moran, Robert McDowell, Alan Jude Moore, Jacqueline Kolosov-Wenthe, and Laura-Grey Street."

Back in The Enfield Independent

The last time I featured in the Enfield Independent was about 1993. But, to paraphrase Ronald Reagan, here we go again: Former Mayor of Enfield Nadia Conway to launch poetry book written by Enfield's Poll Tax rebel Kevin Higgins

Dialectics 2: I thought the word 'Workers' in Galway Socialist Workers Party was a real word

I've been at it again, thinking undialectically. In everyday talk this means that I didn't realise that what I know to be the truth is actually the opposite of the truth i.e. a wicked lie that only serves imperialism. I confess my error and am truly thankful to Galway Socialist Workers Party (pictured above) for putting me right. 

It all started late last night when I noticed that Galway SWP are holding a meeting this very evening on the subject of 'Poetry, Politics and the Left'. I should have looked away but I am a weak man. And not just when it comes to Galway SWP. 

Moments earlier I clicked like on a photograph of Jeff Goldblum (pictured below) and as a result got caught up in a Facebook fad in which anyone who clicks like on a Jeff Goldblum photo has to themselves post a photograph of, yes, Jeff Goldblum.

It should be pointed out that Jeff Goldblum (pictured above on the right) has never, so far as I am aware, had any connection with Galway SWP (pictured below with the sign about the C.I.A.). 

Anyway, as I say, I am a weak man and plead guilty. I should have continued looking at pictures of Jeff Goldblum but didn't. Instead, I clicked that I would be attending the Galway SWP event. It was the event's title that grabbed me. 'Poetry, Politics & the Left' was also the title of an interview Red Banner magazine in Dublin did with me back in 2009. You can read that here. 

Then, in a particular moment of madness, I posted a link to this poem, on the Facebook page of Galway SWP's 'Poetry, Politics & the Left' event. It's about an entirely fictional Community Employment Scheme where the rights of the employees were trampled on. The title of the poem is simply 'Community Employment Scheme'. Read for yourself. 

What I got wrong is I assumed that the word 'Workers' in Galway Socialist Workers Party meant that they would like such a poem, which is, after all, written from the point of view a FÁS (now Solas) scheme participant. I thought the word 'Workers' in Galway Socialist Workers Party was a real word. Seems it's more like the 'Democratic' in German Democratic Republic. 

It was the dialectics that got me, your honour. If I'd looked at the issue from the point of view of the anti-imperialist struggle in Iraq/Afghanistan/Syria/Palestine, I'd have known that not all abusive and incompetent FÁS scheme managers are actually abusive and incompetent. Those are just more words. And the words people use to describe the things that happen to them are subjective i.e. their own and so are not to be trusted.

If I'd looked at it from the correct Marxist position i.e. while standing on my head in the middle of Shop Street and listening to Galway SWP (pictured above) shout slogans down a megaphone, I'd have known that sometimes it's not that simple. 

Sometimes the not at all abusive, not at all incompetent FÁS scheme manager is actually an anti-imperialist who's forever big mouthing it about Iraq and Shannon and Palestine. 

In such instances, in the interests of the anti-imperialist struggle, a real Marxist would say that those bastard Community Employment Scheme participants deserve everything they get:

that it's okay if their wages were paid late;

that it's okay for their Manager to write secret reports about them, full of things that are well, not true, and then circulate said reports to the Board and another employee;

that it's okay that the Scheme participants themselves should not be shown these reports, or be given a chance to respond to them;

that it's okay that the Scheme participants should only learn of these reports' existence when the Manager is stupid enough to leave them in an envelope on one scheme participant's desk;

that it's okay when the scheme participants eventually resign and find other employment that the Scheme Manager should, on a number of occasions, use the company website to post demeaming and abusive comments about these now former employers;

that it's okay that said Scheme Manager should email people, who the former scheme participants go on to work with, to try and make trouble for them in their new employments.

I should have realised that it's fine to do all of these things so long as you're also prepared to rattle on about Iraq and Shannon and drones and Afghanistan in the pages of the Ballygar Arsewipe.  

Furthermore, I should also have known that it's very, very okay for the Socialist Workers Party to support such an individual by signing petitions asking the government to give them more money and describing him in their paper as someone who always speaks his mind.

Within minutes Galway Socialist Workers Party deleted the link to my poem which I posted with only the following fairly mild commentary: 

"This is a poem about a corrupt and abusive government back to work scheme." 

I thank the Galway SWP for giving me this lesson in the dialectics of anti-imperialism. I was lost. But now I'm found.

Sympathy for Rosita Boland

Irish Times journalist and travel writer Rosita Boland is also an aspiring poet. And more power to her fur coat. Everyone should give poetry a try. She first came to my serious attention when her article about the 2012 Cúirt Festival of International Literature appeared in the Irish Times. She had been sent by our paper of record to cover the festival. 

From the sound of it Rosita didn't enjoy that year's Cúirt. Her tone was that of a 1960s parish priest who, after the Stations mass in auntie Bridie's and uncle Pat's farmhouse, had suffered the indignity of having to wait to be fed like the rest of us, rather than being rushed to the parlour to breakfast (with the men). Her piece ignored most of the main festival events and concentrated on what amounted to a posh girl attack on the festival for being too inclusive. Rosita took particular exception to the fact that, at that year's Cúirt Over The Edge New Writers' Showcase event, audience members applauded after every single one of Kevin O'Shea's poems. It isn't easy, I do realise, for aspiring poets to listen to others get such applause. Whines such as Rosita's should be compassionately listened to, before one orders another - make that a double - brandy. 

Rosita's May 2012 article provoked a big Facebook reaction: every literary crank/fraud/failure in the country took a break from playing with themselves to click like. When the cranks, fraunds and failures gather on Facebook to like attacks on literary inclusivity, they often liken themselves to Soviet dissidents. Really, they are complaining about their last rejection slip. Or the fact that Cúirt didn't invite them to read that particular year. Yes, people are sometimes that simple, that sad. 

In today's Irish Times Rosita's target is Áosdana. Of course Rosita being Rosita she doesn't just come out and say it. In terms of directness she is, I think it's fair to say, no Christopher Hitchens. No doubt the aforementioned Soviet dissidents will be out and about soon to click like and comment approvingly. 

The only result of this gutless article will be to give succour to those who want to cut spending on the arts further. Fine Gael Junior Ministers everywhere will experience a warm feeling in their bits. Rosita appears not to like her fellow artists much, be they near beginners or at the top of their game. I feel sorry for her, it can't be easy being Rosita. We should all send her sympathy cards c/o The Irish Times. 

I plan also to have a special Mass said for her. It will, I hope, be concelebrated by John Waters and Breda O'Brien. 

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