Reading with Swiss novelist Esther Murbach

I will be reading from Mentioning the War (alongside Swiss novelist Esther Murbach)

 tomorrow evening at Charlie Byrne's Bookshop.

http://www.advertiser.ie/galway/article/52508/a-reading-at-charlie-byrnes

Poem in today's Irish Times

Nice surprise to find I have a poem, 'The Opposite of Nostalgic,' in today's Irish Times

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/weekend/2012/0526/1224316691663.html

Herself to the very end: Mary Higgins

I have an article in today's Galway Independent about my Mom, Mary Higgins, who died of lung cancer on Tuesday, May 31st last year. http://galwayindependent.com/stories/item/2196/2012-19/Galway-Hospice%3A-Herself-to-the-very-end

Mom sitting beside Susan at an Over The Edge event at Sheridan's Wine Bar in 2007

Galway launch of Mentioning the War: Essays & Reviews (1999-2011)

Some photos below from the Galway launch of my books of essays and reviews. It's a retrospective covering the past decade or so covering a wide variety of sometimes controversial literary and political subjects.

The book was launched by Darrell Kavanagh at Galway Arts Centre. Darrell also wrote the foreword for the book. You can buy a copy direct from the Salmon website http://www.salmonpoetry.com/details.php?ID=255&a=108

Des Kavanagh & Tom Lavelle

Me off in the distance listening to Darrell who is just out of shot

Darrell launching the book

Dani Gill, literature officer at Galway Arts Centre

John Walsh, Susan and Jessie Lendennie

Me reading from the book

Jessie Lendennie

Jean Kavanagh of Salmon  

This Saturday: Galway Launch of Mentioning the War: Essays & Reviews (1999-2011)

There is a short, informative piece by Kernan Andrews in today's Galway Advertiser about my upcoming launch and the book itself. http://www.advertiser.ie/galway/article/50642/do-mention-the-war

Interviewed by Kate Dempsey on Writing.ie

I am interviewed by Kate Dempsey on the Writing.ie website

How did you first get into poetry?

"The impending world revolution I’d been hoping for had failed to materialise and I’d come face to face with the reality that most of the organisations on the far political left, such as the one I’d been a member of, were/are very dodgy outfits in terms of the way they run their affairs. 1995 was a kind of delayed ‘gap year’ for me.

           I began writing poetry in late 1995 immediately after the divorce referendum campaign, in which I was very involved on the Yes side. I collapsed with a terrible flu at the end of that. And that was it, active politics was over for me from then on really. A man called Andy Johnston had lent me a computer. I started writing on that. The poems were terrible, of course. But I had great fun and took what I was doing immensely seriously. Maureen Gallagher, another Galway poet, gave me a book called ‘The Penguin Book of The Beats’ for my twenty ninth birthday in April 1996. And I was away, writing poems and reading poetry anthologies fairly voraciously too. I also wrote a novel, a couple of plays and even a few screen plays. But it was always the poetry I came back to."

For more see http://writing.ie/guest-blogs/poetic-license/entry/guest-blogs/interview-with-galway-poet-kevin-higgins.html