Essay on James Plunkett's 'Strumpet City'

  

I have an essay on James Plunkett's Strumpet City in the latest issue of Red Banner magazine, which is now available in Charlie Byrne's Bookshop and elsewhere. 

Readings at Changing Hands Bookstore, Tempe & The Auld Dubliner pub, Tucson, Arizona

Myself and Susan (Millar DuMars) will be reading at the First Friday Poetry event at Changing Hands Bookstore in Tempe, Arizona (just outside Phoenix) on Friday, December 6th. There is an open-mic after we read. The event starts at 7pm.

The address for the venue is

Changing Hands Bookstore,
 6428 S McClintock Dr.,

Tempe,

Arizona 85283

On Tuesday December 10th starting 8pm we will be moving on to read at an event at The Auld Dubliner pub in Tucson. This reading is sponsored by the University of Arizona Poetry Center and the online magazine Terrain.org. 

Tucson gets a mention in my poem Lament For A Latter Day Progressive, published recently on Harry's Place. While I am in Arizona I am very much hoping to meet Senator John McCain.

Two poems on Irish Left Review: 'The Man Whose Middle Name Is Against' & 'What To Do With The Knowledge'

I have two poems just published on Irish Left Review.

'The Man Whose Middle Name Is Against' takes a subtle look at the psychopathology of an Irish anti-abhortion campaigner; while 'What To Do With The Knowledge' is about the secrets people try to keep.

Reading poems with Susan at the JFK commemoration, Spanish Arch, Galway today.

Reading poems with Susan at the JFK commemoration, Spanish Arch, Galway today. 

 

Harcourt Klinefelter, once an aide to Martin Luther King, spoke also. 

 

Photo by Susan Prediger.

Lament for a Latter Day Progressive

My poem 'Lament for a Latter Day Progressive' is just published on the often controversial U.K. based current affairs website Harry's Place.

It was inspired by Ernest Hemingway's short poem 'The Earnest Liberal's Lament'. 

Here is a magazine a progressive might read.

Here is a progressive. Approach with caution.

Poems at John F. Kennedy 50th anniversary commemoration

Myself and Susan will be reading a couple of poems at this event on Friday November 22nd.

"Join Democrats Abroad Ireland next Friday, November 22nd in Galway as we mark the 50th anniversary of the tragic passing of John F. Kennedy - a great President, a great Democrat, and a Son of Ireland.

We [Democrats Abroad] will conduct a memorial service on the afternoon of the 22nd of November 2013 at 1:00pm in the plaza of the Galway City Museum.

Addressing the gathering will be Rev. Harcourt Klinefelter, former Aide to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Assistant Director of Public Relations to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (S.C.L.C) from 1965-1969. Rev. Klinefelter will speak to John F. Kennedy's contribution and support of the civil rights movement and the overall legacy of his administration and family.  

Also participating in the memorial service will be the colour guard of the Irish United Nations Veterans Association, readings from Irish and American poets Kevin Higgins and Susan Millar DuMars, and a reflection by Larry Donnelly, Lecturer at NUI Galway, former legal counsel of Democrats Abroad Ireland, and a Boston native. Democrats Abroad Ireland is proud to be conducting one of the first memorial services in the world on the anniversary of such a historic day.

Where: Galway City Museum Plaza, Spanish Arch, Galway.

When: 1:00-1:45pm on Friday the 22nd of November 2013. All are welcome." 

Congratulations to Kshama Sawant

Kshama Sawant, an economics lecturer at Seattle Central Community College and a member of the Socialist Alternative Party, appears now to be certain to win a seat on Seattle City Council. She has edged ahead of a long serving Democrat who no doubt deserves his defeat.

It is the first time in at least a century that a Socialist candidate has won a seat in Seattle and Fox News are getting suitably excited.

To clarify: many people claim to be socialists. Emmet Stagg thinks he's a socialist. But the less said about him the better. And Joanna Tuffy thinks she's a socialist; although in that case I use the word 'think' in the loosest possible sense. The Republicans regularly accuse President Obama of being a socialist. But then they also say the same of pretty much anyone a little to the left of the late great Barry Goldwater. 

Kshama Sawant, on the contrary, is actually a Marxist revolutionary. For example, she has called for one Seattle based company, Amazon.com, to be taken into public ownership i.e. collectivised Bolshevik style. This is a thought no member of the Irish Labour Party would allow themselves, even during a dark sexual fantasy featuring a young Eamonn Gilmore.

Socialist Alternative is the American sister party of the Irish Socialist Party (Militant Tendency as was) of which I was a member of for twelve years until 1994. It would be fair to say that I have, over the past few years, uttered the odd savage word about the political group of which I was for so long a member. 

Today though is a day to celebrate. Whatever else it is, Kshama Sawant's victory is also a most beautiful kick in the soft bits for the Stephen Collins/Fintan O'Toole school of mad moderation. I dedicate this poem below, about socialist hopes from another era, to Kshama Sawant in this hour of her impending victory.

Ode To The Russian Revolution

after Warren Beatty & John Reed

Not the continent of tractor factories

you became. Nor the photographs of those

later killed by questions they didn’t ask.

But the banners made of bed linen

flooding Nevsky Prospect. A boy’s laughter

at an old man’s shout of “Down with everything!”

on a street packed with serious talk.

Another man vanishing into the morning

with some odd vases of valuable porcelain.

The high white letters of the crowd’s

new sounding slogans, as they move

around the corner on their way

who knows where.

from FrighteningNew Furniture (Salmon Poetry, 2010)