Five years ago this summer, a dream came true – but not quite the way the daydreamer envisioned it might. A decade earlier, I approached the poet and Nobel laureate Seamus Heaney, proposing a magazine profile of him and requesting an interview in Dublin. An enthusiastic admirer of his work, I’d just published an assessment of his translation of Beowulf – “a cross-cultural … [Read more...] about The Touch of The Poet
Poetry
Weekly Comment:
Poetry Corner
The Final Pass
By John James Reid
She held the ball for two and a half weeks,
unable to move, unwanting to pass.
Each breath, each save, knowing,
the game was almost over.
Her players, watching their Goalkeeper
In her final attempt to save herself.
Weakened, withered, wasted,
against a powerful pneumonic team.
White referees blowing warning whistles,
her players urging … [Read more...] about Weekly Comment:
Poetry Corner
An American Tribute to Ireland’s Poet-Patriots
Richard B. Evans, an American-born composer and musician, has been immersed in Irish music and culture for decades, and his exploration of the events leading to 1916 is about to come to American audiences in a live, full-length musical production commemorating the Centennial. Ireland’s Poet-Patriots is a full evening’s concert marking the centennial of the Easter Rising and … [Read more...] about An American Tribute to Ireland’s Poet-Patriots
The Poets’ Revolution
Three of the men who signed the Proclamation of the Irish Republic had published poetry before the Rising. But many more revolutionaries who participated were writers, scholars, and artists, including several notable women. I am come of the seed of the people, the people that sorrow; Who have no treasure but hope, No riches laid up but a memory of an ancient glory […] And … [Read more...] about The Poets’ Revolution
150 Years of Yeats’s Sligo
On the 150th anniversary of W.B. Yeats’s birth we look at some of the places in Sligo that inspired his best-loved poems. 1. BENBULBEN and DRUMCLIFFE CHURCHYARD: At his request, Yeats’s body was laid to rest in France and later removed to the churchyard in Drumcliffe, under Ben Bulben mountain, where his great-grand- father had served as rector. St. Columba founded a … [Read more...] about 150 Years of Yeats’s Sligo