Friday 30 January 2015

JANUARY POETRY



[Waiting for Charlie]
Hannah Watts



Ph speaks to me about truth & essays.

He tells me to own the I



build Babel. But my tools are scattered

mouthful vital soils.

I exhume Plutarch with my tongue while 


we chat about identity over coffee.


He hunched in Leffler Peace Park, eyes dilated, children sipped from his lips.

I tried to imitate his gaze and my father called me—


Gréagóir pulls me to his chest, arms ignited

I burrow in embers

Manitoulin river rock sunset

he clings to me like Charlie, sinking rib-deep

breathless he takes shots shots shots

my fingertips graze smouldering shoulders.


Deathless, I ride single breasted into the breath of Achilles.

But I am thin. I hide behind trees, torchless on the edge of seas.

I pronounce my time of death 


and engagement 


I wave my hand to display the ring.


Poets are not liars because we never claim truth.

I feel old when I should feel brilliant. 


This is an intimate conversation.

Monday 26 January 2015

TWENTY POEMS by Niall Sheridan & Donagh MacDonagh (1934; 2015)

 No. 247 is reproduced and digitized here for scholarly purposes.
 Use images in accordance with the authors' 1934  lapsed copyright.
























Friday 16 January 2015

JANUARY POETRY

This is a sentence.
Lindsay O’Connell


your compliments arrive at a well-considered welcome moment and, though not decidedly deserved, are appreciated by me because writing, as you no doubt know and have tried to convince me so far, takes lots and lots and lots of practice, and so I encourage the unfortunate stroke to break rules and elide convention which you make (if only in your own mind) through humour, as well as the other means at your disposal: sincerity, save-face, pity, pouring drinks etc., along with your appeal to me here; but the vastness of this appreciation, my appreciation for your writing that is, which is ever-widening I assure you, reminds me that I, and almost certainly any other person who aims to practice (like breathing), never set down rules and only aim to suggest (often through example) the best way to approach cuneiform which will always be concerned with the picture, or the problem, or the person, or the task it traces; however, these reasons, while admittedly strong in counter-point, do not change the outcome of today’s meeting – an event that seemed to me to be more about the relaying or rules and stylistic necessity of texting than encouragement to keep on writing – move your pen, move your pen, shift-up, shift-up, it’s a call to write write write…