Éi g s e 2009

Hu m o u r , Ir o n y & Wit

a f e s t i v a l o f p o e t r y a n d p r o s e

presented by the Munster Literature Centre

Éigse 2009 Humour, Irony & Wit

Welcome to the 2009 Spring literary festival from the Munster Literature Centre. As with each of the last six years, our festival is arranged around a changing theme. In the past we have dealt with immigration, translation, love, politics and religion. This year the theme is Humour! Irony! Wit!

Not all irony is funny and not all humour induces belly laughter. Humour can be subtly nuanced or it can be in-your -face obvious and is often shaped by cultural considerations. - a French arthouse film of some years back, notoriously claimedRidicule that the English had no wit but something called humour instead. Arguably one person’s wit is another person’s mere humour. To acknowledge this we have gathered together a disparate motley crew of literary clowns whose origins include America, Britain, Estonia and Japan as well as . We have poets, novelists, essayists and chancers of many genres.

I’m hopeful that for anyone habitually inclined to pick up a book, this festival will contain something to induce a wry smile or convulse the stomach muscles.

Taking note of the known healing properties of laughter, we have decided, for the first time ever, to distribute one of our festival brochures to Doctors’ waiting rooms. Who knows? There might even be a few prescriptions issued on the basis of the festival.

As medicine you can take your pick from readings, workshops or book launches with complimentary wine or lemonade.

Have fun.

Patrick Cotter Festival Director Munster Literature Centre He has travelled extensively and read his poetry at many interna- tional festivals. His poems have been translated into 30 languages. In 2007, his poetry was published in the collection (Scottish Poetry Library) containingAll Points translationsNorth in Norwegian, Finnish, Shetland and Icelandic. He has also translated English- language poets such as T. S. Eliot, Gregory Corso, Allen Ginsberg and Lawrence Ferlinghetti into Estonian.

His recent works includes the haiku collection, , which was recently releasedA Chafer by Kisses the the publishing Moon house Shichigatsudo in Tokyo, Japan. His poetry in English is found in the anthology (2008), with translations The by Andres Ehin PatrickEchoing YearsCotter. He lives in Rapla with his wife, the poet Ly appearing Saturday, 21st February 2009 Seppel. 19.00 Reading with & Yatushiro Yoshimoto Andres Ehin was born in Tallinn, Estonia on March 13th, 1940. He is a poet, translator, novelist, editor, short story writer, Dog Apartment radio play auteur, journalist and essayist. He studied at the University of Tartu at Imagine an apartment made of dog the same time as Jaan Kaplinski. Ehin three rooms of bark, a bathroom of snout subsequently found work as a freelance writer, the cold tap dribbles, the hot tap slobbers editor and journalist from 1965 to 1974. As an apartment made of dog with floors a poet, Ehin has published many collections which howl at ceiling lamps at night as if including (1978), they were moons Spiritual(1988), Nostrils I Sip the Darkness Full-Moon Midday (1990), (1996) and imagine an apartment made of dog Consciousness is Snakeskin (2000). which detests the very scent of cat Subconsciousness Is Always Jolly an apartment made of dog He has received numerous awards, whose sofa hairs bristle including the Estonian National Prize in at the sprayings of even distant moggies. 2001 (for ), the Looming PrizeSubconsciouness for best novel Is ofAlways the year Jolly and the Estonian Culture Capital Foundation Award. Moose Beetle Swallow anthologies, among which are (Bloodaxe), (Picador),The and New Poetry (Faber). TranslationsThe Firebox from the Serbo-CroatianEmergency appearedKit in (1998, Bloodaxe). He has alsoThe published,Scar on the Stone together with Hilde Ottschofski, translations from the (2001, Bloodaxe).Rumanian of Marin Sorescu: Censored Poems His chapbook called will appearOutpost from the Theater: Bonnefant Berlin Press Poems (NL)1976 -in 2002 time for the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Creative Writing

John Hartley Humbled by the need to earn money, made haughty, I confess, by the dim talent of my pupils, Williams I brought a dead frog to class and bade them consider it attentively for twenty minutes, appearing Friday, 20th February 2009 preparatory to writing a poem they would call 21.00 Reading with Dennis O’Driscoll ‘The Dead Frog’. After three minutes of whispering a chair cracked Born in 1942, John Hartley Williams was born in back. Cheshire (UK) and grew up in . He studied Its owner stood tensely, squaring off against me. at Nottingham University and later (postgraduate) Then another leapt to his feet in a splendid show at the University of London. He has worked as a of recalcitrance. teacher in France, Jugoslavija and Cameroon. Since ‘You haven’t seen it yet,’ I told them, and walked 1976 he has been a teacher at the Free University around the table, of Berlin. gripped the smaller of the two, kneed him in the back He has published nine collections of poetry. The and smashed his head upon the table of polished latest volume is a retrospective of work - mainly oak. from the seventies, but also going back to the sixties - entitled (Salt Publishing, 2007). I bound him with rope to the chair and instructed Two previous collectionsThe Ship were shortlisted for the TS the class Eliot Prize: (Jonathan Cape, 2004) and to consider him attentively for twenty minutes (Bloodaxe, 1997).Blues The latter volume was a CanadaPoetry preparatory to writing a poem they would call Book Society Choice. (Bloodaxe ‘How the Unconscious Works’. 1985) and wereBright both River PBS Yonder Recommenda- Then I ascended to my room, took pen and paper tions. He is alsoBlues the author of (Arc, and knew with thrilling deliberation that soon I 2005), a prose memoir, and theIgnoble prose Sentiments work would have a poem. (reissued by Vintage, 2003). He Mystery is the Downstairs I could hear voices and the shifting of co-author,in Spiderville with Irish poet , of furniture. As feet began to climb the stairs, I scribbled faster. Teach Yourself Writing Poetry. Williams’ work has appeared in numerous Spending Time with Walter awarded a bursary by the Arts Council in 2005. A collection of his essays and reviews, , was publishedPoetry, Politics by &Lapwing Dorothy inGone 2006. Horribly Astray

Kevin’s work is discussed in poet-critic ’s (CambridgeCambridge University Introduction Press, to Modern2008). Irish A recent Poetry poem of his, ‘Ourselves Again’, appeared in . His work will be featuredBest inof Irishthe forthcomingPoetry 2009 anthology (Bloodaxe,Identity Parade 2010). – HeThe New has readBritish his and workIrish Poets at most of the major literary festivals in Ireland and at a wide variety of venues and festivals in Britain, France and the United States. Kevin Higgins Page From The Diary Of An Officially appearing Saturday, 21st February 2009 Approved Person 16.00 Reading with Gina Moxley By day, your new blonde hair and state-sponsored smile are twin planks Kevin Higgins was born in London in 1967 in the Government’s anti-poverty but grew up in Galway City, where he still strategy, lives. He co-organises the Over The Edge as you put on your enthusiasm and treat literary events with his wife, Susan Millar another seminar DuMars. Kevin also facilitates poetry to an orgy of flip-charts; then play workshops at Galway Arts Centre, teaches Mayors and Ministers off creative writing at Galway Technical against each other Institute and was recently Writer-in-Residence over the much anticipated beef stroganoff. at Merlin Park Hospital. He is the poetry critic No-one noticing the names being underlined in of and was a founding The Galway Advertiser red co-editor of literary magazine. He in the twilit Politburo of your mind. regularly reviewsThe Burning for Bush . Books In Canada: The Canadian Review of Books By night, you sit alone in a mansion called

Kevin’s first poetry collection, Equality, The Boy With No and listen to the moans, was published by Salmon in 2005 and from some far basement, of those Face, was short-listed for the 2006 Strong Award whose nervous hands questioned for Best First Collection by an Irish Poet. His this expense account, second collection is that clerk’s timely suicide; openly (Salmon, 2008). His Time poem Gentlemen, ‘My Militant Please defied Tendency’ was highly commended by the judges whole conference-loads of otherwise of this year’s Forward Poetry Prize and features unanimous applause. in the . Kevin won the 2003 CúirtForward Festival Book of Poetry Poetry 2009 Grand Slam and was Time Gentlemen, Please Tom Barry’s ghost moves to Dublin

Who is there now that can remember Our little intifada? Here in the walled round city of the possible. Here in the pale beyond the ditch of time. In a time that should never have been, In a petty Republic no more than a name.

There is no such thing as children. Mothers and fathers I won’t even mention, Or the old men who used to sing and whistle On the way to work, Dave Lordan Or the keeners who are long gone out of appearing Friday, 20th February 2009 a job, 19.00 Reading with Alan Titley For who sees any sadness now in the going the flesh way. Dave Lordan was born in Derby, England, in 1975 to Irish parents and grew up in Last week as I wandered round the bog Clonakilty in West . He began I saw the last telling ruin bulldozed to the writing in his teens and his chapbook ground. -18- was published by the English literature Or the doors nailed shut, society in UCC in 1994. He graduated from Or the windows painted black. with an M.A. in Nor a well or a tinker’s horse or a sloe- English Literature in 1998 and was awarded bush to be found. an M.Phil. in Creative writing from Trinity The whole shaggin country’s a golf College Dublin in 2001. In 2004 he was course. awarded an Arts Council bursary. In 2005 Them and their men made of bronze. he won the Award for poetry, for which he had been the runner- Well I tell you now it’s a sad day up in 2002. His work has been published widely and has also been translated into When there’s not a sinner left around Arabic and Serbo-Croat. He is a regular To haunt with hope. and popular performer of his own work, When even the ghosts give up as well as being an experienced creative The gust writing teacher and workshop leader. His And move to Dublin. first collection, (Salmon Poetry, 2007) won The the Boy 2008 in the Strong Ring Award for Best First Collection and was shortlisted for the Poetry Now Award 2008. The Boy in the Ring Irish Times Margo False Memory

Wait til I tell you where I was now. I was giving people the pip left, right and centre, apparently cause I was so friendly and happy. Mam and John Jo made me drop up to Dr Caulfield over it. And now I’m on tablets to stabilize me. She - Dr Caulfield, lady doctor, very classy - says I’m suffering from a rare but debilitating condition called pronoia- the opposite of paranoia - where you think every one likes you. I’m under intense and irrational delusions of popularity it seems. So she referred me to - we’ll call him Gina Moxley Dr X- a head man, lovely fella very friendly, and up on the couch appearing Saturday, 21st February 2009 with me. He asks me 16.00 Reading with Kevin Higgins if there was anything in my childhood that would have caused me Gina Moxley is an actor and writer. Her most anxiety. God says I and I started remembering, recent performance was in Pan Pan’s production things I never thought of , which she also wrote. The show of before...my father, sorry now this is a bit premieredThe Crumb in TrailDusseldorf in November 2008 and upsetting... Daddy was recently seen in New York as part of Under wallpapering and refusing a drink, doing the The Radar festival. She has appeared in several delph and dragging in other productions. Her film work includes roles coal. And Mr. Keane next door calling me aside in , , , and when Mam was out and This is My Father. The Butcher Boy Saltwater warning me not to tell anyone about it and to Snakes and Ladders close my eyes and see Gina’s first play was commissioned and what God’d give me and he’d slip something into produced by RoughDanti-Dan Magic Theatre. She went my pocket and duck on to write for the National Theatre, away. Sometimes it’d be a Trigger bar or a packet London, Dog House for CoisCeim / of Charms wrapped Abbey Theatre,Toupees and Snare Drums for Fishamble. She up in a pound note. How could I have forgotten co-wrote and performedTea Set in , that? Or the beautiful commissioned by Cork 2005, EuropeanA Heart ofCapital Cork tights Mam crocheted me for my communion. I of Culture. Her radio plays include used think she took my , , , The Candi and- communion money to pay off some man Daddy date Swan’s Cross. GinaBottom hasRung alsoPhysical written Geography comedy crashed into his but now I sketchesMarrying for Dad radio and TV. Recently she has had remember she invested it and it’s making me short stories published in the anthologies fortunes. And as for and Stinging Fly’s . FacingGina Charlie Watts out of the Rolling Stones, now wasWhite one of the contributors Let’s to Be Alone Together, a novel by that’s not something fifteen Irish writers in aid of AmnestyYeats is Dead International. that’d slip your mind easily. (2002) and Girlfriend End (2006). of Part One: His poemsNew and have Selectedappeared Poems in many journals and anthologies, (2005), his translations ofPocket the ApocalypsePolish poet Katarzyna Borun-Jagodzinska, is from Southword Editions.

A political poet who also writes daring love poems, or a love poet whose portraits and parodies constitute a necessary clearing of space— whether in a small city or on a larger, global stage—either way Gerry Murphy is a particular case in , at once Gerry Murphy provocative and hugely entertaining, appearing Saturday, 21st February 2009 serious even in his most apparently 19.00 Reading with Andres Ehin & throw-away gesture. Yatushiro Yoshimoto Although running counterpoint to Gerry Murphy was born in Cork in 1952. literary tradition, Murphy’s work is highly, In the early 1970s he spent some years self-consciously literary and his vision is working in London and living in an Israeli very much preoccupied with the political Kibbutz before returning to Cork where and historical pressures of the last century; he has remained ever since. He began politics and war impinge on everything in publishing his books in the mid-80s Murphy’s world, even love. containing poems so far removed from the Irish tradition that many doubted they were poems at all. Undaunted and with his usual Existential Café irreverence, Murphy once insisted on using a singularly detracting review alongside the for Tony O’Connor more praising ones as a blurb for one of “Essence before existence!” his books. Amusingly this had the effect of declared the waitress, silencing and defusing many of his critics. throwing a handful of flour and a few raisins onto the table. His poetry collections include (1985, 1992)A Small andFat “I ordered two scones,” fiveBoy Walking previous Backwards collections from Dedalus, said Jean-Paul. (1993), Rio de la (1995), Plata and All That The Empty Quarter Extracts(1999), from the Lost Log-Book of Christopher Columbus Torso of an Ex- End of Part One: New and Selected Poems America and Canada. Her poems for chil- dren are collected in (,Bright 1986), Lights Blaze Out (Cambridge Cambridge Univer- Contemporarysity Press, 1992) Poets and2 in three full-length collections, (Orchard, 1988), Taking My (Bloodaxe Pen for a Walk Books, 1998) and Two Barks (Faber & Faber, 2006). The Book of Whispers She was awarded Irish Arts Council Bursaries in 1985, 1990 and 1998. She received the Poetry Award in 2001 and is a member of the Irish academy of arts, Aosdána. Julie O’Callaghan Touring the Museum of You appearing Saturday, 21st February 2009 Our first display 21.00 Reading with Dan Rhodes is the Little Orphan Annie stamp discovered beside his bed Born in Chicago in 1954, Julie O’Callaghan where the dog is saying ARF has lived in Ireland since 1974. Her in a bubble over its head. collections of poetry include Then we come to the brightly knitted hat (Dolmen, 1983), a Poetry BookEdible Anecdotes Society used in a long winter of chemotherapy. Recommendation; (Bloodaxe, Several microscopic skin cells 1991), a Poetry BookWhat’s Society What Choice; are embedded in the wool. (Bloodaxe, 2000), a Poetry BookNo The last known photograph he took SocietyCan Do Recommendation; and the U.S.- is of an old Illinois barn published chapbook, (Pressed outside Galena in July 1996. Wafer, 2005). Her latestProblems book is Please don’t lean on the glass. Tell Domestic archaeology (Bloodaxe,Me This Is 2008).Normal: New She and has Selected published Poems has unearthed a perfect crescent poetry in many newspapers and journals, toenail clipping. including , , Here we have a gallon of teardrops The Observer, The Guardian, The Times lovingly bottled. Literary and Supplement The Irish. Times This used tube of bronzer Review New Statesman was how he masked Her poems for older children have the harsh truth from the world. appeared in numerous anthologies in the U.K. (including the Feel free to roam around. , New Oxford Book of Children’s and Verse The Oxford Book of Children’s) andPoetry in schoolThe New texts Faber inBook Ireland, of Children’s England, Verse Tell Me This Is Normal: New & Selected Poems To a Love Poet

I

Fortysomething did you say? Or more? By now, no one could care less either way. When you swoop into a room, no heads turn, no cheeks burn, no knowing glances are exchanged,

no eye contact is made. You are no longer a meaningful contender in the passion stakes. But a love poet must somehow make love, if only to language, fondling its contours,

dressing it in slinky tropes, caressing its letters with the tongue, glimpsing it darkly as though through a crackling black stocking or diaphanous blouse, arousing its interest,

Dennis O’Driscoll varying the rhythm, playing speech against appearing Friday, 20th February 2009 stanza like leather against skin, stroking words wistfully, chatting them up, curling fingers 21.00 Reading with John Hartley Williams around the long flowing tresses of sentences.

Born in Thurles, Co Tipperary in II 1954, his eight books of poetry include (Anvil Press, 1999), a Poetry Book SocietyWeather Never again, though, will a living Muse RecommendationPermitting and shortlisted for the choose you from the crowd in some romantic city Poetry Prize, (Anvil Press, 2002)Irish Times and — Exemplary (Anvil Damages Press, 2004), a Poetry Book Paris, Prague — singling you out, her pouting lips SocietyNew and Selected Special Poems Commendation. His work a fountain where you resuscitate your art. appears in (Wake Forest UP, The2005). Wake HisForest latest Series collectionof Irish Poetry of poems1 is Not with you in view will she hold court to her mir- (Anvil Press [UK], 2007; Copper ror, CanyonReality CheckPress [USA], 2008), shortlisted for the matching this halterneck with that skirt, changing / Poetry Now Prize 2008. Irish her mind, Times A selection of his essays and reviews, testing other options, hovering between a cashmere (Gallery Press), was and velvet combination or plain t-shirt and jeans, publishedTroubled Thoughts, in 2001. Majestic He Dreams is editor of the (2006) and its AmericanBloodaxe watching the clock, listening for the intercom or counterpart,Book of Poetry Quotations (Copper Canyon phone. Press, 2008). Quote His book, Poet Unquote Not for your eyes her foam bath, hot wax, hook- (Faber and SteppingFaber; Stones:Farrar, Interviews Straus andwith snapped lace, Giroux), was published in 2008. her face creams, moisturisers, streaks and highlights. He received a Lannan Literary Not for your ears the excited shriek of her zip. Award in 1999, the E.M. Forster Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2005 Look to the dictionary as a sex manual. and the O’Shaughnessy Award for Poetry from the Tease beauty’s features into words that will assuage Center for Irish Studies (Minnesota) in 2006. He is the pain, converting you — in this hour of need — a member of Aosdána and an Honorary Member of to someone slim and lithe and young and eligible the Royal Hibernian Academy. for love again. Dirty Old Men

Old men, the dirty kind, come in two sorts ¾ the nice ones and the nasty. They’re much like those who pass by a fruit stall. Some just think how nice an apple would have been if they’d had teeth. Others without the wherewithal to buy or eat, must sink their grimy thumbs into the nectarines.

On Charing Cross an English wino said: ‘You’ve got charisma . . . just like me.’ Elsewhere, a Polish drunk, stretched happy on a bench, called me ‘A real lady’ when I passed him back the cherry wine he’d dropped. I’d say these were both nice ones of the dirty type. Likewise an English master I once knew ¾ Fiona Pitt-Kethley I was to play Titania at his school. He wished to have the fairies in the show appearing Thursday, 19th February 2009 all starkers, me too, and painted silver. 21.00 Reading with Neil Rollinson The governors refused, he settled for transparent lamé catsuits, Mary Quant. I had a most uncomfortable time ¾ Fiona Pitt-Kethley was born in 1954. She Cobweb and Co made me a fakir’s bed studied at the Chelsea School of Art where with pints. (The sight of me, laddered into she obtained a BA hons. before going on indecency, getting a leg over to become a full-time writer. As a student poor Bottom made the local vicar blanch ¾ she ushered at the Old Vic and National I was a leading light in his church choir.) Theatre. While writing she sometimes This teacher had a wall at home, filled up worked as a film extra. She married the with codpieces he’d made ¾ just for the play. chess grandmaster and former Britrish chess And most were much too big, for Puck kept all champion, James Plaskett, in 1995, with his Strepsils down his and we heard them roll with every cartwheel and each somersault. whom she has a son, Alexander. In 2002 they moved to Spain. At first they lived The other sort ¾ made asses by their own in an ex-pat area until driven out by illusions in the winter of their years, tyre-slashing English and Irish pensioners. not hooked on Shakespeare or the bottle’s joys, They are now much happier living amongst the are not content with dreams, must pry and poke, Spanish in Cartagena. Since moving to Spain place their corpse-withered lips upon your cheek, Fiona acquired new hobbies. She practices their grave-claws on your shoulders. Like old Kyokushin karate and goes rock-hunting and goats, hill-walking in the Sierra Minera, an area they chumble and spoil everything they touch, blaming some Circe for their beastliness. she is currently writing a book on. She also Decrepit parasites ¾ they’d suck our youth’s enjoys fishing for her dinner, listening to blood to prolong their own. local Flamenco concerts and snorkels for several months of the year. in his idea of smart clothing (i.e. not at all smart) while all the other men were dressed in tuxes.

was also shortlisted for theTimoleon Prince Vieta Maurice Come Home Prize and the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize. It was included in Barnes and Noble’s Discover New Writers programme, for which Rhodes was presented with a Mont Blanc pen. He swiftly lost the cap, thereby rendering it useless.

Noises

My girlfriend had been unemployed for ages, but eventually she found some work in an office. Although I couldn’t find the courage to say anything, I was worried that her new role in life would come between us. She’s been there some time now, and Dan Rhodes although she spends most of her working day furtively ringing me up to make kissing noises, I can’t appearing Saturday, 21st February 2009 help feeling as though she’s slipping away from me. The slurps from the other end of the line don’t seem 21.00 Reading with Julie O’Callaghan as passionate as they could be. It’s almost as if her lips had other things on their mind. Born in 1972, Dan Rhodes is the author of five books: (2000), Pieces (2001),Anthropology Don’t Tell Me The(2003), Truth About Love Timoleon Vieta Come Home The (2004) and (2007). They kidnapped my girlfriend, and asked for an Little White Car Gold awful lot of money before they would even think was shortlisted for the Macmillan Silver about giving her back. I was grateful for the peace Anthropology Pen award, losing out at the final hurdle to and quiet, so I wasn’t in too much of a hurry to settle The Hill by . If you’re going to lose up. After a while they started posting me little pieces Bachelors a short story competition to anyone, it might as of her, starting with an ear in a soap dish. For some well be William Trevor. At a break in proceedings, reason they aren’t lowering the ransom. It doesn’t Rhodes had a dramatic tussle over a bottle of wine make sense. They seem to think I’d pay as much for with someone he later found out was . a girlfriend with no thumbs, ears, nose or nipples as I would for one with all her bits still there. won the QPB New Voices Timoleon Vieta Come Home Award in 2004. This was Rhodes’ first prize, and Special although he was mildly disappointed that he could no longer refer to himself as an award-losing My beautiful girlfriend and I are so at ease with our author, he was, on balance, delighted to have won. He relationship that we feel perfectly happy to hold celebrated by going on the water dodgems at Coney hands and kiss in public. When we see a person Island, fatally damaging his brand new watch in the who looks a little lonely, we’ll walk past them with process. He had thrown away the receipt. our arms around each other, gazing contentedly into each other’s eyes. If they don’t notice us at first, we’ll also won the Authors’ Club go back and stand directly in front of them, kissing Timoleon Vieta Come Home First Novel Award in 2004. Prior to the ceremony passionately, sighing, and touching each other’s Rhodes had been living the writer’s life and hadn’t bodies in the way only lovers can. It’s so important been home for a few weeks, so he hadn’t read the for these people to see just how perfect life can be formal invitation. Consequently he turned up dressed once you’ve found that special someone. never give up hope; they exhibit a tenacious optimismDemolition - or at least a steely pragmatism - that says: we have what we are given, there is no alternative, and we all must find what joy we can in life, and in its living.

Skeleton

A skeleton propped in a chair with a party hat set comically on the top of its skill, a pair of green pants, a brandy glass between thumb and forefinger. It was hot. The bailiffs drew back the curtains and opened the windows, wafting their hands in front of their faces. After they’d checked upstairs and found no one, they came back down to the sitting room. Frank opened the drinks cabinet and poured Neil Rollinson a brandy. A Christmas tree stood in the corner, fairy-lights blazing, its white synthetic appearing Thursday, 19th February 2009 needles a parody of snow and ice this hot 21.00 Reading with Fiona Pitt-Kethley June day. He picked up the , three years old, and read through the ChristmasTV Times films. Neil Rollinson was born in Yorkshire in 1960. His nostrils twitched, he could just detect He has published three collections of poetry: the faint, thin sweetness of meat in the air, (1996), (2001) andA the hint of a nearby butchers caught on the breeze. Spillage of (2007), Mercury all publishedSpanish by Jonathan Fly Cape, and Bob turned off the fire. P.B.S.Demolition recommendations. In 1997 he won the British , he said, National Poetry Competition.. It’s a canny skeleton though I’ll take that home for the bairns. Frank shook his With the frank, subversive, and very funny poems head, in his first two books, Neil Rollinson established he’d noticed the yellow moons of toenails himself as a deft cartographer of the sensual world. balanced on each toe, the glint of a filling While a rich and tactile eroticism still courses inside the jaw. He felt a ripple of goose-flesh through , there is a new seriousness here, roll up his back. He finished his drink as mortalityDemolition starts to throw its long shadow. These and took a closer look. He fingered the skill. poems occupy a more rueful, reflective space — buttery, yellow, he sniffed the joints provisional, mercurial and fragile - a darker at the shoulder-blades: that smell again, place where disintegration and loss are the only a trace of meat, a sweetness of fat. certainties, and memory is the only solid ground. He stared through the ribs, a cage, he thought, Central to this is the death of the father— with its bird missing. He wondered whether the poet’s own, or the lost fathers of Borges or where all the blood had gone, its colour Vallejo—and the theme is broadened through a for instance. He made a cross on his T-Shirt number of moving examinations of the erosion and sat in the arm-chair, feeling his heartbeat, of time and youth. Against this gathering dark- feeling the sweat pour out of him, wondering ness, Rollinson sets a spirited defence, blending the if he wasn’t too old for this kind of work any more. lyric and vernacular voice in a muscular celebration of food, sex, sport and the natural world that is unusually refreshing, and sophisticated enough to allow both humour and profundity. The poems in A Spillage of Mercury His awards include the Prudence Farmer Prize (1984); Cholmondely Award (1987); and the Henfield Writing Fellowship (1986). In 1999, he received an Arts Council of England Writers Award, and in 2001, an Arts Council of Ireland Writers’ Bursary.

Matthew Sweeney has held residencies at the University of East Anglia and the South Bank Centre in London, and was Poet in Residence at the National Library for the Blind as part of the ‘Poetry Places’ scheme run by the Poetry Society in London.

His latest poetry collections are (2004) and (2007), theSanctuary latter Matthew Sweeney shortlisted forBlack the Moon 2007 T. S. Eliot Prize. Saturday, 21st February 2009 He is a member of Aosdána. 10.00 Humour in Poetry Workshop

Matthew Sweeney was born in Donegal, Do Not Throw Stones at This Sign Ireland in 1952. He moved to London in 1973 and studied at the Polytechnic Do not throw stones at this sign of North London and the University of which stands here, in a stony field Freiburg. His poetry collections include a stone’s throw from the sea (1981), whose beach is a mess of pebbles (1983),A Dream of Maps (1989), A Round(1992), House since the sand was stolen for building, Blue (1997) Shoes and Cacti (2000).The and the few people who dawdle there, Bridal Suite , representingA Smell the of bestFish of 10 rods in hand, catch nothing, booksSelected and Poems 20 years’ work, was published in not even a shoe - might as well 2002. A selection of his work appears in bombard the waves with golfballs, (London, Penguin, or wade in and hold their breath, 1997).Penguin ModernHis poetry Poets collections 12 for children or bend, as they do, and grab a handful include (1992), of pebbles to throw at the sign, The(1995) Flying Spring and Onion Fatso in and each time they hit it they cheer the Red Suit (2001). HisUp novelson the Roof:for childrenNew and and chalk up another beer, especially includeSelected Poems (1992) and a new the man who thought up the sign, book, The (2002). Snow Vulture who got his paintbrush and wrote Fox “Do Not Throw Stones At This Sign” Full-length books of his work are available on a piece of driftwood which he stuck in Dutch, Czech, Spanish, Romanian; and in this useless field, then, laughing, German, including (Berlin Verlag, danced his way to the house of beer. 2008), translated intoRosa German Milch by . Rosa Milch His awards include Oireachtas prizes for works in the Irish language, the Butler Prize of the Irish- American Cultural Institute, the Pater Prize for International Radio Drama, the Stewart Parker award for drama, and the Eilis Dillon Award for Children’s Literature. He has also won prizes in the Writers’ Week and Francis McManus literary competitions. He has also served as an adjudicator for Literary Prize, chairman of the IrishThe Language Irish Times Award, and Gaelic Editor of . Books Ireland

The joker was dying. He had spent his life joking and jeering and mocking and taking the piss and sending up the dour doughnuts of humanity. In truth, he had often thrown the facile water of Alan Titley levity on deep-down serious subjects. Some of those subjects were so serious that they could not appearing Friday, 20th February 2009 be broached without searing pain and soul-raking 19.00 Reading with Dave Lordan angst.

Alan Titley is a novelist, short story writer, His relations gathered around his death-bed, and playwright and scholar. Born in Cork in 1947, even his friends (at least some of them), and his he was educated at Coláiste Chríost Rí (Cork), acquaintances, and those who had a grin on their St. Patrick’s College, Drumcondra and University chins and a glint in their eyes even though they College Dublin. He studied Irish, Philosophy did their best to hide it. and English. He was a lecturer of Education and History in Mount Carmel College of Education If he thought that life was a joke, that was not in Nigeria from 1967 to 1969 and taught in what life thought about him. That was why Death The School for Deaf Boys in Cabra from 1969 was sent and hovered over his bed. to 1974. He was head of the Irish Department in St. Patrick’s College, Drumcondra from 1981 His friends and relations were dressed in clothes until being appointed Professor of Modern Irish as black as Mrs. Kennedy’s, and so was Death. You in University College Cork in 2006. would hardly recognise one rather than the other. Some were weeping, and some were keening, and His novels and short story collections include some were mashing their teeth. (1978), (1980), Méirscrí na Treibhe Stiall (1987), Fhial Feola ‘Holy shit,’ he said, ‘what’s up with you?’ It looked Eiriceachtaí(1993), agus Scéalta Eile (1995), An Fear Dána as if he was getting peeved with them despite (1998),Fabhalscéalta and Leabhar (2003), Nóra which Ní the glint in his own eye. ‘You look like a shower wonAnluain the 2004 Bistro Prize.Amach His works of of moaning mollies and weeping willies. Faces fiction have been widely translated. A play, as long as a dark wet night in Two Mile Boris , a sequel to Beckett’s Waiting for Godot,Tagann without a bottle of whiskey. You’d think you’d wasGodot produced in the Abbey/Peacock in 1990. think that the likes of me would never be here He has had radio plays produced both by BBC again. Cheer up, for God’s sake!’ and RTÉ and has written documentary films. from Heresies The Family Room

The father doesn’t know that the son is smoking Marlboro at a forest clear- ing solemnly and ceremoniously as if in a ritual among the native Americans.

The son doesn’t know that the sister has been standing for more than an hour in front of the bathroom mirror like a princess who got turned into a spider by magic. The sister doesn’t know what Sancho the cat felt other than pain when he was run over and his brilliant pink in- Yasuhiro Yoshimoto testine showed on the pavement. appearing Saturday, 21st February 2009 19.00 Reading with Andres Ehin & Gerry Murphy The cat doesn’t know what the ash tree in the garden was trying to say Yasuhiro Yotsumoto was born in Osaka, Japan to the cloud which had drifted away over the in 1959 and grew up mostly in Hiroshima. He roof started writing poetry in his late teens and by shaking out its leaves frantically. published his first collection of poetry, in 1991. Since then 7 collections of hisA Laughingpoetry were Bug, But the cloud does know published including (co-authored that a white alligator is growing slowly and stead- Muddy Calender with Inuo Taguchi, 2008), (2006), ily (2004). He wonStarboard several of Myawards Wife such as Golden Hour deep inside the body and soul of Hagiwara Sakutaro Award and his poems have been the mother. translated into more than 10 languages. how her sullen face looks In addition to poetry, Yasuhiro writes essays, in the eyes of the husband literary criticism, and translates poetry from English or and what prophecy it gives him. German to Japanese. His latest book of translation will be by Simon Armitage to be published in Japan laterKid this year. In the name of great grandfather’s love letters, laws of Mendel He is also active in editorial works: since 2006, and salted salmon, Yasuhiro has been National Editor of Poetry a family is constituted. Its members gather International Web – Japan, introducing the in a living room scattered with fish bones and bird contemporary Japanese poetry through English feathers translations (japan.poetryinternational.org) and and momentarily attain immortality with laughter recently took part in the launch of a new poetry and quarrels. magazine in Japan as an editor. Beagle Sancho the cat, Yasuhiro is an avid street photographer, whose works now resurrected and sharpening his claws can be seen in the following web gallery: http://web. is watching it go by. mac.com/yyotsumoto/iWeb/Site/Bosnia.html Book Launches on the Festival Fringe

The Munster Literature Centre is proud to present new publications by two Cork poets and an American poet from a Cork publisher. Although not part of the festival theme, they are significant Cork literary events.

Leanne O’Sullivan Wednesday, 18th February 2009 appearing19.30 Launch of Cailleach: Hag of Beara The launch of published by Bloodaxe Books, England.Cailleach: The Hag of Beara, or the Hag of Beara, is a wise woman figureAn Cailleach embedded Bhéarra in the physical and mental landscape of western Ireland and Scotland, particularly in the Beara Peninsula in West Cork. The Cailleach’s roots lie in pre-Christian Ireland, and stories of her relationship with that rugged landscape and culture still abound. Central to these narratives is the story of her love affair with a sea god. A large stone resting on the ridge overlooking Ballycrovane Harbour is said to be the petrified body of the Cailleach; she has had several lives, beginning each life with a birth from her stony form – and returning to stone at the end.

Born in 1983, Leanne O’Sullivan comes from the Beara Peninsula. She received an MA in English from University College Cork in 2006. Winner of several of Ireland’s poetry competitions, including the Seacat, Davoren Hanna and RTE Rattlebag Poetry Slam, she has published two collections, (Bloodaxe, 2004) and (BloodaxeWaiting ,2009). for Her My Clothes work appears in various anthologies,Cailleach: including The Hag Selina of Guinness’s Beara (Bloodaxe, 2004) and The (Random New Irish Poets House, 2003). Billy Collins’s Poetry 180: A Turning Back to Poetry Jenny Minniti-Shippey Thursday, 19th February 2009 appearing Winner of the 2008 Fool for Poetry Chapbook Competition by Jenny Minniti-Shippey is the 2009Done Dating winner DJs of the Fool for Poetry Chapbook Competition published by Southword Editions, Cork. Minniti-Shippey’s contains poems with precursors as variedDone as William Dating Carlos DJs Williams and . A wry sophisticated humour is invested in these crisp confident poems by a young poet who has found her voice. If were aimed at a higher brow level and written in verse, this could be it. Sex and the City Jenny Minniti-Shippey studied Creative Writing at Randolph-Macon Women’s College, and is a graduate of the MFA program at San Diego State University. Her work has appeared in , , and her chapbook, , was published throughTar Poetry River International’sPoetry Web Del SolNew Review Poets of ofBooks America Series. She grewLess upWhiskey in Oregon, and since then has lived happily in the southern United States, Spain, and Ireland. She now lives in San Diego, California where she teaches creative writing and horseback riding, although not at the same time.

Rosemary Canavan Saturday, 21st February 2009 appearing14.00 Launch of Trucker’s Moll (Salmon, 2009), Rosemary Canavan’s second collection, continuesTrucker’s Moll her preoccupation with identity, landscape and change. She reveals the power of land to transform, to hold secrets, to heal and to destroy.

Rosemary Canavan was born in Scotland, and brought up in County Antrim. Her first collection (2004) was published by Story Line Press, and was short-listed for the Vincent BuckleyThe Island Poetry Prize. In 2001 she was Writer-in-Residence for Co. Kerry, and from 2006-2007 she was Poetry Editor for . Her two children’s books, and were publishedSouthword by An Gúm, and she has read at Lios a number Chaitríona of festivalsCaitriona including agus an the tÉan Cheltenham Oir, Literary Festival.

She has worked as a graphic designer, and a teacher in varied locations including Belfast, and Spike Island and Cork Prisons. She has also worked with digital media, exhibiting an internet site in Triskel Arts Centre’s ‘Intermedia 2000’ and has exhibited at the Droichead Arts Centre and the Boole Library in University College, Cork. At present she teaches Creative Writing in . MUNSTER LITERATURE CENTRE SPRING 2009 NEW RELEASES

richesses southword no. 15 (hardback ed.) €12.00 €7.99 ISBN 978-1-905002-30-6 ISBN 978-1-905002-31-3

best of irish poetry 2009 southword back issues €10.00 Nos. 1 - 14 ISBN 978-1-905002-29-0 €7.99

AVAILABLE from wholesalers or direct for further details and purchases visit www.munsterlit.ie or phone (021) 431 2955 Éigse 2009 Presented by The Munster Literature Humour,Centre Irony & Wit funded by Cork City Council in association with presented by the Munster Literature Centre

EVENT INFORMATION

(All events take place at the Triskel Arts Centre and are free. Sole exception is workshop.)

Wednesday, 18th February

Book Launch: Cailleach: The Hag of Beara by Leanne O’Sullivan The launch of Leanne O’Sullivan’s second poetry collection published by Bloodaxe Books, England. The book takesCailleach: its title The fromHag of An Beara, Cailleach Bhéarra, or the Hag of Beara, who is a wise woman fig- ure embedded in the physical and mental landscape of western Ireland and Scotland, particularly in the Beara Peninsula in West Cork. Triskel Arts Centre, Tobin Street. Time: 7.30 pm. Complimentary wine reception. Thursday, 19th February

Book Launch: Done Dating DJs by Jenny Minniti-Shippey Munster Literature Centre is proud to present the winning chapbook of the 2008 Fool for Poetry Chapbook Competition. Published by Southword Editions.

Triskel Arts Centre, Tobin Street. Time: 7.00 pm.

Readings: Humour and Irony A quickfire, varied reading by a selection of mostly Cork-resident poets known for their sense of humour and irony. Featuring John Corless, Billy Ramsell, Liz O’Donoghue, Ian Wild, Matthew Sweeney and Cliff Wedgebury.

Triskel Arts Centre, Tobin Street. Time: 8.00 pm.

Readings: Neil Rollison & Fiona Pitt Kethley A reading by two British poets renowned for mixing the humorous and the erotic. Neil Rollinson & Fiona Pitt-Kethley.

Triskel Arts Centre, Tobin Street. Time: 9.00 pm. Friday, 20th February

Readings: Dave Lordan & Alan Titley A reading by two Cork expatriates who have made their family homes in Dublin each is noted for their biting satire. Dave Lordan (poet) & Alan Titley (poet, novelist who works in Irish and English)

Triskel Arts Centre, Tobin Street. Time: 7.00 pm. Readings: Dennis O’Driscoll & John Hartley Williams Two distinguished poets, one Irish the other British whose work is dis- tinguished by their European sensibilities. Dennis O’Driscoll and John Hartley Williams.

Triskel Arts Centre, Tobin Street. Time: 9.00 pm. Saturday, 21st February Humour in Poetry Workshop A workshop focusing on humourwith in poetry Matthew with Sweeney poet Matthew Sweeney. Munster Literature Centre, Douglas Street. Time: 2.00 pm. Fee: €30. Limited to ten individuals.

Readings: Gina Moxley & Kevin Higgins A reading by two Irish writers who have established reputations as dramat- ic readers of their own work. Triskel Arts Centre, Tobin Street. Time: 4.00 pm.

Readings: Paddy Estonian, Paddy Irishman & Paddy Japanese Man Three absurdists not only from different corners of the globe, arguably from different corners of the universe. Andres Ehin, Gerry Murphy and Yatushiro Yoshimoto.

Triskel Arts Centre, Tobin Street. Time: 7.00 pm.

Readings: Julie O’Callaghan & Dan Rhodes A reading by American-Irish poet Julie O’Callaghan and British novelist Dan Rhodes.

Triskel Arts Centre, Tobin Street. Time: 9.00 pm. Further Information

Reservations

Reservations are only necessary for the workshop. Places at other events are on a first come, first served basis. Events start on time. To reserve a workshop space please phone the Munsterwill Literature Centre on 021-4312955. Further information is also available at www.munsterlit.ie.

Venues

The workshop will be held at the Munster Literature Centre, Frank O’Connor House, 84 Douglas Street, Cork.

All other events are at the Triskel Arts Centre on Tobin Street, off South Main Street and Grand Parade, Cork.

The Munster Literature Centre Frank O’Connor House, 84 Douglas Street, Cork, Ireland. Tel: (021) 4312955 Email [email protected] www.munsterlit.ie