!1 The Blue Nib Magazine 39 New Poetry, Fiction & Essays September 2019 ! ISBN 978-1-9161545-1-3 !2 The Blue Nib Magazine 39 New Poetry, Fiction & Essays September 2019 First published in Ireland in 2019 by The Blue Nib Copyright © The Blue Nib The rights of the contributors to be identified as the authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Design and Patents Act of 1988 All rights reserved Cover image from Pixabay Every effort has been made to reflect each author’s intention Regarding the format and content of their piece, however the default style, which has been applied, is Times New Roman 12, single-spaced, and the formatting reflects The Blue Nib’s own house style !3 Editorial: Dave Kavanagh Managing Editor Welcome to Issue 39 of The Blue Nib 7 Essays Does Poetry Matter? - by Clara Burghelea 9 Poems As Time Machines - by John D. Kelly 13 Absence Eased - by Edward Lee 21 London in July - by Gráinne Daly 24 A Critical Examination of 21st Century Poetry 26 Poetry From Ireland, England & Elsewhere Selected By Clara Burghelea Editorial 37 Featured Poet - J. Taylor Bell 40 Interview with featured poet - J. Taylor Bell 47 Featured Poet - James Finnegan 51 Featured Poet - Rona Fitzgerald 54 Patrick Green 56 Lucy Crispin 58 Brian Rihlmann 59 Sean Smith 60 Mina Moriarty 61 Bojana Stojcic 62 Anne Ballard 65 Ysella Sims 66 Anita Gracey 67 Umit Sener Ta 68 Marilyn Francis 69 Rae O’Dowd 70 Denise O’Hagan 71 Alison Ross 73 !4 Maria Pascualy 74 Margaret Pritchard Houston 75 Fiona Sinclair 76 Sue Morgan 77 Dominic Fisher - Fast Food 78 Susan Castillo Street 79 Caoimhe McKeogh 80 Reviews Curated By Emma Lee Reviews Editorial 83 out of emptied cups - Anne Casey 84 How to Wear Grunge - Ruth Stacy 89 Table Manners - Susmita Bhattacharya 92 The Perseverance - Raymond Antrobus 94 Poetry From The US & Canada Selected By Mike Griffith Editorial 97 Featured Poet -Samn Stockwell 98 Featured Poet -Liz Balize 102 Daniel Edward Moore 104 Michael Lewis Beck 105 J.P. Mayer 106 Gary Glauber 107 Jade Riordan 109 Cheryl Caesar 110 William Joel 112 Alec Solomita 114 Karen Petersen 115 Carolyn Martin 116 Isobel Cunningham 118 George Franklin 120 Meghan Purvis 121 !5 Bhodi Tims 122 Guinotte Wise 123 P.C. Vandall 124 Carly Heider 126 Short Fiction Selected By Seanín Hughes Editorial 130 Featured Author -Roisin Maguire 131 Featured Author -Kelli Allen 137 Rachael Murphy 140 David Butler 147 Poetry From Australia & New Zealand Selected by Denise O’Hagan Editorial 154 Featured Poet - Peter Bakowski 156 Peter Bakowski -Interview 157 Featured Poet -Anne Casey 159 Peter Rimmer 165 C S Hughes 169 James Walton 173 E.A. Gleeson 178 Ali Whitelock 181 Richard James Allen 187 Back Pages -From Our Contributing Editors. The trick to Writing is -by Melissa Todd 189 Ada Wofford – Dive 192 !6 Editorial: Dave Kavanagh Managing Editor Welcome to Issue 39 of The Blue Nib" September has come around so quickly. Here in the northern hemisphere the days are shortening and the summer is fading towards the sweet decay of autumn, while our friends in the antipodes are moving towards their summer. It reminds us how small the world is and how we are all wonderfully connected. This is the 39th issue of The Blue Nib but it is also a first in many ways. This issue sees work selected by our new team of editors and what work it is." I am excited to see some younger poets here. I’m impressed by the work of award-winning young poet Rosie Bogumil and equally so by another young Australian poet, Erin Frances. Rebecca D’Arcy and Rae O’Dowd are among Clara’s selections for this issue, two more young writers with bright futures ahead of them. Clara interviewed J. Taylor Bell, a promising young poet from Fort Worth, Texas. Taylor Bell is studying an MA in Poetry at Queen’s University in Belfast, Northern Ireland, where he is the Seamus Heaney Centre International Scholar of 2018-19. Denise chose Peter Bakowski as her featured poet. Bakowski is a recipient of The Victorian Premier’s Prize for Poetry. Mike Griffith has a wide selection from the US and Canada and presents you with some outstanding poetry. Wiliam Joel brings us 5 sonnets, and winner of the National Poetry Series (USA) Samn Stockwell, treats us to some fine poetry. In fiction, Seanín Hughes brings us Kelli Allen’s 100 Knots, Rachel Murphy’s, Ruler of The Roost and David Butler’s, Zither Music. But the surprise among this group of stories is the powerful Cacophony by Roisin Maguire which will have you reading and rereading. This is a work full of emotion, nuance and colour. Emma Lee has selected four reviews for this issue. Susmita Bhattacharya’s Table Manners, Raymond Antrobus The Perseverance, reviewed by Professor Richard Lance Keeble, Ruth Stacey’s How to Wear Grunge, reviewed by James Fountain and finally, Anne Casey’s second collection with Salmon poetry, out of emptied cups. !7 I had the daunting task of selecting essays from quality submissions, a difficult task as space limits us. The simple narrative of Gráinne Daly’s 'London in July,' and the style of John D. Kelly’s 'Poetry as a Time Machine,' make these two impressive essays. Lastly, I am very pleased to have this opportunity to introduce two of our Contributing Editors. Melissa Todd and Ada Wofford. You will find work from both in the back pages. !8 Essays Does Poetry Matter? - by Clara Burghelea" Does poetry matter? Is there still an urgency when it comes to reading poetry? Do we thrive on its subtle, elusive presence? Or, can we survive without it? This is an old debate that never loses ground. Stephanie Burt’s Don’t Read Poetry, Basic Books (May 2019) is a book about how we meet and read poems, discover their joys and preconceptions, from Shakespearean sonnets and other classics, to Instagram poetry and Pokémon characters. It is also a personal journey into the inner workings of poetry and a reframing of its bounty and delight in the eyes of the reader. Like Stephanie Burt, I am a poet, though this is not something that I say loudly to everyone. Poetry is not my daily occupation, but it is my constant preoccupation; still, I refrain from sharing it. It is not that I am ashamed of it, on the contrary, I take great pride in the poems I have written and published. But I am rather uncomfortable mentioning that my poetry comes from a place of grief. Given my resistance and most people’s reaction to poetry, it begs the question: Where does this tendency to omit or overlook poetry in our daily interactions come from? And, why do we think of poetry as either being elitist or cryptic? I am Romanian born but write my poetry in English. I am the first poet in my traditional family and so I am an oddity. In my everyday life, I am a translator and an educator, both more manageable in terms of a suitable job for a woman of my background, where a female poet can often be ignored or jokingly tolerated. Apart from the sexist barriers, there is still something fearful for many in the way any poetry feels or sounds and the way it threatens to displace readers and challenge them in a manner they find unsettling. Many people are put off by the expectation that poetry comes with a set of rules or a level of comprehension that they might naturally lack. When my father first heard me speak of my poetic tribulations—the rejections, the endless revisions and re-editing and the fickleness of the muses -he was confused. It didn’t fit the image he had of me. He candidly asked me where I found the time to tend to such concerns. I was a full-time, working mother and given my domestic duties, I must have been writing at nighttime. He was worried for my health and advised me to give up this ludicrous occupation. On top of that, when he read my poems, he said they were too intellectual for his taste. This is the case for one poet and !9 hardly applicable to all others. But it is perhaps typical of the kinds of challenges that arise on the path for anyone becoming a published poet. What I find intriguing is the perception people have of poetry and its purpose. In the introduction to her book, Stephanie Burt speaks of how easy it is to access poetry – its brevity, its ability to be read aloud, performed, collected, memorised – and yet, few people read it. She sets out to explain why people love or hate it and in doing so, comes up with arguments for liking poetry. She speaks of connecting past poems or poets to contemporary ones and addressing the cultural diversity of the world we live in and its assortment of tastes. Credit is given to the invaluable role translation plays in making the literary world accessible to a versatile, demanding, fast-changing crowd of readers. Poetry is meant to introduce us to other people, make us empathic and willing to connect, open us up to our inner selves, build communities, ignite revolutions, feed hunger, sharpen senses, help us, at least, come to a meaningful purpose for reading it. But the fact is, poetry lacks a definite, absolute purpose. It is often about the journey it takes us on, without any promise, or need of knowing its history or technical terms.