Great to see that for the first time Dublin City Council’s One City, One Book project focuses on a book of poetry: IF EVER YOU GO: A Map of Dublin in Poetry and Song. Events are in full swing and will continue through the month of April .i’m delighted that my poem ‘In Memory of Veronica Guerin’ is included in this fine anthology and contributes one coordinate -albeit a sad and somewhat horrific one- to its richly detailed chart.
Me reading at the launch of Penny Dreadful Issue 3 last week in the Roundy, Cork
I’m delighted that my poem ‘The Click’ features in the new issue of the Penny Dreadful, a vibrant irreverent and essential addition to Ireland’s literary scene. Issue 3 adheres to the previously established standard with new work by Nuala Ní Chonchúir, Kevin Barry, Sarah Clancy and many more. Keep an eye out fro the Dublin launch, which is scheduled for April 4th.
I’ve never been to Washington but i’m delighted that this St Patrick’s Day some of my work will ve making an appearance there courtesy of The Stinging Fly and Solas Nua, the contemporary Irish arts organisation.
My poem ‘Lament for Christy Ring’ will feature in What’s the Story? an 180 page book jointly assembled by these two fine organisations. The book also features Colin Barrett; Kevin Barry; Mary Costello, Cliona O’Connell, Leanne O’Sullivan, Alan Jude Moore, Sarah Clancy, Elaine Feeney, Geraldine Mitchell, Tadhg Russell, Michael J. Farrell and Danielle McLaughlin. It’s a thrill to feature alongside such talented writers and poets.
As part of Solas Nua’s Irish Book Day volunteers will be handing out free copies of What’s the Story? at various metro stops around the city. If you know anyone who’ll be in town on Paddy’s Day tell them to keep a look out!
I’m delighted to have an article on the great Patrick Galvin in the lastest issue of The Stinging Fly as part of their ongoing and always very enlightening Re: Fresh series. I write how:
Galvin might forgive the assertion—shallow as it is—that he led a life most writers would kill for: a kind of Byronic picaresque, an adventure-packed careen betweensettings and situations that seems oddly impossible in a world shrunk and bounded by technology. As a child he would sell broadsheets of songs and ballads in pubs, ‘reciting them from bar counters when required’. He left school at the age of twelve and worked as a messenger boy, newspaper boy and cinema projectionist. Then in 1943, aged only sixteen, he travelled to Belfast in an attempt to join the American air force and take up arms against the Nazis. With the aid of a forged birth certificate, he ended up enlisting in the RAF and went on to serve with Bomber Command in the UK, the Middle East and Africa. In 1945 he ‘saw the bombed cities of Europe shortly after VE Day’.
You can read the rest of my piece -along with fine reviews by Rob Doyle, Doireann Ní Ghríofa and Sean O’Reilly- here. But buy the magazine. As always it’s full of some great new writing, including a flash fiction section edited by Nuala Ní Chonchúir that’s delightful and disturbing in perfectly equal measure.
I’m delighted that my poem ‘Schema’ features in issue 1 of Colony, a groundbreaking and visionary new online journal, which has been assembled by a grand coalition of Dublin’s most creative writers and editors. There’s much to like here: the breadth of taste, the exploitation of the online publishing’s potential vis-a-vis audio visual content, the willingness to move beyond a strict literary focus and broach the territory or music and visual art.
Perhaps above all there’s the editors’ palpable excitemnet about literature’s future; about what lies in store both for the medium itself and for its dissemenation. Who knows? In a few years the appearance of this first issue might be looked at as a crucial and game-changing intervention.
Billy Ramsell | Poet 