A New Ulster 106

FEATURING THE CREATIVE TALENTS OF JOSEPH PETERS, GAVIN BOURKE, GEORGE FREEK ROBERT PEGEL, BRIAN COSTELLO, MARK YOUNG, SUMMER QUINN, ANA SPEHAR, AIDENMICHAEL CASEY, DANIEL PICKER, EDITED BY AMOS GREIG.

A NEW ULSTER ISSUE 106 August 2021

UPATREE PRESS

Copyright © 2020 A New Ulster – All Rights Reserved.

The artists featured in this publication have reserved their right under Section 77 of the Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the authors of their work.

ISSN 2053-6119 (Print) ISSN 2053-6127 (Online) Edited by Amos Greig Cover Design by Upatree Press Prepared for Publication by Upatree Press

CONTRIBUTORS

This edition features work by JOSEPH PETERS, GAVIN BOURKE, GEORGE FREEK ROBERT PEGEL, BRIAN COSTELLO, MARK YOUNG, SUMMER QUINN, ANA SPEHAR, AIDENMICHAEL CASEY, DANIEL PICKER.

CONTENTS Poetry Joseph Peters

Page 1

Poetry Gavin Bourke

Page 6

Poetry George Freek

Page 16

Poetry Robert Pegel

Page 20

Poetry Brian Costello

Page 29

Poetry Mark Young

Page 31

Poetry Summer Quinn

Page 38

Poetry Ana Spehar

Page 40

Poetry Aiden Michael Casey Page 45 Poetry/Review Daniel Picker

Page 54

Editor’s Note

Page 62

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE: JOSEPH PETERS Joseph is an Irish student studying Information Technology, it Is his passion to work on blockchain technology, writing and literature have always been a big part of his life and have help me through some hard times he really dived into poetry when I came out in 2016 as it was a way to express myself through his words.

He strives to invoke feelings of love, loss, and joy to each reader.

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Ravaging beast The ravaging beast roaming the night, turns to you with eyes mesmerizing as the northern lights. Ravaging beast being held in its unguarded cage, voice coated with chimes which ignites a fright, ready to set off your fight or flight.

Circles, Deciding how best to devour its prey primed to lay waste, with a single taste.

The ravaging beast charging forward the tornado of fear within, violently tears its way through your vertebrae.

Sudden Snap, feeling of free-falling through the skies, sprung you up from your slumber sent your heart skipping and mind for a wander.

(Joseph Peters)

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semblance In a time with neither rhythm nor rhyme, where sycophants filled with seductive schemes, prayed on credulous minds with promises, of ridiculous ties to eminence and extravagant attainments.

The odious occupation held by these rapacious personages, prognosticates penury, while leaving the virile full of disquietude, such unbearable a trial betwixt corralling with or facing the agglomerative aversion of a crowd.

Those who chose to renounce and censure such fallacies aloud were met with the clincher of cuffs, then throw around so rough. The scornful nature of this ignominy, being beaten and belaboured thus came the conclusion to corral with the misguided crowd.

(Joseph Peters)

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Allegory Oh, Yee intrepid Younker eager to conquer: With such manner, full of enamour to win the most beautiful glamour, wearing this Indissoluble armour held prisoner by stammer.

But the imbuing strength and valour, rids one of such stammer, ushers forth the sanguine solution stripping away the odious occlusion, dressed now in the attire of desire Epoch of this omnipotent occasion, embroidered with vicissitude, then extinguished with great solicitude, by the ardent and munificent Younker brimming with valour while swimming in enamour, who only soughtafter the laughter of this beautiful glamour

(Joseph Peters)

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To terra The munificent Magnificence of Mother Nature an omnipotent creator who conducts Machination in a cordial manner yet laced with virile style, but us ungrateful rabbles rummage through her lungs, rapaciously repining such beautiful benevolence bestowed upon us, Malady motioned in her oceans causes commotion betwixt unrelenting usurpers, who disregard her powers and slaughter the creations in her oceans, thus delighting themselves with laughter and laudation with little to no consideration.

Once her apoplectic disposition rears its vengeful face and levels all in place, we cry for forgiveness towards firmament above, upon absolution from her odious disposition, the sycophants chant serving its purpose all this a mere legerdemain for gain.

Oh but a few ardent individuals full of disquietude for such issues, while being in enamour of her are imbued to remonstrate, facing ignominy such feeble censure put in place as a deterrent but disregard by fervent followers, purpose of such sonorous salvation being to enlighten the ignorant who’s facetious manner, the cause for the baleful blizzard thus far.

(Joseph Peters)

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BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE: Gavin Bourke Gavin Bourke grew up, in the suburb of Tallaght, in West Dublin. Married to Annemarie, living in County Meath, he holds a B.A. in Humanities, from Dublin City University, an M.A. Degree, in Modern Drama Studies and a Higher Diploma in Information Studies, from University College Dublin. His work broadly covers, nature, time, memory, addiction, mental health, human relationships, the inner and outer life, creating meaning and purpose, politics, contemporary and historical social issues, injustice, the human situation, power and its abuse, absurdism, existentialisms, human psychology, cognition, emotion and behaviour, truth and deception, the sociological imagination, illness, socio-economics, disability, inclusivity, human life, selfishness and its consequences, as well as urban and rural life, personal autonomy, ethics, commerce, science, grand schemes and the technological life, in English and to a lesser extent, in the Irish Language.

He was shortlisted for The Redline Book Festival, Poetry Award in 2016, for A Rural Funeral. Unanswered Call was published, in the September 2019 issue, of Crossways Literary Magazine. Sword Damocles, Falling, was published in the October issue, of A New Ulster, in 2019. He was invited, to read, at the Siarsceál Literary Festival, in October 2019. Louisburgh, County Memory, was highly commended, in The Johnathon Swift, Creative Writing Awards, 2019. Our Tree and Getting On, were published in, Qutub Minar Review, International Literary Journal, in 2019. He has worked, in public service, for over twenty years. His first book of poetry (sixty pages) was shortlisted, for the International Hedgehog Poetry Press (UK) Full Fat Collection, Poetry Competition, in 2019. The Power in Abuse, Beyond Bone, While the Jackdaws, Watch On and Fair Trade, were published in 2019, in A New Ulster. His poem Ag Iarraidh a Churam, Mo Intinn, Bhun Os Cionn, was shortlisted, for The Manchester, Irish Language Group, International Poetry Award, 2019. He won, the international, Nicely Folded Paper Trois, International Poetry Collection, Competition, in 2020, for his book, Towards Human, which will be, published by Hedgehog Poetry Press (UK) in 2021, worldwide.

The Past is Present Tense, Transcending Mind Movements, The Breaking Waters of Catharsis, The Never Heard and The Death of The Shepherd, were published, in the Decade Edition, of A New Ulster, in 2019. His poems Aloneness, Underneath A Wicker Cross, A Life in Our Times and At Mercies, featured in the April 2020 issue, of A New Ulster, in 2019. His poem Shivered, featured, in A New Ulster, in Spring 2020. A Rural Funeral, was published in the U.S. literary journal, Writers in the Know, in 2020. Before and After, Johnathan Swift Was Born, Malaises, My New Eyes, Turning Corners and The Mornings After Admission, were published, in A New Ulster, in 2020. A Life in A Time was published, in the U.S. journal Tiny Seed Literary Journal, in 2020. The End of Their Affair, and Beyond Bone, While the Jackdaws Watch On (2020 Version) were published in Poesis Literary Journal, as well as In the Dead Heat, in July 2020. Dream of Consciousness was published, in E-Ratio, Postmodern literary Journal, in 2020. A Mourning Burial, Through the Rain and several other poems were published in Prachya Review, Bangladesh, 2020. The End of Their Affair and The Past Coming Through, to The Present Moment, were published in Qutub Minar Review, in 2020. Before Love Was Legal, was longlisted, for the, Ken Saro-Wiwa, Poetry Award, in July 2020 and was featured, in a university anthology, published, in November 2020. Off Life-Support was published, in an anthology, created by the Siarscéal Literary Festival, 2020. His third poetry collection, Answered Call (81 Pages) was shortlisted, for The Hedgehog Poetry Press (UK), Selected or Neglected International Poetry Collection Competition, in May 2020. Dreaming in The Liminal and What If were published in Poesis International Literary Journal, in autumn 2020. Looking for An Eye in The Sun was published, in Chiron Review, November 2020. Anew, was published in Iris Literary Journal, in Texas, U.S, in 2020. Travelling Community and Eye Opening were published in Qutub Minar Review, International Literary Journal, in 2020.

In the Dead Heat, The Slowest Walk, Dreaming in The Liminal and Our Child, were published in Poesis Literary Journal in 2020.

Rhapsody for The Future was published in Writers in The Know, Minneapolis, Minnesota, U.S. 2020. Rhapsody for The Future was published in October Hill Literary Journal, New York City, October 2020. Sea Change was published in Litterateur Defining World, literary journal, in India, in September 2020. He will also be publishing, a single author collection, in India, in 2021. Aloneness was published, in the American Literary Journal, Brief Wilderness, in September 2020. Rhapsody for The Future was published in a new issue, of Writers in The Know, U.S. Cut with Blunt Knaves and Inflow appeared in The Non-Conformist Magazine, in September 2020. His 6

ninety-page manuscript, Anew, has been accepted for publication, by Atmosphere Press as well as, his manuscript, What If? in North America, for publication in 2021, worldwide. Towards the Headlights, As the Evening Fell and Dovetailing, were published in Poesis Journal in Autumn 2020. Eyes Gone Black, was published, in From Whispers to Roars, Literary Journal, An Arts and Literary Magazine, 2020. As the Evening Fell, appeared, in Tiny Seed Journal, U.S. The Heavy Weight Champion and Crow Lives On, were published in The NonConformist, 2020. Cut with Blunt Knaves, Inflow and Broken Dolls, appear in, the Autumn Edition of, the U.S. literary journal, Harbinger, 2020. Was So Sudden, was published, in The Non-Conformist Magazine, U.S., December 2020. He has poetry published, in the current edition of Qutub Minar Review. Purely Malignant, What If, Overhead and Dreaming in The Liminal, were published, in A New Ulster, in 2020. Living with Death was published, in The Non-conformist, in Autumn 2020. He was shortlisted and subsequently, commended, in the Jonathan Swift, International, Creative Writing Awards, for The Night, She Held My Hand, in October 2020. Enduring Beasts is published, in the current issue of U.S. Journal, Shift, A Journal of Literary Oddities. His epic poem (Eight Pages) Unremarkable was awarded, a place, for the Proverse International Poetry Prize, Hong Kong, 2020 and is published, in a university anthology in China, published, April 2021. Dublin is Here, A thirteen-page, epic poem, is published, in Modern Literature, in India, in the current issue.

Gavin was highly commended and awarded second place, for an unpublished manuscript, in the Hedgehog Poetry Press (UK), Local Dialects, International Poetry Manuscript, Competition, in November 2020. Confucius For King, was published, by Litterateur Defining World, in India, November 2020. Still Birth will be published in Poets Choice, India in 2021. Two Way Mirror, The Lighthouse, on The Green, Rain at Night, The End of The Summer, How to Be? and Let the Day Begin are published, in the current issue of Modern Literature, in India. The Most Brazen Wins will be published soon by Harbinger (U.S.) in 2021. Hadn’t Noticed the Birds for Years, was published in Autumn 2020 in Wingless Dreamer (U.S.) and was a finalist for their International Poetry Award, 2020. Endless was published by La Piccioletta Barca, in February 2021. First Tour featured in, Better Than Starbucks, in February 2021. The Night, She Held My Hand, is published, in the current issue, of Writers in The Know, Minneapolis, U.S. Living with Death is published in the current issue, of The Non-Conformist. Late in The Day is published in current issue of The Non-Conformist, 2021. Mirroring in Time’s Eyes and Continuums will be published in Poesis in Spring 2021. Morrison Archetype was published in October Hill Literary Journal, New York City, in February 2021. Gavin was shortlisted, for a recent, single poem, international poetry contest, with Hedgehog Poetry Press UK, 2021. Crossed Lines, Looking Back, Bone Dead and Soon Gone and A Meeting with The Riverman are published in the current issue of A New Ulster, 2021. To See If I Was Alive was published by South Dakota State Poetry Society in February.

He has three, new poems, published, in the current issue of Modern Literature, India, So I Shot, A Snapshot and Delicious Apple Tarts.

Upon the Sword of Change, an epic poem, is acted and performed as part of the No Bars Project, Competition, Leicester (UK) for poetry, on the theme of incarceration and is now available, on Instagram. His poetry was selected for Rattle, poetry, critique of the month, livestreamed in March 2021 (United States) Through Drying Eyes is currently published on the blog for WINK, Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. When the Healing Begins, To That End and Covered, will be published in Poesis Literary Journal (U.S.) in Spring, 2021. He was a semi-finalist, in Tatterhood Review (U.S.) International Poetry Competition, in March 2021.

I Dreamt of Clocks and Open Door, to the Dreamworld, will be published soon by Poesis (U.S.) Before and Defaulted will be published in The Hong Kong Review in June 2021. Rhapsody for the Future, Purely Malignant and The Prettiest Little Things will be published by Aura Literary Arts U.S. in 2021. Childhood Watersheds will be published in Poet’s Choice, India, in Spring 2021. The Writer, So I Shot, A Snapshot, Mattress Mick and Inhuman are published in the current issue of A New Ulster. I Took the Train Today, was published in The Meath Chronicle in April 2021. Working A Shipwreck is published in the current issue, of The Seattle Star, (U.S) At The Edge is published in the current issue of Harbinger Asylum (U.S.). A Disused Railway Line in Navan Town was published twice in The Meath Chronicle in May 2021. Gavin was a semi-finalist in The Button Eye Review (U.S.) international winter poetry contest, May 2021. The Spectacular Spire, Black Art, Treasure Chest, The Wonders of Weaving, Sawn, Your First Summer’s Love, Between the Lights, Down Memory Street and My husband Had A Miscarriage will be published in U.S. poetry journal Poesis soon. At The Tallaght Parade and The Old Town Centre will be published in the Echo Newspaper soon. He has been shortlisted for the Wingless Dreamer International Poetry Competition in The United States, June 2021 for Broken Dolls. His poetry features in the current issue of Chiron Review, New Haven (U.S.) Your Right To Live is currently published on the WINK blog Minneapolis, Minnesota, (U.S) Private Oratories, The Getaway Lake and Lakeside and back and The Sound of Bereavement will be published in Poesis (U.S.) soon. He will have a forty-poem collection, published in India in late June 2021. He is currently, working on his tenth, poetry collection. He begins, an M.A. in Creative Writing, in 2021, which will be followed, by a PHD, in 2023. Gavin is also a multi-instrumentalist and has been a songwriter, composer, and guitar teacher, for the past, thirty-five years. He plays Classical/Spanish guitar, acoustic-electric guitar, bass guitar, jazz guitar, electric lead guitar, banjo, and bouzouki. He has written songs, music and lyrics, recorded albums, collaborated with many musicians and songwriters and has performed, in venues, all over Dublin.

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Addiction is an Illness

Takes a long time, to get to grips, with the window, of tolerance, that’s if you ever really do.

To find the balance, between the extremes, and live a healthy and sustainable life.

After years of addictive living, with your drug of choice, you need continued support and advice.

It’s worth ignoring the most ignorant and selfish, who would kick you when you’re down, and attempt to score, points for themselves, gaining from your suffering.

It’s time, we viewed addiction, as an illness,

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like any other, which needs help, support, love and kindness, to save lives and eradicate, unhelpful stigmas.

(Gavin Bourke)

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Alternative Life They’ve no more interest than the cat, after they’ve taken your cash and maybe, your character, like a spit-n-sawdust hack, constantly justifying what they do, to the world.

The moon smoked over with cloud, transformed into a comet, like the cover, of a childhood library book, pulsating through the midnight sky, to an audience of one, in accordance with all that has come, before us, the best of green, from passing window screens, saving grace, for after meals.

Falling into night-time, Poolbeg, is everywhere, on carpark barriers, barbershop poles, in the view, to Drogheda, from O’Connell’s Pub, on published books, on drinking straws, cocktails, the practice of blood-letting, long, in my past.

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Anna Livia’s Home

Very well known, equally lauded, albeit somewhat derided, humorously, telling us much about public attitudes, to monuments, moved to a haystack by a needle, to pass through the eyes one more time.

The resting mermaid, Rapunzel-haired, faded pound notes, wryly-grinning, with stoicism, depending on the daylight, slouching somewhat siren like, statuesque, in an open-air zoo, stitched and fashioned, in barely-aged bronze.

Smelted, cooling on the brown water and lily-pods, surrounded by black iron gates and grills, fixed upon, a rectangular metal base, immovable, next to the reflections of seagulls and chimney tops, the monument representing the River Liffey, in form and constitution.

Now a welcome guest of Wolf Tone, in The Croppies Memorial Park, for many requiems and commemorations to come, 11

in the years ahead, close to the trainlines, ‘that heave on’, to Heuston.

Her back to the red-brick wall, bullets cannot penetrate bronze.

Surrounded, cut-off yet protected, ring-fenced by a moat, given the protection, of the water and the City.

(Gavin Bourke)

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Down By the Ramparts

Went down to the riverbank to meet the riverman, one autumn afternoon, I had a few questions of my own to ask him this time.

A dead branch half-submerged in the water on one side of the still waters, signs hung high-up on tree-trunks above soaked-teddy-bears, memories of lives taken too soon, pain slowly moving with time.

Under a cobalt-blue sky, under the eye of the sun, glistening on the water’s, thin surface.

Why did the river take them when they were vulnerable, why did it not have the compassion to hand them back to the bank when they stopped swimming and started floating forever?

Needless to say the river did not answer, but then again the river, is not human, imbued with the capacity for reason.

Looked up had to blink twice, a rope was not attached from the neck, of a stationary man to the branch of a tree, it was a line from a rod, being cast by an earnest fisherman that day, all was still and silent apart, from the ducks and drakes, cleaning themselves off fervently on a strange day.

Evening began its vespers and canticles and lit its candles as it saw fit, in the lightest breeze, unsuspecting sounds of drakes resembled agony, the water moving slowly on the ‘slow day’, the air coated in cobwebs, static, the chills of red autumn leaves, vibrant orchestral colours, only to be seen, within a short window once yearly, to be treasured by those who notice them, as a fleet of birds flew through the sky, at an exact right angle, perfectly together, the more the seemingly merrier, was odd to see for some strange reason, but signalled possibilities for unity of meaning and purpose.

(Gavin Bourke)

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In Darkness

A septic tank of the so-called bottom feeding leeches, and sycophants, what if every poet ran out of poetry, and the world was drained of all poetics?

Would anyone care or notice?

In life today.

All off their heads having long conversations, with wooden elephants, all off the wall, academics, on social benefits, prised from the jaws of randomness, before they closed and the lights went out.

Oh for the days you can see the flowers, not clip-on hair, clip-on smiles and clip-on faces and meaning and purpose, in whatever suits, at the time, never-ending mirroring and identity borrowing.

Plugholes, hiding maggot-tunnels and dead faces, urine stains on silk robes and designer gowns, dreamed it all out last night, stole a kite from the sky, and then a few more.

Melted a clock over my forearm, to the sounds of static, electricity, snapped the twine around, the neck joint, performers and performances in masks, misted breath, in the night air, walked inside a well-lit church, for the

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light and the good.

Bitten on the wrist by the mother of a murderer, high on the finest drink and drugs.

Wrapped in torchlight, walking through the spaces, in between the spaces in between, white on black, black on white, not knowing what is around the next corner, or u-bend.

(Gavin Bourke)

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BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE: GEORGE FREEK George Freek's poetry has recently appeared in "The Ottawa Arts Review"; "The Lake"; "Acumen"; "The Whimsical Poet"; "Triggerfish" and "Torrid Literature."

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THE MOON AND THE STARS IN HEAVEN (After Su Tung Po)

Tonight, the stars are bright.

The moon is a gold coin, but my eyes are on the hill overlooking a dark sea, I hope to climb.

I’ve climbed this path for forty years.

Am I a fool? After all, even the stars don’t last.

And I’m growing old, but still I don’t want to live in the distant past.

I watch a bird fly away, imagining his emotions.

Atop that hill, looking at life from above, I want to experience the thrill of his emotion with the moon and stars, reflected in the deep waters of that fearsome ocean.

(George Freek) 17

EPIPHANY (After Ou Yang Hsiu)

Having drank too much, I walk the deserted street, seeking relief in the night air.

But the past attacks me like a hoard of vultures, swooping in from their lair.

What harm can they do?

The stars look down from unimaginable heights.

The moon reveals missing teeth.

Dead leaves fall at my feet, but I have no time for regrets.

I return home late.

My wife is in the kitchen baking something for me.

I can still enjoy that, with a soothing cup of tea.

(George Freek)

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WRITTEN ON THE FIRST DAY OF SPRING (After Tu Fu)

Spring has now arrived.

The weather is mild, the wind blows from the south.

Flowers are ready to bloom.

Bees will swarm soon.

Young birds in their nest prepare to put wings to the test.

Even the sun seems to smile.

But pain suddenly hits me like the jab of a knife.

My chest hurts. My body is wracked by a cough, which burns my gut like molten lead.

I’d like to stay in bed, but my wife is calling.

I have to get up. I manage to smile. I try to be bold, but life is never easy as you grow old.

(George Freek)

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BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE: ROBERT PEGEL Robert Pegel is a husband and father whose only child, his son Calvin passed away nearly five years ago. Calvin was 16 and died in his sleep of unknown causes. Robert writes poetry as therapy to help him transform his pain and loss. He hopes to help others with his words and feelings.

He has been published in Trouvaille Review, The Galway Review, Bluepepper, Lothlorien Poetry, Ariel Chart, As Above So Below, Adelaide, The Pangolin Review, Unique Poetry and others.

He has work upcoming in Resurrection Magazine and Mason Street.

Robert lives in Andover, NJ USA with his wife, Zulma and their Min Pin dog, Chewy.

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Vapor

My son is gone.

But to where?

Energy doesn’t die.

It transforms.

Like water.

He is just a thought away.

In my mind.

All the time.

Open for communication.

The answer lies in connecting the space between us.

Where we meld into one and rise above the limitations of time and space.

Our hands lock together.

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As we float into an ethereal forever.

On a bright new adventure.

Floating freely into light and wonder.

Far away from the weary weight of the world left behind.

(Robert Pegel)

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Son’s Blessing

My son loved adventures.

He’d go everywhere trying to make new ones with his friends.

He’s gone now.

Died in his sleep at 16.

That’s just the fact.

And you can’t change facts.

One night in a dreamlike state he spoke to me.

“Please stop the sadness.

It’s enough already.

I’m over here and I’m okay.

I told you this already, when I sent you that message awhile ago.

You might as well enjoy your time over there.

Look at it as one big adventure.

Don’t take it so seriously.

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We all knew the rules going in.

Nothing lasts forever.

We’ll see each other again.

Sooner than you know it.

Do what you were born to do.

Maybe even enjoy yourself now and then.

Make some memories.

Get started already.

I give you my blessing.”

(Robert Pegel)

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Invisible Foe

Soon this world will be over and I will learn of the unknown victor I was fighting.

All this while I never had a chance.

Should have worked toward a peaceful surrender.

On that day I’ll be a martyr, a soldier who has lost yet won.

Will never forget the cost of the battle.

But will grow and be ready to begin anew.

With a newfound respect for this unique creature form we inhabit and the unknown entity we assign so much blame for our pain.

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Will ask for forgiveness and explain how I never knew he was on our side all along.

(Robert Pegel)

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Peaceful Ponder

Love to walk by the creek and hear the birds speak their secret language.

See them play in pairs like pilots in an air show.

Wish to fly now.

Seems like this whole lifetime is spent waiting.

Will miss the fleeting moments of joy but is it ever worth the pain?

Salvation is promised yet we don’t know a thing.

Day follows night but nothing can be made right when the best part of you is missing.

Would we choose to be born if we had a say?

Life is just a brief interlude

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between birth and dying and matters less than both in the big picture.

Some stay for a vacation or weekend while others live out a long sentence until their will or body break down.

Who knows why we are left to carry on this way.

(Robert Pegel)

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BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE: BRIAN COSTELLO Brian is a teacher for children with SEN in Limerick. He lives with his wife and three children in Ogonnolloe, County Clare,

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Omagh 14th August 1998 To pass time, I set myself a simple goal – every syllable of 'No worst, there is none.'

But it was Friday, I began to lull, leave off, sleepily drifting towards Gweedore.

The bus paused at an old checkpoint, I woke bemused by this unfamiliar chicane.

Waking again further on, we halted.

Two Spanish girls in front of me got off and I had no idea where I was – a place half asleep in the evening sun.

Rich brick veiled in summer light, it's glowing hearth – wherever it was, it was luring you in.

As the bus slipped away, it's name revealed, Omagh, Co. Tyrone, a beautiful town.

15th August 1998 After a day spent around the Downings, we cut across from Gortahork to Gweedore, avoiding the twists of Bloody Foreland.

Happily packed tight in a small blue car, exhausted we turned the radio on to the news that the mind has mountains, nay, monsters.

22 August, 1998 World leaders were yet to arrive. Silent, stateless they would walk up Market Street in disbelief, tearful … no-man-fathomed.

A supplicant priest held out his hands to offer the Our Father so defiantly.

Hersonissos, June 1999 An early hour giggle called me to the pool.

No costumes, no need for any shame – just the binding scars from the shrapnel hail.

Naked, feckless, so glad to be alive – two girls who'd met in the makeshift triage room

(Brian Costello)

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BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE: MARK YOUNG Mark Young was born in New Zealand but now lives in a small town in North Queensland in Australia. He has been publishing poetry for over sixty years, and is the author of around sixty books, primarily text poetry but also including speculative fiction, vispo, creative non-fiction, and art history. His most recent book is The Sasquatch Walks Among Us, from sandy press and available through Amazon.

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The will

This mechanism, with few unique items, no longer displayed. A rectangle duplicates its movements, but uses makeshift words.

Is it strange that an existing evil on which diplomacy stands turns a much greater profit than causal incarnation?

Such humor is not expected. He circumvents it, but doesn't quite know how to promote himself. How dare this object know what to do?

(Mark Young)

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The foundation for the renovations

In the city of Alma they came across with an export development plan saying why they love to show their horses. You should not have to write more than that, not have to explicitly define a

purpose. Somewhere Derrida pointed out that deconstruction represents a spirit of tireless critical vigilance against all claims to final possession of the truth of absolute justice. But the city is a

melting pot, can be an enormously stressful, like houses glimpsed through fog along narrow streets.

Make your voice heard and help fight the assault. How far has the apple fallen from Plato's tree?

(Mark Young)

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Nonet

I am sitting in the Medical Center parking lot

listening to Lionel Ritchie on the car stereo.

I can't decide which of the two is the worse.

(Mark Young)

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Three Postwoman Poems

1.

Today the postwoman brought me the plot of Bambi. She came empty-handed.

2.

Today the postwoman brought me the fourth day of Christmas.

Sorry I'm late, she said, but it's been a bit tricky trying to catch the calling birds without animal welfare

35

getting on my case.

3.

Today the postwoman brought me an unemployed dancing monkey. Put me down as someone who can't tell a lymph node from a lung, but I think there may currently be a search on for organ donors.

(Mark Young)

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A line from André Pieyre de Mandiargues

The image of the clown is free for commercial use; but neither attribution nor a population survey of caregivers can cover up

the cumulative effects of colonization it projects. Is sometimes said ethical norms don't apply to the theater or any other form of

art, are governed by another set of beliefs, naively considered to be personified by a song, Anything Goes. So wrong. The clown pro-

claims one side of the Janus face of slavery. Open to the madness of poetry, not cloaked in ignorance like the noble savage of Rousseau.

(Mark Young)

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BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE: SUMMER QUINN Originally from Connecticut, Summer Quinn spent the majority of her childhood traveling full-time across the US with her family. Her writing ranges from fiction short-stories and nonfiction essays to songs, bilingual poetry, and a novel, and her poetry has been published in TeenInk and A New Ulster, and her poem Smúiríneach won second place in Manchester Irish Language Group’s 2020 poetry competition.

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Abhaile The fair wild forests; Cold hills by the ocean, Oft in white snow bemist— Nutmegger’s potion.

Hidden below fog, Are streams softly flowing; Climbing above the fog, Are dark peaks all-knowing.

Fall sheds fire upon— In lieu of sun’s arist— Twisting paths of silence, In fair wild forests.

(Summer Quinn)

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BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE: ANA SPEHAR Ana is from Croatia, living in Cork for last 4 years. Her work was published in A New Ulster, Solstice sounds, Good Day News and an anthology "A Journey Called Home". She was invited to read at the Cork City Library for the World Book Festival 2018, the Winter Warmer poetry festival and at Many Tongues of Cork. One of her poems was also displayed on the Poetry Wall in Limerick. Her poetry is themed around love and her love of Ireland, her endless inspirations.

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You Are A Song

Let me read that sonnet Written deeply in your eyes.

With my lips let me feel The rhymes of your smile.

You carry poems in your heart.

Your soul is made of songs.

Take my hand in yours Cause that’s where it belongs.

(Ana Sephar)

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Your Voice

The sound of your voice, danced through the dark, Moved gracefully till it reached my heart And in the nothingness of emotion, it lit a spark.

A tiny spark that shone through my skin, my soul, every bit of me, every part.

And that was enough, for my heart to burn, For my body to shiver and my soul to yearn.

It came dancing through the dark, your voice so tender, It gave me hope and made my love surrender.

(Ana Sephar)

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Love Unknown

I never knew that I could love like this All that you are, your fingers, your hair and your lips And I never knew that a broken heart can hurt as much That my skin stings from the absence of your touch My eyes have cried out a thousand of tears My dreams are full of nightmares and fears As something sacred I am guarding your name Name that burns inside me with an eternal flame For this is love one of a kind, a love unknown Love like this hasn’t yet been born Whatever you say, whatever you do I will never stop loving you You are in my flesh, my bones, in my head I love you with a love that has no end And when years go by And there are no more tears left in my eyes This love will still be alive Love for your voice and love for your smile It will live longer than you and I Love for your touch and love for your eye And one day when I am gone It will live this love unknown From deep within the cold dark soil

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My soul will pump and love will boil And it will whisper : “Hear me, I am alive. “ For when the rest of me dies this love could never die

(Ana Spehar)

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BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE: AIDEN MICHEAL CASEY Aidan was born in Dublin and studied English and Philosophy at UCD. Since then, he has taught English in Spain, Germany and Ireland. He has poems in many online reviews including Crossways, Page and Spine, Lighten Up Online, Ink, Sweat and Tears, Pangolin Review and Morphrog as well as the Culture Matters anthology .

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Boom Remember those ACME detonators?

Just a box with a T-shaped handle to plunge down– and blow everything to kingdom come. I should maybe have left well enough alone. Instead, I blasted myself up- & outwards with such force, I am still travelling headlong into a pathless no-what, wondering what kind of void this is where either inertia or angular momentum pulls every point away from every other yet I still get the odd random whatsapp from some utterly peripheral individual who could not possibly have survived the catastrophe. And though I know nothing can ever make it back over the event horizon, I reply anyway.

(Aiden Michael Casey)

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The Don

Even a stopped clock is right twice a day and, yesterday, the Don looked at the war graves

and said, I don’t get it. What was in it for them? There was nothing in it for them and he would know.

Press-ganged or suckered into mutilation, dismemberment & death to line the pockets of plutocrats, they lost everything.

And now, their graves are watered with golden showers of honor, which is priceless and costs nothing.

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You think a little common sense could go a long way. Maybe not.

And the Don says, categorically, he did not say anything even remotely like that.

(Aiden Michael Casey)

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Compare and Contrast

Compare depreciation, loss of worth owing to the passage of time to damage, impairment of functionality occasioned by jumping out the window.

Not the same, not coeval even though they may co-exist.

What I love about this place is that, everywhere you look, there are girls on bikes: petite, large, limber-willowy.

Like this blonde, levering the pedals, striving uphill into wind or even rain.

Later, I see her with a guy, short, chinless, with glasses.

And I think, she’s at least an eight, what’s she doing with him? What’s he got that I haven’t? Friends? Hair?

A job? Nope. A future.

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For bonus points, compare flower arrangement to poetry to rearranging the furniture on the deck of the Titanic as the ice-cold blackness gurgles up, the rats scrabble in blind panic and the band plays, nonetheless, on.

(Aiden Michael Casey)

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Scarlett from The Rock

The other day, in the paper, I read the actor, Juliette Lewis & I thought, Srsly? I suppose this is about sexism, but then why not the actress, Mark Wahlberg or the actress, Colin Farrell?

Although that one actually works but I prolly shouldn’t say so.

How about the actor, J Lewis?

Cos really the Juliette is a dead giveaway. Or maybe we could just call everyone Bob, like Bob Johnson, so then no-one could tell Scarlett from The Rock.

(Aiden Michael Casey)

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Do Not Disturb

Does anyone care?

Night, a lonely road unwinds out of the dark.

Wide awake, she hears her tell-tale heart.

Wop-wop beats in her ears, salvation near.

Her eyes never shut or even waver.

Curled up with babies from the mini-bar, bare closets, angled hangers— Be like us, dear.

Wop-wop whirs on her ears, fan blades chop the air.

The flowers are not real and it’s not over.

It’s cold now, so cold now, there’s Elvis looking blue.

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Mute calls, mixed messages struggle to get through.

Wop-wop purrs on her ears, from very far away.

The sign says DO NOT DISTURB, that’s what it’s meant to say.

(Aiden Michael Casey)

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BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE: DANIEL PICKER Fiction by Daniel Picker has appeared in The Abington Review, The Kelsey Review, The 67th Street Scribe, The Adelaide Literary Magazine,(NYC), and Scribe of Macaulay Honors College CUNY. Nonfiction by Daniel Picker has appeared in The Georgia Review, Harvard Review, The Sewanee Review, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Copperfield Review, The Oxonian Review, The Irish Journal of American Studies,(IRL), The Stanford Daily, Rain Taxi Review of Books, Middlebury Magazine, and many others. Daniel Picker is the author of a book of poems, Steep Stony Road, and won The Dudley Review Poetry Prize at Harvard University. Daniel’s memoir “Eat Your Good Lamb” on studying with Seamus Heaney at Harvard appears in The Oxonian Review of the University of Oxford where Daniel studied English after studying English at Harvard. Daniel’s poetry has appeared in Sequoia: The Stanford Literary Magazine, Elysian Fields Quarterly, Soundings East, Vermont Literary Review, Folio, RUNE: MIT, Ireland of the Welcomes Magazine, and The Dudley Review at Harvard, among many others.

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OLD IRELAND: “Isle of Wondrous Beauty” My mother used to say, “The Irish fought the English with sticks,” she never mentioned “Vinegar Hill” or 1798, that year known simply as “98.” We all knew something of famine, potato blight, black mould.

My mother’s father “was killed by a hit and run driver” in West Philadelphia where during The Depression neighbors gave her bread for her little brother, our Uncle John; and Uncle Frank, Grandmom’s brother helped out some.

Later, Pal, mom’s English teacher recommended her to Ursinus College where she “worked her way through, the first to do so,” she loved to say later.

She met Dad in Atlantic City while working there one summer, and soon my oldest sister arrived, after they married back in Philadelphia, then another daughter, then Grandmom lost her eyesight, went blind “from running out in the cold with wet hair,” dad and mom said.

My older brother, the last born in the city, before they moved here to this old, small town where I arrived, then my little brother too.

Later, Uncle Frank joined us after Dad had left, and Uncle recalled, “Babe Ruth and Connie Mack,” “Dempsey – Tunney and The Sesquicentennial,” and when I mentioned tennis, “Little Bill and Big Bill.”

Years later Mom recalled “How green Ireland looked from above and landing at Shannon once”; “I felt at home there, connected,” she said, and only then did Ireland become as Whitman wrote: “An isle of wondrous beauty.”

(Daniel Haney Picker) 55

On Seamus Heaney by R.F. Foster Princeton University Press 2020, 228 pages, $19.95 Hardcover On Seamus Heaney and “Death of a Naturalist” and The Troubles Review by Daniel Picker, MA

Roy F. Foster, historian, has produced one of the finest books to date on Irish poet and Nobel laureate, Seamus Heaney. Foster’s book, On Seamus Heaney covers both Heaney’s work and his life, in a compact format and accessible style which both scholars and students will welcome. Any avid or even casual fan of Heaney’s work should also welcome this book and find it a congenial addition to his or her personal library.

R.F. Foster, Emeritus Professor of Irish History at the University of Oxford is the ideal scholar of Heaney’s work as it remains chocked full with allusions to the history of Ireland.

The book weighs in at a mere 228 pages with its “Index” and penultimate “Brief Reference Notes.”

Foster’s five-page “Preface and Acknowledgements” precedes the text of this compact hardcover tome which stands just 7 ½” x 5.” This handy format would slip well into the pocket of a tweed jacket if one were to visit The Republic of Ireland or the North of Ulster. On Seamus Heaney appears as the latest addition to the “Writers on Writers” series of Princeton University Press, which already includes Michael Dirda On Conan Doyle, John Burnside On Henry Miller, and Philip Lopate Notes on Sontag, along with four other instalments in the series. Heaney, who died in 2013, and his work deserve serious attention.

Foster organizes his book in eight distinct chapters, beginning with “Certus” on Heaney’s early days at university when he first began to publish poems under the pseudonym “Incertus.” Foster makes certain, that despite Heaney’s hesitant penname, his early work and steps into the literary world occurred with a certain sure-footedness. From a farmhouse in Derry, Ireland, to Queen’s University, Belfast, Heaney knowingly stepped forward with a sense of irony, in not only his pseudonym, but also in his poetry. Foster handles well Heaney’s early poems, which hold a connection to nature; these poems, like “Digging” and “Death of a Naturalist” and Heaney’s later works in response to the works of W.B. Yeats’ “The Lake Isle of Innisfree” and “The Wild Swans at Coole” will reinvigorate past readers of Heaney and Yeats.

Heaney’s strategy of striding beside and across borders and boundaries set Heaney’s balanced tone, which addressed forces exerting pressure from both without and within. Perhaps some readers may find it surprising when on the first page, Foster alludes to the work of T.S. Eliot, an American-born poet who became a British subject: “Like T.S. Eliot, a constant if oblique presence in his writing life, he prized gaining access to ‘the auditory imagination’ and what it opened up, ‘a feeling for syllable and rhythm, penetrating far below the levels of conscious thought and feeling, invigorating every word’.” Foster astutely concludes, “His readers felt they shared in this.”

Surprisingly, and perhaps more so to American readers, also early in the first chapter, Foster notes that “Heaney’s inner certainty of direction” along with “his charisma, style, and accessibility” inspired some resentment among both critics and fellow poets, especially those from Northern Ireland, whom Heaney moved on from as his work and career took him into circles beyond Belfast.

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Foster acknowledges the “indispensable” interviews of Dennis O’Driscoll’s Stepping Stones of 2008, and Foster alludes briefly to Helen Vendler’s scholarly commentaries, as “long one of his closest readers.” As was the case with Vendler, Foster benefitted from actually knowing Heaney; Vendler and Heaney were colleagues at Harvard, and Foster, a historian at Oxford, enjoyed Heaney’s Oxford lectures during Heaney’s appointment as Professor of Poetry there. Both Vendler’s book, Seamus Heaney and Foster’s book, On Seamus Heaney benefit from some insider’s information. But Foster’s book steps beyond Vendler’s due to the retrospective nature of his work; as a historian he looks back on Heaney’s entire career, now encapsulated in this book produced after Heaney’s death, while Vendler’s book appeared nearly 25 years ago, in 1998, while Heaney’s late career lay ahead of him.

Foster’s ability as a historian to contextualize Heaney’s work remains the most profound strength of On Seamus Heaney. First, Foster notes that Heaney began writing serious verse among a Protestant community of poets in Northern Ireland, which included Michael Longley and Derek Mahon, and hovering in the background, the Protestant Northern Irish master Louis MacNeice. Foster writes eloquently of MacNeice’s place in the early context which Heaney grew in response to, and eventually flew beyond: “For Longley and especially Mahon, Louis MacNeice was a vitally important precursor.” But Heaney’s Catholicism lent him an outsider status in the North, and Longley and Mahon, both products of the formerly Protestant Trinity College Dublin held an urban ironic sophistication quite different from Heaney’s rural upbringing on a farm in Derry, Northern Ireland.

Foster’s book, remarkably, surprises, when he notes that early editors, including the founding editor of The Honest Ulsterman later felt “envy” toward Heaney, who enjoyed early publication in that Northern Irish journal, but far eclipsed its editor, James Simmons, in success. Foster does well recapturing Heaney’s Catholic upbringing which existed in sharp contrast to the work of MacNeice: “Heaney admitted that MacNeice did not – at this stage ‘speak’ to him; he would later stress that his immersion in Catholic theology and practice at St. Columb’s, ‘living the liturgical year in a very intense way’, instilled an atmosphere which attuned him to Hopkins – a Catholic priest – as his ‘main man’.” Foster goes on to note Heaney’s take on Hopkins’ work at this time: “‘What you encounter in Hopkin’s journals – the claustrophobia and scrupulosity and ordering of the mind, the cold-water shaves and the single iron beds, the soutanes and the self-denial – that was the world I was living in when I first read his poems.’” These remarks seem akin to James Joyce’s early masterwork, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man; Foster does allude to Joyce’s work on a handful of occasions as it has influenced Heaney’s work, particularly in the long poem of pilgrimage, “Station Island” with its Dante-esque shades and Catholic overtones. Some readers may find it surprising that as a young man Heaney participated in several serious Catholic pilgrimages, to both Lourdes in France and to Station Island in Ireland.

For readers of Heaney’s early poems in Death of a Naturalist and Door into the Dark Hopkins’ influence appears in the percussive sounds and pulsing rhythms of Heaney’s well-known poem, “Digging” and “Death of a Naturalist” with its bellowing amphibians: bullfrogs. Heaney’s background: Catholic, rural, and agrarian seems to galvanize his affinity for the work of Patrick Kavanagh, another Irish master whose work though written in the 20th century brings to light the connection to the soil in rural Ireland. Also, present is the spirit of the earth present in the early work of William Butler Yeats.

As Heaney’s work progresses, it does not appear Catholic in the same sense that some of Hopkins’ verse remains; Heaney’s work seems catholic only in that it is universal; Foster notes that late in his career Heaney 57

became only nominally Catholic. Of course, the towering figure of Irish poetry, and Heaney’s fellow Nobel laureate, William Butler Yeats exerted some presence which Heaney in his work had to address and reckon with, and Yeats, unlike Joyce, Kavanagh, and Heaney was not a Catholic. But Yeats did have a familial connection to the Irish soil in Sligo, in what became the Irish Republic; Yeats too, like Louis MacNeice had a familial connection to the Protestant clergy in Ireland. Foster does well in fully addressing Heaney’s grappling with the legacy of Yeats.

Foster organizes his work chronologically. In his second chapter, “Kinship” Foster begins to investigate Heaney’s early response to The Troubles which began in Northern Ireland in 1969, and resulted in sectarian violence not only in Ulster, but elsewhere in the UK. The Troubles recur through to 1985 when an Anglo – Irish Agreement is broken, then on to 1993 when an IRA ceasefire is broken just two years after its initiation. Heaney continues to respond to the violence throughout his writing career, sometimes retrospectively, linking an event from decades back to his present situation.

As a historian of Ireland, and of Irish birth himself, Foster, like Heaney, appears in the advantageous position to place Ireland’s late 20th century Troubles in a centuries-old historical context. Heaney’s sonnet and early masterpiece, “Requiem for the Croppies” brings to the fore an extended episode in Irish history, which culminated in 1798, yet still resonates today. This poem, even in its 14-line brevity demonstrates the power Heaney’s poetry holds. Foster sagely notes, “The tentative politics of ‘Door into the Dark’ took a more decided form in a celebrated poem about the 1798 Rising ‘Requiem for the Croppies’, with its powerful closing image of the pocketfuls of barley seeds buried with the slaughtered rebels and sprouting from the ground a year later.” Foster follows the sentence with a connection to the Troubles in Ireland in “1969” and connects those Troubles to an allusion: “this could look like an invocation of blood sacrifice in the style of Patrick Pearse” who was a martyr of The Easter Rising in Ireland of 1916 which eventually gave birth to The Republic of Ireland. Foster goes on to note that “the British Army [was] on the streets of Belfast and the birth of the Provisional Irish Republican Army.” Foster also notes that Heaney ceased reading this poem in public at that juncture.

One could simplify somewhat and note that Heaney response to The Troubles, which he contextualized in Irish history gave birth to one of the more remarkable qualities to Seamus Heaney’s literary endeavor: Heaney’s ability to see issues of “sectarian violence” and “religious” or “tribal loyalties” stretching back many centuries and to witness those issues in The Troubles in this deeply-ingrained background, which Heaney called “the tribal dirt” gave the work a special resonance. Foster’s chapter “Kinship” on Heaney’s response to The Troubles remains the most powerful in On Seamus Heaney. For readers interested in an outsider’s take on The Troubles from a period about a decade later, Paul Theroux’s chapters on Ulster at the heart of his book from 1983, The Kingdom by the Sea also offer a first-hand account on The Troubles from someone trying to comprehend yet at the same time not taking sides.

But “Kinship” is not the only chapter in Foster’s exemplary book which deals with the Troubles. Heaney circles back to the Troubles repeatedly in his work, and addresses it in his lectures, essays, and poetry.

Despite a brokered peace agreement in the mid-1980’s, The Troubles continued into the 1990’s. This cycle of violence informs Heaney’s poetry for decades as he kept circling back to it; especially in his book North he dealt directly with the political and violent turmoil which for Heaney were synonymous with human history. By the mid-1970’s the Heaney family had relocated to the Republic of Ireland, living in a cottage in Wicklow, and teaching part of the year at the University of California, Berkeley, where Heaney became good 58

friends with Irish-American scholar and historical novelist Thomas Flanagan, who was an academic there.

It was in Wicklow, in the Republic that Heaney completed and awaited the publication of North; living in the south gave Heaney the perspective to complete that work, and after 1979, to embark on more personal verse in Field Work. At this time Heaney began teaching half the year at Harvard University in the United States, and during this time Heaney would purchase a home just south of the heart of Dublin near Sandymount Strand, and within walking distance of the Martello Tower, now a Joyce Museum, where James Joyce briefly lived and where Joyce set the early chapters of his novel Ulysses.

If there exists a small omission in Foster’s remarkable book, it appears in his section on Heaney’s mid-career masterpiece, Field Work which includes Heaney’s most lyrical and most masterful sonnet sequence, “The Glanmore Sonnets” which includes the eloquent couplet: “Vowels ploughed into other opened ground/ Each verse returning like the plough turned round.” It seems Foster for the sake of brevity and due to his personal tastes spends some time analyzing just a few of the sonnets; while he does spend enough time providing background on Heaney’s move to Wicklow, within the mountains west of Dublin, where the Heaneys first rented, then later purchased a rural cottage or retreat, he fails to truly investigate all these sonnets and the power they still exert.

Foster is at his best noting the connections between Irish history, and the history of The Troubles particularly, as addressed in Heaney’s poems and lectures, including the Nobel lecture, “Crediting Poetry” of the mid-1990’s. In Foster’s 3rd chapter, “The Same Root” and his 4th chapter, “In the Middle of his Journey,” and again in the 6th chapter, “The Moment of Mortality” Foster finds Heaney’s response to The Troubles deepens yet again.

Foster notes: “Simply being called ‘Seamus’, he caustically pointed out, made his position on Northern Ireland implicitly clear, as the name’s Gaelic provenance implied a nationalist background – ‘sure-fire Pape’, he would later put it in a famous polemical poem.” That poem, “Whatever You Say Say Nothing” from North remains both a sophisticated and direct response to The Troubles and the tribal loyalties, secret communications, nuances of language, and fear engendered by cycles of violence that pervaded Irish history.

Stylistically, the poem also reveals not only Heaney’s mastery of language, but also his prowess with the Northern Irish vernacular, and colloquial language in general, as in “the wink and nod.” “Whatever You Say Say Nothing” brilliantly moves in the penultimate stanza toward the conclusion of Part III of the poem: “That Norman, Ken and Sidney signalled Prod/ And Seamus (call me Sean) was sure-fire Pape/ O land of password, handgrip, wink and nod, / Of open minds as open as a trap,”; the final quatrain of Part III, rife with historical and literary allusion concludes: Where tongues lie coiled, as under flames lie wicks, Where half of us, as in a wooden horse Were cabin’d and confined like wily Greeks, Besieged within the siege, whispering morse.

There is so much to admire within Foster’s excellent book: his astute analysis of Heaney’s poems, his synthesis of disparate sources, including Heaney’s notebooks and letters, his identification of historical and literary allusions, and his thorough understanding of the rural culture, and the literary, religious, and political 59

milieu from which Heaney emerged. With his historian’s understanding of Ireland’s fraught history, and his cultural and personal affinity for Heaney’s poetry, life, generosity, and work, R.F. Foster has created a wonderful explication, which is more than an overview of Heaney’s life work. Foster, as was the case with Heaney, even exhibits some appropriate humor; upon Heaney’s departure south from Belfast for a rural cottage an hour west of Dublin in the Republic of Ireland, the folks Heaney left behind felt betrayed: “The overcompensation is palpable, but the resentment was real. To some Northern minds, Heaney, already suspect from his Californian sojourn and Faber connections, had decamped to somewhere that suggested Grub Street and Sodom rather than a damp cottage on an obscure country road in County Wicklow.”

After studying with Seamus Heaney at Harvard I began a teaching career, and Seamus wrote a letter of recommendation for me. Later, I recalled a prose assignment for his The Practice of Poetry class; one of the options was to compare Robert Lowell’s poem “Water” with Elizabeth Bishop’s poem “North Haven.”

That was the option I selected. Seamus noted on my essay, that my response was “judicious.”

I heard him read three times after my time at Harvard: once outside of Philadelphia at Bryn Mawr College where I attended with my mother and stepfather, and after the reading we made small talk and I introduced my mother and stepfather to him. He signed a copy of Sweeney Astray and my stepfather complimented him by saying, “You are as great as they say you are.” Later, at the reception he introduced me to Eudora Welty, and we also made small talk.

The last time I heard him read was at the 92nd Street Y in New York City. He read well and held up a Fireman’s helmet that had been given to him, he related it to September 11 th, which had occurred five years earlier, and read his poem “Helmet” and a number of other poems.

Over the years I wrote Seamus brief letters and he wrote back, and often he sent postcards, from Massachusetts, from Harvard, and from Dublin. I sent him a postcard from the GPO in Dublin, the famous General Post Office where The Easter Rising in 1916 began, and he later wrote back that he “was glad I made it to Ireland.” When I was out in Kinvara, near Galway, Ireland, and visiting sites associated with Yeats: Coole Park and Thor Ballylee, I learned that the gentleman who ran the rural hotel where I was staying was friends with Seamus, and he called him up on the phone; I had said earlier I did not wish to bother him. But the gentleman, whose name escapes me now, said that Seamus was on his way to Scotland and did not have time to visit with me if I were back in Dublin, where I would return in a few days.

Through the power of the Internet, one may find many photographs and even sound and video recordings of Seamus Heaney reading his poetry and answering questions in interviews. I see how he aged over the years. When I was his student, I was just 23 and he was about 45. That was many years before his death, and many years before where I am today. A long time ago. But I still enjoy hearing his voice on those recordings, even without the video, but with the video he is less disembodied. I miss hearing him.

I am glad I visited Ireland and I would like to return. In one of his last readings in New York City, Heaney read a passage from T.S. Eliot’s “Little Gidding” from The Four Quartets. Heaney mentioned the idea of “the soul as transfigured.” R.F. Foster addresses connections to those issues within Heaney’s work, and Heaney’s fondness for that long poem from Eliot in On Seamus Heaney eloquently. Heaney returned to Eliot’s poem at several junctures in his writing life, and now readers may re-engage with Heaney’s thoughtful responses.

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EDITOR’S NOTE We hope you enjoyed the August edition of A new Ulster; it is difficult to fathom how time has flown in this global crisis but one constant is the continued productive output of artists around the world. It is never easy handling other people’s work and ensuring that everything fits when formatting the magazine but we do our best.

One of the surprising things lately has been the issue around fandom and the question of ownership of franchises such as Star Trek, Star Wars and now He Man and the Masters of the Universe. The latest animated series of MOTU followed the Mattel bible and yet the outcry from a significant and predominantly male audience has been surprising especially as their beloved He Man barely featured in the mini series but Teela a woman was the main character for some reason this caused uproar.

Surprisingly Teela was actually the first character designed for the franchise and has two intertwined backstories which they never got to fully explore in the mini comics, toy line or the animated series. Mattel made the team put a writer’s room together and they fleshed out every character, their interrelations, motivations and connection to the settings past, they hired artists to design the characters and those artists work laid the basis for all the figures in the toy line.

So, the question becomes who owns a franchise once it has been released? Is it possible to enjoy new content even if it goes against your head canon? Worth thinking about.

Happy reading, good health, and keep creating, Amos Greig (Editor)

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