FEATURING THE TALENTS OF Patricia Kamradt, Paul Boden, George Freek, Zuwena Mohammed, Fionnuala Curran, Ashley Dunn, Dara Berkeley, Saeed Salimi Babamiri, Terry Brinkman and Heath Brougher EDITED BY AMOS GREIG
A NEW ULSTER ISSUE 116 August 2022 UPATREE PRESS
Copyright © 2022 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 Patricia Kamradt, Paul Boden, George Freek, Zuwena Mohammed, Fionnuala Curran, Ashley Dunn, Dara Berkeley, Saeed Salimi Babamiri, Terry Brinkman and Heath Brougher
CONTENTS Poetry Patricia Kamradt Page 1 Poetry Paul Boden Page 3 Poetry George Freek Page 6 Poetry Zuwena Mohammed Page 10 Poetry Fionnuala Curran Page 12 Poetry Ashley Dunn Page 17 Poetry Dara Berlkely Page 28 Poetry Saeed Salimi Babamiri Page 31 Art/Poetry Terry Brinkman Page 33 Poetry Heath Brougher Page 40 Editor’s Note Page 46
1 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE: PATRICIA KAMRADT Patricia is an adoptee who has written Digging into my Irish Roots, He Waited For Me, Navigating Our Way Through The Labyrinth An Adoptees Journey with Chrystal Kamradt and Birds Butterflies and Wildflowers: Beauty in Nature.
2 Time Minute by minute Hour by hour Day by day Time slips away Time is like a precious jewel You cannot see or hold But none the less beautiful To be treasured like gold Never to be taken for granted for one day is here The next thing it’s gone Like a beautiful song that begins and ends Time is filled with joy And also, sorrow Live it today It can be gone tomorrow (Patricia Kamradt)
NOTE:
3
BIOGRAPHICAL
PAUL BODEN Paul. is a father of two (soon to be three) from a village called Bryansford, near Newcastle in Co. Down. He grew up Catholic, his wife is Protestant and they’ve raised their children without any faith practice. They recently moved back to Ireland after living in England for almost seven years.
I wonder if perhaps the legacy of blood is an obligation. A debt owed to those whose blood has spilled So that the weight of oppression would be lifted. But a legacy of blood spilled grows with every call to arms. When only our rivers run free, we follow the pulsing break into the rapids. Where do we emerge when the free running rivers are fed from the eyes Of mothers and fathers, sons and daughters, green and orange?
Echoes in a generational refrain.
The boiling and bubbling in my veins when I walk this land and look to the sky.
What is the legacy of blood?
4
Perhaps it is their legacy drummed out with every beat in my chest.
What is the legacy of the blood that stains our soil?
A refrain which has been amplified with suppression under iron fist. Sometimes deafening to those with a mind to listen. Perhaps then that is the legacy of blood.
Perhaps it is the legacy of those who walked the path Before me, paving my way.
I find its hue crossed. Blood placed there and folded into cloud by those who would Staunch our legacy with perverse transfusion. I surely still hear the refrain.
Perhaps there is no answer What legacy is written in my own blood? As I cultivate my family garden, how do I nourish the seeds that sprout from the land? Would those who bled to fertilise the soil I walk on recognise a song of acceptance In answer to their refrain? Or would they conclude that the man who can't carry on the beat Is a man without heart? Perhaps.
Whose own blood still marches through my veins
If I share this blood with the departed still, and am beholden to their wants,
Can we carry forward a legacy of gratitude? That no longer are our doors kicked in by boots Made heavy with the weight of tyranny?
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If so, perhaps your legacy will be in teaching your children to make good ones. (P. C. Boden)
And we do our fore fathers greater justice by reflecting on the stands they made.
Is the drumming in my chest just the steady march of our endless funeral procession? If so, then to where do we march but to our own demise?
Those patriots and martyrs who gave themselves wholly to the land.
No, I think not.
A legacy carried forward mindlessly on the shoulders of the young is not honoured
Does blood still travel through the veins of our ghosts?
To neither disregard the sacrifices made through ignorance Nor through the zealous eagerness to write our own names alongside theirs.
So perhaps, the legacy of blood is the freedoms we enjoy? Those hard fought liberties. And the debt we owe, to careful consideration?
That our children may taste the fruits of greater freedom without watering its roots With their own precious life blood. Can we savour the fruits of their labour before sowing the field?
Perhaps the legacy of our blood will be in the decisions we make, How they shape the world before us, And the freedoms we each have to take them.
6 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE: GEORGE FREEK George Freek's poetry has recently appeared in "The Ottawa Arts Review"; "The Lake"; "Acumen"; "The Whimsical Poet"; "Triggerfish", "Torrid Literature." And “A New Ulster”
7 WINTER ARRIVES (After Lu Yu) The sky is a white emptiness. Stars only disturb the silence when they die. The moon is a mutilated eye, torn from a naked skull. As if with a will, a violent wind makes the trees shake. Their leaves fall at my feet, and gather haphazardly in the empty street. Clouds look on dispassionately, as snow begins to fall. My havethoughtsbecome unclear. Winter is now here. (George Freek)
THE PAINTED SKY (After Su Tung Po) The sky is painted in dark tones. It’s black as if with regret. Crows weave in and out of clouds. Their shrieks are a nasty sound. Wandering through the sky like a ship without a sail, the moon gives an eerie light, as darkness falls like a stone. Life moves from one state to another, like those Russian dolls, with one encased inside the other. The night appears like a mathematics test. Mistakes confused my rest. My life seems all wrong. But to whom could I confess? (George Freek)
8
I OBSERVE A CRICKET (After Li Po) A fog clouds my eyes. I vomit in the grass. It rips my bowels. My life has come to this. The stars gaze at me with disgust. I don’t care. The stars are long dead. The moon hangs in the sky by an unraveling thread. Did I grow old when my wife died? I tell myself answers that are nothing but lies. I watch a cricket struggling in the wet grass, and I feel embarrassed. I think of the distant past, but memories don’t last. (George Freek)
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10 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE: Zuwena Mohammed Zuwena is a nineteen year old Business and Management student based in Dublin. Her work has previously been published on the Composite Review and she won a prize in John Boyne’s short story competition in 2020. She enjoys reading and writing as a hobby and a form of therapy.
A celebration I run into the soft embrace of the first summer month with open arms, and a tired mind I had nurtured the idea of resting without remorse when all I could afford were glimpses of gratification like driving on an empty tank here I am now, in this bright enclave suddenly, I am idle and they taunt me to do something more than resting and boredom I push myself towards greatness yet all I can manage is mediocrity (Zuwena Mohammed)
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BIOGRAPHICAL CURRAN
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Fionnuala is a beginner poet, with a passion for all things imaginative and whimsical. She is a twenty four year old PhD student in quantum physics and a recent emigrant to Spain.
NOTE: FIONNUALA
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Thar Lear I found myself a bed of flowers. We nurtured each other And I reared my head up to the sun, But I’m no longer growing in this soil And some of my friends have been repotted too. Now I’m rootless in a new earth bed. The soil is unlike home, But I have, for every crumb, A chance to bloom or wither as I will. (Fionnuala Curran)
14 Down to Earth I am one of seven siblings. We build a bridge in the afterglow of rain, Aching endlessly over the landscape. We impinge on light cones in your eyes, Conjuring up some optical trickery To reveal the world in its RememberOrSo,ToButAndAlwaysAnI***************************vibrancy.amsecondary,notfundamental,emergentsumofprimaryparts,outshonebyradiantyellowoutmatchedbyoceanicblue,Iwobbleatjusttherightfrequencycolourleafycanopiesandstalkingvines.whileyoumarvelatsapphireskies,baskinthebeamingsun,whopaintstheundergrowth Don’t forget the colour green. (Fionnuala Curran)
15 Brain Vault Up inside the vault: A whirring mass of thoughts, Some fleeting, some sticky and **********************************pervasive. It’s neither good nor bad, nor neutral itself, But a collective backdrop of things: Ideas, impulses and misfirings that Emerge unbidden, to inform, Misinform, sort and misplace. IfIf I were a raincloud, simply drifting in the sky, I’d join in all the gatherings of all the drifters by. (Fionnuala Curran)
16
Ashley is 33 year old writer in Bristol, UK. He has been writing in the dark for years and is finally getting himself and his work out there. He is on Instagram at
17 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE:
https://www.instagram.com/ashleydunnwriting/
We Forgot That Your Were Here
18
The body explored through the mouth spontaneously: there was once a fish at home; she only ever wanted Chris Dexter to see her boobs, never me! And the patient face for the patient says, ensure you self soothe today. He does, only not as he knows it, having grown too tired for quietude. He goes to the pub with a firing squad on a cloud of drum and bass instead. He directly takes a four seat booth, alone and inadverbially.
Further spontaneity is adopted: he says to Paul the blue nose, good game last night great result for us; and behind it, in his mind lyrics only, he shares silently: “I was sexually abused and it’s really not a big deal but I’ve just cleared it out a bit more.” And all Paul says is, arr fair play, without simile.
(Ashley Dunn)
But my patient still needs to give more to Paul: and I’ll keep going on about it as long as I need, and I’ll say it in whatever way I find comfortable. And Paul saintlike; simple has a spiritual reply: Arr too right. Too bloody right! I would, too, if I’d won.
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Grow Up I wander about on my own as I am an adult poet but it is cloudy, the mystic of my life having gone, yet I still cling to the whimsical and the Astral Weeks as I cycle through the park trying to find somethin there is a teenage couple kissing on a bench in the park after school they can’t stop they stop and look around a bit then carry on there is nothing else for them to do it is such an urgent act for them their bodies hardly move they may not even be moving their lips it looks mechanical as it always is but it is loud and electric and not cloudy and I want to be like him no! not lik not like that but I want to be with her no! not lik not like that I want to be them in my school uniform trapped on a bench absorbed crushed broken chained to that mystic and whimsical without any of (AshleythisDunn)
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21
Not Quite Pixar Kid it ain’t quite Sid it ain’t quite Woody; but if you can ride this out ignoring their noise whilst finding some balance and calm and poise: well, it can be not half bad, not half good. A sort of falling together between charged and pretty. A dog in and out its worn basket captures it: homely; steady. (Ashley Dunn)
Won’t Get Fooled Again (With Love) Oi. You can stand on my toes you can spit on my feet you can make my mind twist you can bad nice bad sweet but you’ll get no bite from me no more I’ll love you and send you the warmest, brightest, kindest regards even if you chewed my heart up for a sixty third time because you’re no sweat for a saviour like me you’re small fry and it’s nothing for me to love love love you, and say bye (or to revisit this later for edits, and to leave matters open with an abundance of love (Ashley Dunn)
22
23 Dance Like It Was Back Then And It’s Gone Dance like no one is watching existing at all or pretend they all are and keep them watching. If they continue to stare dance more go makeberserkthem wince keep enforcepourgetadvancepoisonbumpdancespinningnearthemintothemtheirquichefurtherthemouttheirseatsquestionsoverthemanxiety
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provide aftercare burn the dance floor spit on the carpet piss in the complimentary wine sleep with their partner show them a nameless god in your crotch tickle their pet burn all their books and shadow puppet a rework dribble in their mouths offer to touch them right, well, correctly sing the wrong words and shrug stand still staring at the wall eat meat and reveal your favourite football team ask yourself what you’re willing to do with them when you or they are furious notice them sweating, hard, wet spin off making them chase point them back to their chair reference mummy watching over them suggest a slow one first stare at them until they choose whose arms they’ll die in tonight and forever.
25 Or pretend they’re all dead that you dance alone. It was back then they can’t look now. They can’t look now at all. (Ashley Dunn)
26 Adaptive Words, I Love You I have not heard any thatwordsarenot adaptive. I have not heard any any,wordsanywhere words that are not adaptive for the speaker. Author. All that space all those papers: attempts at universal order, meaning, truth, identity, experience, shaming, legitimacy, parenting, love, with no awareness of the limitations of our words; the adaption of our whole life sentences. I could not, havesurely,just heard him say,
27 ‘I love my wife’. I know what he does at the weekend! And I know her book club on Tuesday evenings does not exist. (They sometimes meet on Thursdays, too.) Oh, our beautiful words! You make all this around us look meaningful and safe. I love (Ashleyyou!Dunn)
28 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE: DARA BERKELEY Dara Berkeley is a 12 year old this is one of their first poems sent by Niamh Berkeley their mother.
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I am From I am from hope, freedom and all That goes with it, I am from the wood cabins and the ISunsets.amfrom the misty mornings drifting, Upon the rapeseed fields. I am from roaring laughter as stories Are shared around the crackling fire, I am from the forty years of love And care that came before me. I am from the horizon of dreams And all the better for it Even though I’m far away, I still know There will always be home. (Dara Berkeley)
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BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE: SAEED SALIMI BABAMIRI
Saeed Salimi Babamiri: Kurdish translator and poet. His published books in Iran are Kurdish translations of “Half an Apple” and “The Mouse's Wedding” a play and a story in verse, both for children. He has many other translations waiting to be published. His major long translation from Kurdish into English verse is “Mam and Zeen” by Ahmad Xanee. It is known as “Kurdish Romeo and Juliet” which is ready to be published
31
To throw stones at peace pigeons and disturb their flying lives!
How did you find it in your heart to fill deer dreams full of knives?!
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You bloodthirsty magistrates in many years!
You by cement spoiled springs and hopes, You were only men of devil when you became a lullaby song and made hanging loops out of baby cradle ropes. May you be wiped off the face of the earth, when you scatter seeds of darkness and cut off bright words and my mirth.
May you never enjoy a house or any home, because you forbade laughing and made us burst into Howtears. on earth can you be from earth, when you throw dough and dust on a rose ring, when you put some dying snakes on the path of growing and rising.
Shame on you!
(Saeed Salimi Babamiri)
33 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE: TERRY BRINKMAN
Terry Brinkman started painting in junior high school. He has had painting shows at the Eccles Art Center and paintings published in the Literary home girl volume 9 & 10, Healing Muse volume 19, (2019), SLCC Anthology (2020), and in the book Wingless Dreamer: Love of Art. Detour and meat for tea; The Bangor literary journal Issue 13 and 15, Barzakh 2022 and in Cacosa Magazine.
34
35 My Name Is Absurd Olivet’s breezy goodbye Coming from top of the stair head My name is absurd too Coming from a Hot Air Balloon Olivet’s breeze time to eat her salt bread A voice within the tower called Do you like? Living in a bog swamp (Terry Brinkman)
36 Sleepy Whale 239 Profiting by her contretemps Scythed stranded in the mire Pass through the gap of the chains Railway Bridge finds the end of Ballard Good, Bad or indifference Sirens, enemies of woman’s reason Sat in her sweeper car At the end of mount joy square Head west bearing left Reduced pace, to a relaxed walking Pace less than the arc of the Circle Which is pres. bath (Terry Brinkman)
37 Sonnet CVI Legendary beauty shy Thunder roll and laugh Haunting remorse from the riff raff Deep azure of the vacant sky Death fragrance of cedar alibi An old fool’s epitaph Just a moment to graph Jerry meandering makes her cry Star thrown alabaster shadow’s night Noble Bluebird bark Little sticking burr bite Woeful lunatic all remark Penny diamond’ s night light Dreadful romantic night’s dark We always ski at midnight At Brighton not Snow bird Park (Terry Brinkman)
38 Sonnet CCXXXXVI Lacking in glamor she wears silk True love is a durable rock hard to move An ever fixed mark in a left hand grove Summer brings sweet flowers ilk No more precious than life’s bilk Crime of love long day approved Dark lady’s silk stockings easy to remove Pen up feelings cry nicely in milk Sorrow on her face turns red Camp Fire scorching everything Her very soul she left in bed Blue Fox man becomes a Queen Winged Snake of love has gone to his head Iron Gates of life open at spring (Terry Brinkman)
39 Sleepy Whale 399 The Sea grass is turning snot green Ghost woman’s candle will not light My time for walking, at today’s twilight Porters Corner’s still sells green Kerosene Deathless Gods go to Nazarene Mid moon Watchers night left without light Joust of flight at midnight Irish whiskey over rocks of steaming caffeine (Terry Brinkman)
40 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE:
HEATH BROUGHER Heath Brougher is the Editor in Chief of Concrete Mist Press and co poetry editor of Into the Void, winner of the 2017 and 2018 Saboteur Awards for Best Magazine. He received Taj Mahal Review’s 2018 Poet of the Year Award and is a multiple Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee. He was awarded the 2020 Wakefield Prize for Poetry. He has published 11 books and, after spending over three years editing the work of others, is ready to get back into the creative driver seat for a bit. He has four books forthcoming in 2022 and 2023.
A New Contagion
Overwhelmed by a zeal to tear every star from the sky as such a mighty presence only feelingswroughtoftinniness and inadequacy within the shallow caverns of their souls. They were the Pavlovianly conditioned herd and decided such action would officially become their newest contortion of Truth as they would lasso every last monolith’s magnanimity and dim the luminous brilliance by inserting a dull lack into the luster of these once vibrant existences and blend and bleed monochromatically into a mangled societal reality they had all agreed to agree to agree to insanitize and mix with the mediocrity of their falsest mirrors. This was only new to the herd though. Every gleaming sun on high knew that if they dared burn so bright it was only a matter of time until a member of the herd came knocking on their door. (Heath Brougher)
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Imitation of Life
(Heath
42
The Spirit of pigeons from 1800 pastorals emanates from a yonder hollow. Flies with thick, paint heavy wings. A morning of aerial scissors snips kites from the bone colored polka dots of the air. A giant plastic goldfish no longer swims through the sky. In a rare dream, I bought an umbrella that rained acorns. But that never really happened. It was only a subconscious projection experienced within a spurious limelight. Brougher)
43
World of the End
(Heath Brougher)
They slip further heavenward ever since they invited dead hands to pierce the porcelain doles of their virgin veins with the Needledip. Now, each morning they make the frenzied trek across the same old rooftops strewn with dried blood droplets from yesterday’s euphoria as they continue their wrong way direction down a no way street in order to devour heroin for breakfast. They’ve been living off of toast and should they eat something other than their expensive medicinals it is usually toothpaste for dinner. They are trapped in a continuum that might feel like anything is possible but instead an insidious illusion had doused them with varicose eyes unable to see they’re tiptoeing toward a sleepy death; a narcotic noose; slowly digging a hole to China, white as Dracula in a world clogged with monsters beckoning them to the world of the end.
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Gonna Lose A boy floats down Glendale Rd in York, PA his girlfriend [I imagine her name is Cricket] proceeded in her 1999 Jane like summer shorts or 2002 Shannon like tight winter jeans. Two pieces of twine adorned with an anglet to prevent her shoestrings from falling apart. She walked into the gloaming downstreet. She reminded me of love and vitality. She resembled the perfect mixture of Jane and Shannon. I assume Jane and Shannon have disappeared forever into the legendary landscapes of my sacrosanct youth. (Heath Brougher)
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Built to Engage in Fisticuffs She dangles round my neck. Her face is seen in caricature hung in my living room. Darkness comes in waves, as does anger. I hadn’t screamed for years and now it has become a daily ritual. When I go into public I dare someone to fuck with me. When the rage rains, there is nothing I’d love more than to put my fist through a face. I would pretend it was god’s face to enhance the experience. (Heath Brougher)
I apologize for the delay in this issue there’s been a lot going on lately and time seems incredibly short, it hasn’t helped that my eye sight has been playing up. It turns out that one of the medications has been causing issues with my vision I’ve Glaucoma, its manageable and there’s no permanent damage which is a relief but it has impacted on my ability to work as either an editor, a publisher or as an artist so a lot of things ended up delayed. We’re nowhere near finished with the journal and will continue to produce for as long as I’m able, I’m going to need to do a lot of work on the website in the near future and that’s going to be a time consuming process as I need to transfer all of the issues from the old website over as it no longer works properly and many of the issues that were on it have disappeared leaving nothing but broken links. I’m also afraid that the hard copy edition saw its price go up due to costs by the printers and supply chain woes and that we cannot currently be read in a number of countries either online or in paperback that’s a shame and completely out of my hands right Happynow.reading, good health, and keep creating, Amos Greig (Editor)
46 EDITOR’S NOTE
Due to cost factors
Poetry publishers can also fall foul of ‘on consignment’ practice, which means we supply a seller but don’t get paid until books have been sold and we can expect unsold books to be returned, thus ‘remaindered’ and maybe not sellable, years can pass!
Distributors can also seek as much as 51% of cover price IF.they choose to handle a poetry book at all, shops too can require say 35% of the cover price, which is ok given floor space can be thousands of £0000s per square foot per annum..In terms of ‘hidden’ costs: preparing a work for publication can cost a few thousand UK £ stg. Lapwing does it as part of our sevice to our suthors.
47 LAPWING PUBLICATIONS
Amazon also has changed the ‘game’ with its own policies and strategies for publishers and authors. There are no doubt other on line factors over which we have no control.
Lapwing cannot offered authors ‘complimentary’ copies. What we do offer is to supply authors with copies at cost price. We hold very few copies in the knowledge that requests for hard copies are rarely received.
Another important element is our Lapwing Legacy Library which holds all our retained titles since 1988 in PDF at £4.00 per title: the format being ‘front cover page full content pages back cover page’. This format is printable as single pages: either the whole book or a favourite page.
The figures given a few years ago were: we had 5000 bookshops in the UK Ireland and at the time of the research that number had dropped to 900 and falling: there was a period when bookshops had the highest rate of ‘High Street’ shop closures.
Over the past number of years technology has transformed poetry publishing: shop closures due to increasing operational costs has had an impact, to put it mildly, shops are releuctant to take ‘slow moving’ genre such as poetry and play scripts among other minority interest genre.
It has been a well known fact that many poets will sell more of their own work than the bookshops, Peter Finch of the Welsh Academi noted fact that over forty years ago and Lapwing poets have done so for years.
Lapwing, being a not for profit poetry publisher has likewise had to adjust to the new regime. We had a Google Books presence until that entity ended its ‘open door’ policy in favour of becoming a publisher itself. During that time with Google, Lapwing attracted hundreds of thousands of sample page ‘hits’.
‘IN A CHANGED WORLD’
48 I thank Adam Rudden for the great work he has done over the years creating and managing this web site. Thanks also to our authors from ‘home’ and around the world for entrusting Lapwing with their valuable contributions to civilisation. If you wish to seek publication please send you submission in MW Word docx format. LAPWINGPOETRYPUBLICATIONSTITLES2021 All titles are £10.00 stg. plus postage from the authors via their email address. PDF versions are available from Lapwing at £4.00 a copy, they are printable for private, review and educational purposes. 9781838439804_Halperin Richard W. DALLOWAY IN WISCONSIN Mr.Halperin lives in Paris France Email: 9781838439811_Halperinhalperin8@wanadoo.frRichard W. SUMMER NIGHT 1948 9781838439859_Halperin Richard W. GIRL IN THE RED CAPE 9781838439828_Lennon Finbar NOW Mr Lennon lives in the Republic of Ireland Email: 9781838439842_Email:Mr9781838439835_Dillonlennonfinbar@hotmail.comPaulTWHISPERDillonlivesintheRepublicofIrelandptjdillon@gmail.comBrooksRichardWOOD FOR THE TREES Mr Brooks lives in England 97Email:richard.brooks3@btinternet.comUK81838439866_GarveyAlanINTHE WAKE OF HER LIGHT 9781838439873_McManus Kevin THE HAWTHORN TREE Mr McManus lives in the Republic of Ireland Email: 9781838439880_Dwankevinmcmanus1@hotmail.comBerni ONLY LOOKIN’ Berni Dwan lives in the Republic of Ireland Email: 9781838439897_Murbachbernidwan@gmail.comEsther VIEW ASKEW Esther Murbach lives in Switzerland though she also spends time in Galway Email: Mr9781916345751_McGrathesther.murbach@gmx.chNiallSHEDMcGrathlivesinCountyAntrimNorthern Ireland, UK Email: 9781916345775_Somervillemcgrath.niall@hotmail.comLargeGILLIAN LAZY BEDS 9781916345782_Gohorry & Lane COVENTRY CRUCIBLE Mr Lane lives in England UK and due to the recent death of Mr Gohorry Mr Lane will be the contact for this publication:
