ARTJOMS KALASNIKOVS

I live on an intertidal estuary, Cartron Bay, and tend to take walks along the North Atlantic Ocean, sometimes stopping for a bit and observing the scenery and watching the water flow, occasionally clashing with the shoreline. While in secondary school, especially in Irish class, I took my pen and created a whole universe.

This universe was often inspired by the shifting landscape of the estuary, inspiring me to create the Devistian Expanse, a fictional set of Islands surrounding two main Islands. This universe is now six years old and my portfolio is its first public expression. My portfolio is split into two halves, a comic and an illustrated set of poems.

I wanted to combine the writing and drawing, and the portfolio seemed like the place to try whilst solidifying my universe. The portfolio focuses on exploration and nature but also on family. The illustrations are hand drawn digitally on Krita (https://krita.org/en/) in order to convey raw authenticity. Humans

I write fiction short stories based on real life and real places. I write about the people who queued through the night to call far-off loved ones from the magic phone box which, for weeks, refused to take money. I write about loneliness, like the old man on the night he dies, sitting in his armchair, watching the world go by and I write of the ex-navvy who concealed a nine-hole golf course on his neighbours land and sought a friend to play with.

Claire Keegan’s moving novellas, depicting painful social history in Ireland’s southeast, are an inspiration. I also like the wild short stories of Kevin Barry, his dialogue, his ear, the cadence of how Irish people speak.

‘Do you play golf?’ he asked me.

The question came out of the blue as I stood beside the gaunt figure that was Pat Diskin, in a muddy hilltop field in north Longford on a sunny June evening in nineteen eighty-five.

‘Do you play golf?’ Diskin asked again, swivelling his head from side to side and raising his arms in the air as he waited for me to answer.

I looked around me, then back at Diskin, mystified. I raised my arms and shoulders, a silent question. What was he talking about? Two men in suits; one a few inches taller than the other; standing feet away from each other: arms raised wide; two strangers in an open field in the middle-of-nowhere. He had something belonging to me. I needed to get it back.

’Look’, he gestured. I followed his gaze. The penny dropped. Despite my predicament, I smiled.

Pat Diskin’s cottage sat at the top of a hill about a mile off the Longford to Cavan road. A patchwork of fields and hedges fell away to the north, in the direction of Cavan. I hadn’t seen another house since I passed Bohans pub about three miles back. I hesitated on the road before striding up the path to his front door. A small metal gate clanged shut behind me. I knuckled the blistered wood and swivelled on my heel, looking back at my car, heat shimmering off the bonnet in the summer evening sunshine. Then I spotted the sheepdog, stretched inside the wall, panting.

‘Diskin’ – you better be home’, I whined, knuckling the wood again.

While my prose is about people, my poetry is a lyrical response to the landscape itself. I will continue to write about my own strange experiences from Ireland’s midlands, where I grew up, and of the beauty of the north-west where I live. Excerpt from ‘Invisible Golf Course’

My portfolio (Digging Into the Psyche) consists of a collection of poetry and short stories.

The poetry focuses on natural objects in the landscape and my short stories address issues such as: mental health, disturbed psychology and ethical dilemmas.

They are also borderline science fiction stories that deal with the impact of technology on humans and society. I am concerned with advances in technology and powerful people using them in unethical ways.

My poetry considers natural forms in the landscape – a tree, the moon, a river – and reflects upon their structure and beauty, mythical stories associated with them and how they serve purpose to us: the moon acts as a compass, the river gently soothes and the tree’s apple provides food.

For the future, I plan to work on a poetry collection and a series of short stories for publication.

Lough Erne

Across the border in a foreign land ruled by a new king, lies a picnic area with a wooden bench. A sky-blue day with fluffy white clouds the water laps gently creating a soothing rhythm.

Across the lake and into the distance, sits a mountain near the heart of threats to peace through disturbing violence. Plastic swirls around, please think of the animals?

Green, green grass; a luscious little pasture, bushes and trees poke out; shades of brown and green –birds sing melodious tones. Serenity exists here, yet behind the lake… cars pass the wilderness.