Penny Dreadful Issue 2 Sample

THE PENNY DREADFUL

THE PENNY DREADFUL

The Dreadful Press presents

Issue 2

SAMPLE “To the Stars on the Wings of a Pig”

www.thepennydreadful.org

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Editors John Keating & Marc O’Connell Assistant Editor Wolfgang Amadeus Helnwein Graphic Design Leyla Bulmer Typography Ciara Norton Cover Aoife Layton Special thanks to Richard Hawtree and Michael Keating.

Š Copyright remains with authors and artists, 2013.

Published by The Dreadful Press, Cork, Ireland, 2013.

Printed by Lettertec Ireland Ltd. Carrigtwohill, Cork.

ISSN 2009-5589 (Online) ISSN 2009-5570 (Print) www.thepennydreadful.org All rights reserved. The material in this publication is protected by copyright law. Except as may be permitted by law, no part of the material may be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the express written permission of the copyright owner.

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Contents 4

Introduction

8 10 15 22 28 30

Marissa Levien / Devotion Alan McMonagle / Page Three Girls Madeleine D’Arcy / Salvage Robert Doyle / The Turk Inside Valerie O’Riordan / Monkeys in Love Cethan Leahy / What is that Noise?

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Sara Baume / Review

Art

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Aoife Layton / Featured Artist

Poetry

47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 59 61 62 63 64 65

Paul Muldoon / At the Lab Alan Jude Moore / Taksim Cal Doyle / The Day ‘They’ Switched the Internet Off Cal Doyle / Forget the Swan Dean J. Browne / Ygdrasill?

Dale Houstman / Like a Sea Gorilla Michael Ray / Passerine Origami John Liddy / Food for Thought Michael Farry / The 1916 Rising Michael J. Whelan / The Soldier’s Face Sarah Clancy / I Am Not Tired David J. Doyle / Atheist in Bed Tim Cumming / Plate Tectonica Jennifer Matthews / Breakfast with Bonnie Jennifer Matthews / The Good News Gerard Smyth / Nostalgia for the Doughnut Shop Richard Hawtree / This Poetic Jewel of Iceland

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Afric McGlinchey / Review

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Contributors

Fiction

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Introduction [An extract from a sermon given by Fr Gideon O’Gogarty to the God fearing souls of his congregation, on the subject of literatureentitledOnPerfidiousVice:SinandThe Penny Dreadful.]

excites the humours to an intolerable degree, encouraging lustful thoughts and wicked behavior in the young. Many is the poor wretch in the asylum screaming dreadfully into the night “just one more page!” It is an affront to all that civilized men hold dear.’

‘At first, it was enough for that young man to peruse this filth instead of his Latin.

It was not long however, before he began to compose his own literary affronts to God. A sonnet, a sestina, a haiku—and may God forgive me for using this word in front of decent women and children—a villanelle.

Soon he found himself perfectly bound, enslaved to the editors, vile servants of the Anti-Christ. Those minions of the Beast! So desperate did he become to possess the next issue of this vile rag that he was driven to steal his own mother’s rosary to exchange it for one more copy. Little did he know that he was, in fact, exchanging his own everlasting soul for a few scraps of sin-sodden paper!’

‘Needless to say this young man soon turned up dead, floating face down in the river, his cold dead hands clasping the torn pages of some “story” or another. No doubt murdered by another deceitful member of the “literati”.’

‘But all is not yet lost. There is still time for good Christian folk, such as you Mrs O’Dwyer and you Mr O’Shaughnessy, to make a stand and eradicate “The Penny Dreadful” from God’s green earth! I solemnly propose that we here, we Christians, do now incorporate a League for the Purification of Literature and the Prohibition of The Penny Dreadful on this Island of Ireland.

Thus we can present a united front to these

‘… and such is the case of a young man, from this very parish, who not two years ago sat before God as you do today, a God fearing boy of good moral stock, from a good family, whose mother loved him dearly and raised him with his faith as his breastplate. He too liked to “read” “literature” for “pleasure”.

Many is the day I saw him skulking into the library, that den of the Enemy, when he thought none would see—but God saw!

And to a lesser extent, I saw! I could see the slippery slope he was sliding down— discussing “poems” with low women, wearing black all of the time, mooning around with a Shakespeare said this, and a Milton said that.

In school I found the lad hiding a copy of a “Penny Dreadful Magazine” between the covers of noble Catullus.’ ‘“Young man,” I said to him, “get thee to a monastery. Discard that smut and turn thine eyes towards the pages of God.” If only he had heeded my advice, he would still be amongst you today. But, alas! Such is the folly and impetuousness of youth.’

‘This “Penny Dreadful” of which I speak, is a publication of the lowest baseness, fashioning itself in the styles and airs of an honest almanac. But, ladies and gentlemen, between its covers is a collection, a rogues gallery, of the most abhorrent and outrageous offenses to the public morality and faith that have ever plagued our fair Catholic island. It 4

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pornographers, these abusers of the mind, and show them that good honest folk, want wholesome nice poems about swans and sunsets and flowers and stuff. There shall be a bake sale next Tuesday to raise funds.’

Patrons Germánico Baltar Claus Christensen Ciara Ferguson Dermot Magee

Erratum

Donal McCarthy

In Philip Coleman’s review on page 68 of issue 1, the sentence ‘They don’t mean anything.’ should have read ‘They don’t mean nothing.’

We would like to apologise for this error.

The Munster Literature Centre Damien O’Sullivan Tina Pisco

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Marissa Levien / Devotion ‘How is Sarah?’ Simon asked me from across the glass, hunched over and somewhat gaunt. His beard was growing longer, but whatever efforts he had put in to beefing up during his prison stay had failed. I gripped the black receiver, and thought a moment before answering.

‘There hasn’t been a change,’ I said finally.

Simon put his hand to his forehead a moment, his eyes getting a little glassy.

‘The chemo hasn’t helped at all?’ he asked with a quaver to his voice.

‘No, it hasn’t, unfortunately. It looks like they’ll be moving her to hospice soon.’ I cast my eyes down for a moment in a fashion that I hoped showed grief. In a couple more weeks, I figured, I could kill her.

I was frustrated that he’d brought up Sarah before asking me how I was doing. In all the time we were together, I always knew he had a thing for her. I figured that Simon had cheated with Sarah at least once. Not a problem now, of course, since no one was willing to be associated with him. Still, I was the one sitting here talking to him, not her. I even bought a new dress. Green, similar to the one I’d worn on our first date. Nobody else visited, you’d think he could take some time to care about me. I was the only one who stuck by him during the trial, even knowing he was probably guilty. Knowing what I knew about Simon, having spent nights with him, I didn’t doubt the rape charge. There was one time I nearly suffocated against the pillow before he finished with me.

I should have left with the others, but I never quite knew how. We were together for so long, that I could spot him now instantly in a crowd, before I saw his face or his clothes, or even the back of his head. Once, I was to meet him at a party, some high-end fraternity thing. I spotted a gesture of an elbow, just a flicker of motion on the very periphery of my vision, and my brain just knew in a millisecond: Simon. Once someone becomes that much a part of you, I’m not sure it’s possible to leave. Now, looking at the shell of him, I was perversely glad I’d stuck it out.

I remembered him so much angrier than he was now, much more cocksure, and much more belittling. But he was not the type to do well in this sort of environment—too pretty, too richboy-preppy. He had withered down to a crooked stem in the past year. Nineteen years left on his sentence, I wondered what he’d look like at the end.

‘Well, I know she doesn’t—’ he took a breath. His voice sounded higher than it had before.

‘I know she doesn’t want to talk to me, but will you tell her I’m sorry, and that I’ll be thinking of her?’

‘Sure,’ I said quietly. I put my hand up to the glass, and he mirrored the action, pressing his palm hard enough to smudge. I wondered what I could do to top breast cancer.

At first, when I kept visiting Simon I felt like I was betraying something, like this tug of 8

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Alan McMonagle / Page Three Girls After he had left I lay in my room and thought of ways to make Flynn bleed. Forty lashes across his shoulder blades. Rusty nails through his eyes and ears. Random swings with my spike ball. I was hacking messy chunks out of his thick neck when I heard stones at the window. It was Caff and I knew my fantasizing was over for another night.

‘I thought you were calling around to me,’ he said as soon as he was inside my room.

‘I was going to. Then Flynn showed up and I didn’t feel like it.’

‘Is he still calling to see your ma?’

‘Yeah. He calls whenever he feels like it.’

‘I have a theory about your da,’ Caff said next and I got excited. Caff had theories about most things. Women. Moon landings. What happens when you die.

Now he had a theory about my da and I was all ears.

‘He’s alive and well and living on a yacht,’ Caff said.

‘Wow,’ I said.

‘Wow is only part of the story. Anyway, look at what I have,’ he said next and opened up his shoulder bag. He carried his shoulder bag everywhere. It was part of his image. Since his twelfth birthday Caff was big on image.

From inside his bag he pulled out a scissors, a tape dispenser and several rolls of masking tape. ‘And look,’ he said and pulled out a stack of naked women cut out of newspapers.

‘Wow,’ I said.

‘Wow is just the tip of the iceberg,’ Caff said, holding up a clipping of a woman on her hands and knees. ‘I’ve been collecting them every day for nineteen months.’

He started unravelling clippings and spreading them on the floor, on the bed, across my table, wherever there was space. He kept dipping inside his shoulder bag and pulling out more.

He taped some onto the bedroom walls and door; more went on my wardrobe and mirror.

Pretty soon the room was covered in naked women. I didn’t know where to look first.

‘Who are they?’ I asked.

‘They are the page three girls.’

‘Wow,’ I said. ‘What’s on page four?’

‘I don’t know. The crossword or maybe death notices.’

‘No girls?’

‘No. The girls go on page three.’

‘They belong on page one.’

‘Yeah, but then people wouldn’t buy the paper. You could just stand and gawk at the girl.

Putting them on page three means you have to pick up the paper and turn the page.’

‘Is that what you do?’

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Madeleine D’Arcy / Salvage I thought there’d be plenty of cheap bedsits to rent in Cork, especially these days, but I’ve seen four today, and they were all kips. My back is aching, my throat hurts and the thought of sleeping in the car for a third night is unbearable.

The fifth on my list is on the ground floor of a three-storey Victorian house, near the city centre. The place looks okay from outside, so I ease my Volkswagen Touareg into a parking space and hope for the best.

The woman who opens the door is about my own age, late thirties.

‘Vincent, is it?’ she asks. ‘Come in. I’m Dolores.’

In the hall, a huge and furry white cat stares at me brazenly.

‘I hope you don’t mind cats,’ Dolores says. ‘This is Mao Zedong.’

‘Mowsee-what?’

‘Mao Zedong. I named him after Chairman Mao, leader of the Chinese revolution.’

‘Ah, I see. Great name.’

She leads me along the hallway and unlocks a door.

‘Stay out there, Mao,’ she says. The bedsit was once two rooms, she explains. She had the conversion done eighteen months ago, after her divorce.

The furniture is modern—probably IKEA. There’s a kitchenette and sitting/dining area to the left and a bedroom area on the right, near a big window that looks out on the back garden.

The place is clean and smells of fresh paint.

I tentatively slide a kitchen drawer open and shut.

‘Very nice,’ I say.

The bathroom is across the hallway, and though it’s a botch job it’s not the worst I’ve seen today.

The cat reappears, and hurls its furry bulk through the immense cat flap in the back door.

The cat flap thuds back and forth before it gradually pendulums to a halt. The sound grates on my nerves. As I retreat I almost trip over a bowl of cat food. Then I notice the cat bed and litter tray under the stairwell.

Dolores hesitates, then explains, ‘Mao likes to sleep down here—but he’s no trouble.’

‘Fine, fine. Do you have internet access?’

She does. The rent’s reasonable. I’m surprised at how easy it is to bargain her down.

‘I need to move in straight away.’

Dolores looks doubtful.

‘I can give you a cash deposit and a cheque for the first month’s rent.’ I try not to sound stressed.

‘Well, I usually need references.’

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Robert Doyle / The Turk Inside She came to London when she was twenty-one. You could tell the story through the men she let inside her. There were enough of them, I was one. Now she’s older. I doubt she lives in London any more but I can’t be sure (she deleted her old email account, changed her phone).

She got work as an exotic dancer at a club near Russell Square. It was expected of all the girls there that they slept with the owner, the manager, and probably another rank or two along the pecking order as well. The owner was an oily, brutal Turk. As you know, people come to London to make money, they stamp on other people and they laugh about it, never any remorse. It’s horrible, unbearable.

She slept with the Turk, he gloated over it. That’s the kind of man he was. There’s no moral to this story, no kind of comeuppance at all. The Turk is happy still. He abides in splendour and he’s slept with more women than you or I ever will, despite his ugliness. I think of this man as a harvester of souls. He is my shadow self, the projection of my own shrieking, sick and mutilated will to power. I’m a total fucking wreck. He is me, on some level. The Turk.

She slept with the Turk. Him first and then me. She was very beautiful (I think she still is).

She had a room in a flat in Canary Wharf that seems, when I picture it, to have had no windows in the corridors, only a warm electric light. She was on the nineteenth floor. There were some nights in there, and mornings across the river with croissants and coffee, looking back over open waste-ground at the clustered high-rises and skyscrapers of the business district. I wasn’t in love with her. Then I was, but it was too late because I had scared her, or she just felt scared, which in the end are one and the same thing. The tables had turned. Life is like that, and there’s nothing funny or poetic about it. More like a mockery.

~ One night, when I was still with her, I went to watch her dance. I didn’t tell her I was coming. I sat down the back, almost in disguise, hidden behind my drink, in the shadows. Maybe she saw me, what do I know. Really—and this is probably clearer to me now than it was then—really I was looking for the Turk. I hardly even concentrated on her dancing, though I admit it was beautiful (what I saw of it), her pale young body bathed in the blue light, called forth to radiance from the grime and neglect and all that her father could never protect her from. She had many admirers that night, but I never caught a glimpse of the Turk. Maybe he’s back stage, I thought desperately, draining my drink and wiping my lips as she bowed, then stepped serenely from the podium, and out through the narrow doorway.

I got home that night at three a.m., drunk and furious. Bitter, bitter. I masturbated savagely 22

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Aoife Layton / Featured Artist Aoife Layton is an Irish artist currently based in Cork and a member of Cork Printmakers and Visual Artists Ireland. She recently participated in Swansea Print Workshop’s project ‘Drawn to Print’ as Artist in Residence (2012).

Recent exhibitions include the Royal Hibernian Academy and Royal Ulster Academy annual exhibitions; 16th German International Exhibition of Graphic Art, Frechen, Germany; International Print Triennial, Krakow, Poland; BIEC and BIMPE, Canada; Small Print: Big Impression, touring the UK. In 2011, she was shortlisted for the ‘Prize for Originality and Breaking Classical Boundaries’ in the International Mezzotint Festival, Ekaterinburg Museum of Fine Art, Russia. At present she is engaged in the production of drawings and mixed mezzotint prints on the theme of human-animal interaction.

of this medium make it particularly suited to an art practice in which drawing is central. The art of mezzotint has seen something of a renaissance in recent years, particularly in the United States, Russia and Japan. In my practice I strive to develop an experimental and expansive understanding of the technique and have recently begun to incorporate digital imaging techniques and photopolymer technology in my mixed mezzotints, mixing the traditional with the contemporary.

Thematically, my drawings and prints gravitate towards what Jacques Derrida termed ‘The Question of the Animal’, a neat phrase given the ambiguous and often contradictory nature of the relationships between the human and non-human animal.

Animals are at once familiar and remote; they are the foil against which we define humanity.

In my work I aim to reflect the physical closeness and cognitive distance between us and them and to present images which imply rather than dictate a narrative.

The cover image, ‘Diptera’, is from a suite of works in which the boundary between humans and nature is eroded through costume and play. A number of prints in this series featured domestic interiors made uncanny by the animalistic presence. Similarly, the featured crow images combine elements of the built environment with the natural form of the bird. The human response to nature, in the form of patterned tile and railing, is met with animal indifference.”

The central focus of my studio practice is the technique of mezzotint engraving, which I have been studying and developing since 2007. Mezzotint is an intaglio printmaking technique first developed in the late 17th century. The metal plate is prepared by roughening the surface with a toothed metal blade, ‘the rocker’; a dense velvety black is produced if the plate is inked and printed at this point. The image itself is created by carving or flattening the areas of the rocked ground which are to appear as a lighter shade or as white in the final print.

The rich tonality and expressive potential 42

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Aoife Layton / Interloper

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Aoife Layton / Open the Window Wide Again

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Plate Tectonica

Thoughts form flesh, your fate contains a lobster, uncoupling claw by claw from your plate,

slipping back into the water, bait for older, darker thoughts motions past their sell-by date.

The slowest forces penetrate.

You’ll do something that isn’t you, blame it on the food you ate,

but here it is, the storm is come, monsters crawl the cerebellum.

You gather arms, concentrate, jerky moves in the wrong medium.

You move but you move too late.

Tim Cumming

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Nostalgia for the Doughnut Shop

These days I write elegies and read the Metaphysicals.

And when I turn the radio on prefer to hear a penny whistle playing Purple Heather.

In all weathers I wander back to inner parishes where I feel nostalgia for the doughnut shop and the junkyard where things were given a second chance.

It was there that I spent a childhood listening to bells, their long laments, their song-in-the-air on Pentecost in praise of Love Divine, their rowdy chimes as they jumped from one year to the next.

That was the simpler time of jotters and pencils, before the awkward questions.

I was under the protection of the saints: Anthony, Jude, Therese whose feet I warmed with votive candle flames.

Gerard Smyth

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Contributors Sara Baume reads and writes in a small house on the coast. Her reviews, interviews, articles and stories have been published online and in print, from HTMLGIANT to The Stinging Fly. Dean J. Browne is from Tipperary. He is a student in his second year at UCC. He lives in Cork.

He won the 2011 Cuisle National Poetry Competition for his ‘Sonnet to the Midnight Air’, which was published in English and in Slovenian translation. His poem ‘Fishing in the Flood’ was officially commended in the 2013 Gregory O’Donoghue International Poetry Prize.

Sarah Clancy has been shortlisted for several poetry prizes including the Listowel Collection of Poetry Competition and the Patrick Kavanagh Award. Her first book of poetry, Stacey and the Mechanical Bull, was published by Lapwing Press Belfast in December 2010 and a further selection of her work was published in June 2011 by Doire Press. Her second full length poetry collection Thanks for Nothing, Hippies was published by Salmon Poetry in 2012. Her poems have also been published in RevivalPoetryJournal,TheStonyThursdayBook,ThePoetryBus,IrishLeftReview,TheMothandTheStinging Fly and in translation in Cuadrivio Magazine (Mexico). She was the runner up in the North Beach Nights Grand Slam Series 2010 and 2011 and was the winner of the Cúirt International Festival of Literature Grand Slam 2011. She was an invited guest at the 2011 Vilenica Festival of Literature in Slovenia, and in Spring 2012 her poem ‘I Crept Out’ received second prize in the Ballymaloe International Poetry Competition.

Tim Cumming’s recent books include The Rapture (Salt 2011) and Etruscan Miniatures (Pitt St Poetry, Australia, 2012) as well as poems in Identity Parade (Bloodaxe 2010) and numerous Forward collections. His first collection The Miniature Estate was published by Smith Doorstop in 1991. He also makes films and film poems which have been shown in Serbia, Canada, Argentina and Australia.

He lives in London.

Madeleine D’Arcy was born in Ireland. In 2010 she won a Hennessy Literary Award in the First Fiction category, as well as the overall Award of Hennessy New Irish Writer. Her stories have been short-listed in many other competitions, including the Bridport Prize, the Fish Short Story Prize and the Bryan MacMahon Short Story Competition. She was awarded joint-second place in the William Trevor/Elizabeth Bowen Short Story Competition 2011. Publishing credits include: the SundayTribune;MadeinHeavenandOtherShortStories;SharpSticks,DrivenNails(StingingFlyPress);EtherbooksMobilePublishing;theIrishExaminer(HollyBough);NecessaryFiction(USliterarywebjournal);the Irish Independent; and the Irish Times. Her short film script, ‘Dog Pound’, was a finalist in Waterford Film Festival Short Screenplay Competition 2012. She’s a member of the Cork branch of the Irish Playwright and Screenwriters’ Guild. Her debut unpublished short story collection Waiting for the Bullet and Other Stories was short-listed for the Scott Prize 2012 (UK). She’s currently working on a novel and on several film treatments.

Cal Doyle’s poetry has appeared in a number of magazines and journals, most recently in Southword and the Burning Bush 2. He has read for many literary events and festivals, including Poetry Ireland’s Introductions Series and the Cork Spring Poetry Festival. He lives and studies in Cork.

David J. Doyle is an emerging poet, newly arrived in Ireland. What writings he has are mostly published in Philadelphia zines, journals, and magazines, but he hopes to make the move to Ireland official in both a physical and literary sense. He is finishing his MA in Writing at NUIG, and is spending his nights and days on fine-tuning poetry collections.

Robert Doyle was born in Dublin, he holds a First Class Honours degree in Philosophy and an 71

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MPhil in Psychoanalysis from Trinity College. He has also studied Creative Writing at the Irish Writers’ Centre. His recent work has been published, or is forthcoming, in The Stinging Fly, The Moth, The Dublin Review, The Alarmist, and elsewhere. His work has also been broadcast on RTE radio, and is being translated into Serbian for a journal exploring the link between literature and pornography.

He lives in London, where he teaches Philosophy and Creative Writing.

Michael Farry is a retired primary teacher. He was selected for Poetry Ireland Introductions 2011.

In 2009 he was awarded third prize in the Patrick Kavanagh Poetry Competition and was shortlisted for the Bridport Poetry Competition (UK). His first poetry collection, Asking for Directions, was published by Doghouse Books in 2012. He is also a historian and his book Sligo, The Irish Revolution 1912-1923 was published by Four Courts Press in 2012.

Fr Gideon O’Gogarty was born near Bantry in 1922. Educated in Rome, he was for some years lecturer of Divinity at the University of Maynooth. His previous publications include On the Evils ofAnkleBoots(1951),TheFollyofFallstaf:AVisionofSinfulBuffoonery(1963)andBowlerHats:theDevil’s Crown (1970). He enjoys road bowling in his spare time.

Richard Hawtree lives in Cork, where he researches early medieval Insular culture and occasionally translates poetry.

Dale Houstman was born in King’s Lynn, England in 1950. He has lived in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA since 1972. And a lot of other irrelevant details.

Cethan Leahy writes, draws, and films things. At parties, he can do all three. His short stories were published in Looking Glass Magazine, Wordlegs and Five Dials and his children’s novel Moor was shortlisted in The Guardian Hot Key Books Young Writer’s Prize. Animosity, a play he co-wrote, was staged in La Cathedral Studios, Dublin in November 2012. His animated short The Beast of Bath came first place in the Signal Arts Centre Film Festival and was broadcast on 3e.

Marissa Levien is a writer and playwright living in Brooklyn, New York. She has previously presented pieces through Sackett Street Writers Group, the Brooklyn LitCrawl, and Impressions Poetry Competition. In her off-time, she also helps to run a Literary Pubcrawl through the streets of Greenwich Village.

John Liddy, born in Youghal, grew up in Limerick, took a degree in the University of Wales and works as a teacher/librarian in Madrid. Co-founder of The Stony Thursday Book in 1975, he has several poetry books, works in translation and a book of stories for children published.

Jennifer Matthews writes poetry and book reviews, and is editor of the Long Story, Short Journal.

Her poetry has been published inThe Stinging Fly, Mslexia, Revival, Necessary Fiction, Poetry Salzburg, Foma & Fontanelles and Cork Literary Review, and anthologised in Dedalus’s collection of immigrant poetry in Ireland, Landing Places (2010). In 2012 she read at Electric Picnic with Poetry Ireland, and had a poem shortlisted by Gwyneth Lewis in the Bridport poetry competition. She is currently working on ‘JAM’, a collaboration with poet Anamaría Crowe Serrano.

Afric McGlinchey moved home eighteen times in the first eighteen years of her life, and twenty times since, including a three-month stint in a tent, so she considers herself a legitimate nomad. Her début collection, called after the star of the nomads, is The Lucky Star of Hidden Things, published by Salmon. www.africmcglinchey.com 72

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Alan McMonagle’s stories have appeared in many journals in Ireland and North America includingTheAdirondackReview,TheValparaisoFictionReview,NaturalBridge,Grain,PrairieFire,TheStingingFly and Southword. Liar Liar, his first collection of stories appeared in 2008 (Wordsonthestreet). The title story from his second collection, Psychotic Episodes (due from Arlen House in April 2013), was nominated for a 2011 Pushcart Prize. www.alanmcmonagle.com Alan Jude Moore is from Dublin. His poetry has been widely published in Ireland and abroad.

His most recent collection is Strasbourg (Salmon Poetry, 2010) and a new collection is due in autumn 2013.

Paul Muldoon was born in 1951 in County Armagh, Northern Ireland, and educated in Armagh and at Queen’s University of Belfast. From 1973 to 1986 he worked in Belfast as a radio and television producer for the BBC. Since 1987 he has lived in the United States, where he is now Howard G. B. Clark ‘21 Professor at Princeton University. In 2007 he was appointed Poetry Editor of The New Yorker. Between 1999 and 2004 he was Professor of Poetry at the University of Oxford, where he is an honorary Fellow of Hertford College. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Letters, he was given an American Academy of Arts and Letters award in literature for 1996. Other recent awards are the 1994 T. S. Eliot Prize, the 1997 Irish Times Poetry Prize, the 2003 Pulitzer Prize, the 2003 Griffin International Prize for Excellence in Poetry, the 2004 American Ireland Fund Literary Award, the 2004 Shakespeare Prize, the 2005 Aspen Prize for Poetry, and the 2006 European Prize for Poetry.

Valerie O’Riordan is a PhD candidate in Creative Writing at the University of Manchester. Her first chapbook of flash fiction, Enough, was published by Gumbo Press in 2012. She won the Bristol Short Story Prize in 2010. She blogs at www.valerieoriordan.com.

Gerard Smyth is a poet and journalist. He was born in Dublin where he still lives. His poetry has appeared widely in publications in Ireland, Britain and the United States, since the late 1960s, as well as in translation. His seventh collection, The Fullness of Time: New and Selected Poems (Dedalus Press, Dublin) was published in 2010. He was the 2012 recipient of the O’Shaughnessy Poetry Award from the University of St Thomas in St Paul, Minnesota. He is a member of Aosdána.

Michael Ray is a glass artist living in West Cork. His poems have appeared in The Moth, Asylum, Poetry 24,The Irish Independent,The Shop, Cyphers,andThe Bare Hands Anthology. In 2011 he won the RTE John Murray National Poetry Competition. In 2012 he was shortlisted for the Cúirt New Writing Poetry Prize, won second prize in the Fish poetry competition and was highly commended in the Francis Ledwidge Poetry Award. In 2013 he was shortlisted for the Hennessy Award.

Michael J. Whelan’s poetry has appeared in The Moth, Cyphers, Crannóg, Wordlegs, The Galway Review, Bare Hands Poetry as well as local journals and newspapers. With support from South Dublin County Libraries, he has published two non fiction books on Military History, The Battle of Jadotville: IrishSoldiersinCombatintheCongo,1961andAllegiancesCompromised:Faith,Honour&Allegiance-ExBritish Soldiers in the Irish Army 1913–1924. He was short-listed for the Patrick Kavanagh Poetry Award and the Jonathan Swift Creative Writing Award. He is a member of the Irish Defense Forces.

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