1
2
'Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and I — thought, fuck it, I'll take the bus, and that has made all the difference' FROST/O’DONOGHUE
3
PB Magazine Issue Eight. Editors: Peadar and Collette O'Donoghue Email: buspoems@gmail.com Website: http://thepoetrybusmag.wix.com/change
COPYRIGHT REMAINS WITH THE POETS and ARTISTS Many thanks to the poets and artists for letting us publish their wonderful work. Thanks to Jason Conway for sorting the cover. Huge thanks also to all you readers and supporters. Finally a special thank you to our Fundit pledgers, without you this magazine could not exist. This mag is YOURS!
Front cover, The Crown, by CARL-MARTIN SANDVOLD. Runner up in the 2019 BP Portraits Award. More info at Instagram:@carlsandvold
4
CONTENTS FRAN LOCK Heron into Phoenix 5 FRED JOHNSTON Dylan Thomas, in Passing 7 MARY O’DONNELL Ghost 8 PATRICK DEELEY El Teide 9 ANNIE MUIR Crab Snowglobe 10 LEE PROSSER I First Thought It was a Balloon 11 LEE PROSSER Shit Disco 12 LIAM AUNGIER A Romance Language 13 GRACE O’DOHERTY Waiting 14 JACK KELLY Twelve 15 MARK BOLSOVER The Horror Film 17 JASON CONWAY Sandpaper Summits 20 MARIA ISAKOVA BENNETT Untitled Landscape 21 DOMINIC JAMES The Tree Surgeon 22 VIVIAN WAGNER How to Tree 23 BOBBIE SPARROW Grandmother 24 ED MADDEN A Pooka in Arkansas 25 ABEGAIL MORLEY Succumb 26 LOUISE G COLE Origami Instructions for…27 PACIFIST FAROOQ My Memoir 28 ANGEL IFYAWUCHI
A Conversation With the Stars 30
JEFF PHELPS Moon 31 CHARLIE PETTIGREW The Third Pole 32 FRANK DULLAGHAN After 33 FRANK GOLDEN One Days’s Claim Upon a Soul…34 5
EILEEN F. CONNOLLY The Dead of Night 36 JEAN O’BRIEN Unspeakable 37 FINOLA SCOTT Revenge, a Dish Best Served 38 BREDA SPAIGHT Avocado 39 CATHERINE ANN CULLEN Secret Birthday 40 ANNE WALSH DONNELLY Land of Saints and Shite 41 ANNE WALSH DONNELLY Grief is a Rodeo…42 SIOBHAN TWOMEY Closing Time 43 PIPPA LITTLE The First Three Words of a Wish 44 SUE FINCH The Antiquarium 45 BINK OWEN My Father’s Quirk 46 JIM WARD Pay Day 47 ROB PLATH Beneath My Boyhood Roof 48 WARREN CZAPA How Can Every Day be Like 49 ROISIN BUGLER A Hodge-Podge of People… 50 ROSITA SWEETMAN After Dinner With Anne Madden 51 RUTH QUINLAN The Angel’s Share 52 HOLLY MAGILL The Ferret and Off Stump… 54 ANNA SAUNDERS Rare 55 PAT PESSOA Himmler 56 MARK BAKER What goes round 57 JEFF PHELPS Takiwatanga 58 DOMINIC RIVRON Moebius Love Poem 59 BIOS 60
6
FRAN LOCK Heron into Phoenix i.m Brendan Behan what? is your name not a nail, knocked through an untidy hand made staggered by its reaching? you learnt first how to sprawl, to knead your slight machine to grief. your penal sweat and armpit stink. your dirty, loitering mirth. there’s meat boiled grey in a boarding house. pissabed turbulence, times a dead heat held you. the halting fuck you break from, drowned. and christ, it’s christ, not wounded but defenceless, stretched. and everything this wingspan is a figure for. what? you too have watched the birds, your letters said, and flailed the long night into inventory: the latch, the screw, the hanghouse hinge. the bent lead key. you learnt first how to binge and brawl. failure: a cat connives at its own skinning. christ. and crucifixion is confinement, prison-stiffness in the limbs – it never leaves, your letters said. you need that squat machine to grieve. torment contempt to vertigo; your discord into heresy. who set the priests upon the seas? i think i know. guilt is a pious stomach turning over, bilious, awash - - and squealing. what? as if i wouldn’t know. how hell is other people, briny faces, daft against the window, pillow, pressing in. my cabbage king. the steady friends who pity you. when the eye rolls. when the mouth dries. when you are 7
disgusting and utterly shrugged. i know. how to long for that legible bed, to lie, explicable and soiled, and calm. finally calm. how it is to die. without dying. drink’s incredulous alchemy. it’s vexed glitter, coke on snow. on the royal canal a heron slenders into flight. i think of you. before the braindamage of heroism, before your name: bronze welt in the pavement. when you would sear and mean, and only mine. in your straits and spastic animal vastness. in the christless grace you’d plummet with or soar. and shit for your legend. the tongue a length of wrestled pig-flesh, wags the whole world wrong. shit for ireland, shit for god. and of your letters, keep only the heron, a living angle of assent, unbending like a wire hanger, flexed out for the pry and jimmy of the real.
8
FRED JOHNSTON Dylan Thomas, in Passing We didn’t see his grave when in Laugharne it rained something primitive there was his work-shed, a bratty child defacing The Visitors’ Book it was not weather for walking ploughing through wet-grass graveyards for a poet’s sake the drive made us tedious and dull and the day was dull and primitive. This happens when the heart’s not in it you lose things, things get lost postcards never tell the truth, we know that, though we send them as testaments of sorts minded to keep in mind the lie and photograph the rest. Nothing’s a spectacle, the boys of summer hug the pub it’s all lost, as things get lost. To live in a house called Eros, what more could mad-matched lovers want? What more? We passed it under the primitive rain rain the colour of estuary water we settled for fish-and-chips and were glad when the camper’s diesel fired up and we were off out of Llareggub, making ourselves up like rhymes what more do mad-matched lovers want? What more?
9
MARY O’DONNELL Ghost I want to be a ghost in my own house. You may still live here, you can come and go in the casual glide of daily tasks. Just leave me be, happy in my haunting of this room, which has never had a key. The secret metal is my writer’s heart, which needs to shrink away from signs of flesh, becoming white, then paler, less than grey, so that you hardly notice how greatly I need this house to submit to haunting, to inhale my chill. If I am unseen yet felt, surely that will be sufficient. I want to be a ghost in my own house. Do not speak to me. Do not spread fond hands Along my thigh or breast, just come and go. Be free. I am haunting myself away from open doors and friendly passageways, from that candled nook by a winter fire, withdrawing behind the shades of morning, while you inhabit the shell I bequeath.
10
PATRICK DEELEY El Teide This jagged journey – we rise, we roll, our bus reaches in two hours the places which camels and donkeys once took half a week to go. El Teide gathers out of cold air her cloud sombrero that lets us know rain is on the way. Giant boulders spewed up in molten obduracy are eggs laid – so the first people credited – by Guayota, the mountain devil. Stone time is slow. Still, happenstance statues loom – a man and a beast enjoying siesta; God’s raised finger; a pregnant bear. Long-needled pine trees wearing fudgy lichen beards stitch the mist into water drops that trickle down to underground laval tubes, while below floral fields of yellow and blue, below laurel jungles throwing shadows along the climb, a young girl sings to her mother: “Mirate, el agua, el agua bonito, el agua grande”, as she splashes through the black-sanded shallows of the sea.
11
ANNIE MUIR Crab Snowglobe Thrown in with shoelaces and paracetamol, a souvenir from Copson Street pound shop – this rusty orange crab on a rock with specks of glitter resting in every nook and cranny. Around the base there are footprints in sand and another, smaller crab, exactly alike except I can touch it. Inside your hard, glass globe you seem to be in some other dimension like the reflection in a mirror, or memory. Either dormant or ecstatic – when I shake you up it is for a moment New Year’s Eve, your pincers grasping to catch the confetti that floats around your head in kaleidoscope slow motion. Then, when each piece has fallen, you wait for something else to happen.
12
LEE PROSSER I First Thought It was a Balloon I first thought it was a balloon when the white plastic bag lifted. No longer the carrier of shopping, books or dirty socks. It was a plastic-skinned ghost floating above the red brick walls, briefly joined by a fluttering crisp-packet moth. Pegged shirts and towels on taut lines along the regimented line of gardens shimmied in the breeze. A yammering crowd to wave on the flight over the top of the butcher’s shop, now a tanning salon to brown your pale skin, as Morris the Baker has the latest deals on smart phones and Len the Newsagent gives you cash for gold. The discarded plastic bag drifted slowly away towards the brownfield land of copper and tin-tainted soil where we hollered as children, amplifying our voices within ruined chimney spaces. Allowing soot to blacken our layers as we trampled over exhausted coals.
13
LEE PROSSER Shit Disco Tiger jacket and piano keyboard tie D.J. Mic and 20 years in the game with his set list that remains the same. Coloured spotlights diffuse across a mirror ball, dappling dancing queens into polychromed leopards. Golden balloons released to giggles, bosoming up against the nicotined ceiling. Men overwhelm the besieged bar. A hole in the war—the clad wood drifting back into style. It’s tight shirts and rolled-up sleeves, aftershave and sweat hanging like a damp cloth. It feels good to escape the body heat and noise out through the wire-panelled doors where the smokers draw. Rain spring-echoing upon the galvanised roof as smoke haze the city lights across the lines. Back in the function room a feverish heat broils the dance floor. Filled now with divisions of my family, co-ordinating themselves to the call of the ‘Macarena’
14
LIAM AUNGIER A Romance Language The quick-fire of their quarrel ricochets inside the jolting bus: A couple arguing in Italian, a passionate discourse of vowels and assonance against the bump and bounce of the vehicle as it blunders between hedges. The early afternoon flitters by: April with its freight of budding trees and fields and a high wind whistling between its teeth. I sit two rows behind them, on my own pretending to read Dante in translation, that passage which compares amorous souls to starlings flocked together in a vortex; a storm, their swirling vertigo of love. Suddenly the pair is silent, hand in hand they walk down the swaying aisle, speak with the driver. The countryside slows to a stop. They step outside. And my head is turned to see the breeze unbind the white veil of her hair. He offers her a useless umbrella and they argue still as they walk together through the gathering storm.
15
GRACE O’DOHERTY Waiting You waited for the bus on the steps of the derelict Ormond which advertised red-lettered, incomplete film titles like a crossword someone forgot about. The town was like that, at first. Blanks, clues. Slack-collared, crumpled schoolboys waited to be filled out and nervous sticks of cold girl-flesh lengthened between navy sock and tartan skirt. An old woman pissed into her wellingtons and pushed groceries in a pram. A madman waved traffic round the roundabout or made dirty shapes with his hands. Finally, on a wet patio with a boy you were getting to know a new angle was revealed: the moon, from his back garden, for a moment promising to let you in then clouding over again.
16
JACK KELLY Twelve
I His outline came on an April morning As a confession on my phone Nothing but a name and an act Both as common as clouds in spring As obscene as tears in public We saw Walk The Moon that night
Everybody reach out and hold somebody That you love so fuckin' much I groped for your hand, limp in the dark And stare at the kiss he left on your neck Willing it back down his fucking throat
II May was his But summer was mine Frozen pizza melted in shopping bags Discarded at the door, keys left swinging Syllables without consonants Sank into converted barn stone I sank back into my habits Candle wax and baby oil Sank into the fissures in my skull His name would surface And my mouth would bend into a snarl
III He came into your room Like a wasp hiding from October And lay on my side of your bed Until Valentine lilies began to curl We meet to exchange orphaned socks and forgotten shirts You stay the night And the next
17
IV You go to answer the door I’m in your bathroom like a caught moth Brushing my teeth And wetting my hair at the same time The window is open It's April outside Your voice multiplies in the hall When I'm on an edge I write myself into a film Choreographing my words and limbs JACK enters A smile on his face, calm and knowing; with a flash of hunger Let's both find out What the fuss is about
18
MARK BOLSOVER the horror film.
(—a dream. ... ).
… in (starring) a horror film. … … —walking in-through a-the park—wooded. (… —from hilltop field(s) (—sky (grey-white bright). and rolling… (cold). grass, ‘n’ a drystone wall (crumbled)… ). night (grey-blue (dark) light). —a (paved-ashpalt?) path along. (trees (tall) line (over)). … (—black (paint), wrought-iron railings (b’side)… —? … ). … discussing film-performance with friends (cast-mates), and director. (in-die.—low-budget(ed). … ). … —a figure (face.—dis-figured-dis-con-tort(ed)-warped.—violent (raged)-manic. … ). —leaps out (from in the darkness (over) (wooded)). (—a (cheap) scare). … man. —barred.—fr’m (doing business in-with.—wares t’ ply-sell) a-the local shop (newsagent-convenience). (goods to sell—stock). 19
(—a counter. … —small (-cramped-over-loaded).—sweets, ‘n’ sund). (… —they dislike… -distrust-despise (reject). ( … —he killed a (local. young.) man (—responsible f’r th’ death ‘v… )… —? … (—fear-resent). … ). —out cast. (pariah.—shamed). … —returns home. … … —something in the attic(‘s space) (—the attic’s hatch—open (— inexplic). —into a darkness. (—small-narrow hallway. bright-lit. (beige)). … scares him. (anxiet—bad consc. … ). … he hides. … (—see. (disturb).—his face… —fear(-wasted),… —ashen (bleak), panic(strick), sweat shine (… —peeled, unblink, of eyes (manic)… —fr’m within-b’neath. —his hiding place (—in the floor… —?). … ). (—th’ figure… —? … ). …
hosting.— … —‘n early morning, Sunday, Ma-ga-zine show (TV). (—with Simon Pegg). (… —wit-self-‘n’-show-mocking… — banter. … ). (—bright-lit, large(-long), studio(?) space. 20
white. —couches (long, low), &c. … —by-side the-a river? … (… —see docks-canal banks, outside (—large(-tall) windows—out). (—industrial (was))… ). (—results-reward for-of-fr’m the film’s success. (reviews.—for me). … ). … … —find my (old) notebook. (out of shot-conversat.—on a table-desk’s top. … —piles (untidy-haphaz) ‘v books piled. … ). … —is full. (now). (… —numbered sections… —3.… 4.… 5.… (…). (… —on THE BOOK OF JOB (notes). … —emphasised,—on final page(s). … ). … —must start a new one. …
21
JASON CONWAY Sandpaper Summits Auburn scars, tattooed for sharp distraction block memory with a warm rush of welcomed pain. Lipstick and gloss hide sorely bitten lips, cut with worry and the fear of upsetting fruit carts. An invisible summit is torn through self-preservation in the pursuit of a blissful escape, crawling fingers struggle to seek purchase on a puckered surface, searching for a bloodied grip, jagged bitten nails burrow to sump skin, scratching sandpaper raw in pursuit of clarity. Constellations of dried merlot clots leave a taught stress map of teardrop stars, battle marks from a contoured life, camouflaged by cloth and foundation through changing landscapes.
22
MARIA ISAKOVA BENNETT Untitled Landscape A white sun in a white sky is raised like a host in a monstrance, sand is furrowed like a field for sowing. Her back to the wall, she scatters words to sea at Portpatrick, where, looking west, the Mourne Mountains are cast in bronze. On a ferry packed with lorry drivers who slouch, scratch and eat pie and chips, she sails home. There is a Frost Moon. Days are short. Her dreams are white with sleet and paths though Mountain Ash. She blesses herself and prays beads to capture moments: his black jacket covers pale skin, his soft melody sounds each syllable, his hands paint while the tide comes in. When he finally rests, she lays her head on his chest, hears his breath and tastes the moon. She prays a wish while through the night he shines like Orion.
23
DOMINIC JAMES The Tree Surgeon
Sawdust flew and branches fell, fast-handed down into the swell of rushing leaves in June, where all is wet and fresh as April. Startled moths flew up around the nimble feet and padded crown of a bearded tree surgeon poised at my bedroom window. He climbs in rain, the sky and land, inhabiting those inbetweens where Agamemnon, king of men, entered in his bath house, fell, faltered at a homecoming: was he to one thing constant never? One foot in sea and one on shore, ten years gone and back from war, from the walls of Troy sent headlong down into the well, never to recover. My neighbour’s buzz saw has no stealth nor measure of its hellish din only the nuthatch can complain where it flits along those white remains heaped on the ground, where long-tailed tits had played in flights at dusk and dawn. Something’s missing, something’s gone. I count the generations in the dying leaves of a mutilated silver birch, grown too big for its roots, cut down leaving something missing.
24
VIVIAN WAGNER How to Tree The oak trees in my backyard speak to each other, to me, about steadiness and stability, about the way cicadas will sit in your branches, calling and calling, and there’s nothing you can do but support them in their frenzy, and, when the time’s right, wave your branches in the wind at the dandelions flexing at your feet.
25
BOBBIE SPARROW Grandmother
Winter contracted her sent her scurrying for tweeds and woolens dead animals at her throat. Summer released her saw her picking plums from gnarled branches forgotten skin thirsting the sun. Winter cautioned her summoned old wounds making her squirrel tinned ham at the back of cold cupboards. Summer stretched her noticing our hopeful faces pressed coins for ice cream into our nervous hands. Winter claimed her taking her old bones into the hard ground. We didn’t weep finished the barley sugar in her bag and climbed the plum tree.
26
ED MADDEN A Pooka in Arkansas My dad was dying. He had been dying for weeks. I went for a walk down the old road beside the family home, the sun declining in the distant trees. Be careful, my mother said, there are wolves in the fields—she said she had seen the tracks. I used the walk to phone my love back home, the man they didn’t know, refused to know, a name they never used. The nearest field was fringed with what the combines left behind of last year’s harvest, threaded now with insects and weeds. Tractors would plow it all down soon enough, and death would be here, too, soon. On the road ahead, a small dog trotted just beyond me. The wind picked up, I tucked my phone away. No one headed out or home, no one on the road, just the dog. It paused, looked back as if to ask, how far do you think we’ll go tonight?
27
ABEGAIL MORLEY Succumb If I die before you in some night-time mouth of an evening spitting sulphur and seed pods as a moon rots in a brushed off sky, I’ll wait in bone’s shadow, a thing truly lost. If I die before you in this hearse of a house you won’t hear my cry. If I die before you in a thinning twilight, its smudge ambling in as if foretold and you’re watching somewhere above my body in the onset of evening and see winter stalling itself at the end of the street, and try to dream yourself awake; you know you can ‒ and you see me die. Well that’s ok. I can open my wound of sky in each and every word I slip from lips, in each and every hour of night, my slack hands that can almost… can almost… You’ll see me tipping aside my conversation, no syllables wriggle from my lips, no sound silks from my tongue. I tell you to imagine me as a shred of silver cotton that’s sewn into the brightest star before your eyes. I wait for you to say it is impossible, yet take the love you’ve twisted in your palms and weave it each night. I’ll wear its tick-tack sewing right across my heart as if I’ve had surgery and been given back my loss.
28
LOUISE G COLE Origami Instructions
for the Recently Bereaved 1. Fold your grief inwards from the corners to centre, into a shape not neat, precise or equally proportioned 2. Right side out, press along the creases with tenderness and care, tears (and tears) are inevitable in the early stages of this process but can be hidden with careful composure, stoicism, support, mindfulness, alcohol 3. Keeping raw patches of disbelief and despair well tucked in, carefully hold sides, press and pinch firmly to distribute the burden more evenly, remembering to keep breathing, keep breathing, keep breathing 4. If edges fray, express regret quietly and with decorum, turning deep sadness back to front when in public 5. In private, spread out the whole hurt, tracing along the edges of loneliness, anger, fear, permanent marks may fade eventually, but only with time. Time. Lots of time. 6. At this stage, your mandate for bitterness may require punching holes, unfurling crumpled parts, shredding, stamping, tearing strips, impromptu perforations 7. Understand nothing breaks like a heart, so it may be necessary to reassemble the pieces and start again, still remembering to breathe, to breathe, to breathe 8. Fold your grief inwards from the corners‌
29
PACIFIST FAROOQ My Memoir
Inside my mother’s stomach, I was a dead stone, I would have asked to be born as a Buddhist not to be exiled from the home of peace. In my own country, Myanmar, I was a plant in the garden of racism, with no rights to enough sunlight to survive another day. In Bangladesh, I am a sparrow without a nest, a lost heart jailed in a refugee camp where pain and distress boil my blood. In front of the world I look like a small bird thirsty for human rights in the dessert; there’s no oasis of humanity, just flocks of brutality. Behind the Burmese genocide movie human rights are diamonds, I dig deep to uncover them a thousand lifetimes over. The day when I was born as a Rohingya, human rights were buried along with my umbilical cord, freedom disappeared like clouds and fear twisted my life.
30
At PB we always choose the poem, not the poet. But every good rule should have an exception. With so many (often very privileged) poets writing about refugees we thought it better to have words from true experience. We made the decision to publish Pacifist Farooq because we couldn’t ignore the fact that he is a refugee actually living in a camp. For him to have his words published gives him hope. Sometimes the best poetry is a simple human connection made through words. How could we deny the voice of Pacifist Farooq a 19 year old Rohingya poet, educator, teacher, translator, humanitarian activist, peace builder, footballer? He completed his matriculation examination with two distinctions in 2016. Like many Rohingya he was prevented from pursuing further education. In August 2018, he narrowly escaped from the genocidal operations of the Tatmadaw and now lives as a refugee in Cox’s Bazaar the world’s largest refugee camp. We wish him every good fortune with his poetry, with his life.
31
ANGEL IFYAWUCHI A Conversation With the Stars.
Once in a while I like to leave my small town and sit on the outskirts of the city, I watch cars drive down the motorway under the dim of broken streetlights and in that moment I am filled with a glance of solitude and bliss. In that moment the stars try and understand the enigma that is me, they compare me to the moon, they say I understand what it feels like to be untouchable, an unbounded conundrum no celestial body could grasp. The stars, they thank me for giving them the chance to shine brighter when I am not feeling whole, you are a kind body, they say, for even when you are deflated you let us show off our glow, you give us the opportunity to hear wishes and sirens from those who are smart enough to believe that we are listening, you let us fall until we find where we truly belong in this beautifully chaotic mess we call a galaxy. Is that not what unlimited possibility is about? They ask me where to next and I can only think of the path that is discovered when my jagged pen hits the paper. It is on that path I can truly find my way home. 32
JEFF PHELPS Moon From here I watch the night come on. The moon is over the roofs like a half-sucked mint. A boy in a white tee-shirt walks head deep in ferns up the hill and disappears into the woods silently. The trees leaning white-edged listening, shake themselves free of pigeons. There are no clouds, just misty damask blobs and the sky is the pale blue of baby skin, one drop of ink in a jar of water. Soon it will be night. That star I know is there the single steady mote close to the brighter moon like the moon’s dog and the moon’s mouth whistling for it will make itself visible. It is impossible to imagine another morning, another night beyond this.
33
CHARLIE PETTIGREW The Third Pole It began with a river in spate: muddy, angry, spilling out on to the roads. The rain as hard as stair rods, metallic grey, ricocheting off the tarmac. Fields disappeared. Hedgerows floated free. Overnight the centre of town became a lake: deep, orphic, sourced from the underworld of secret streams that roiled beneath it. Then it happened. A rowing boat appeared on the Georgian mall, gliding over the cricket pitch in an arc of light. The crew, a child coxswain and two adolescent boys, their shy bravado caught in black and white. 2. We do not fear water as we fear fire. We have mastered its buoyancy, tamed its power, domesticated the rain that falls. We wait out its occasional insurgencies. But something is stirring in Xinjiang. High above in the Third Pole, the glaciers are on manoeuvres, retreating to higher ground, readying for the battle to come. Meanwhile, on the plains, toxic clouds float lazily over the smokestacks.
34
FRANK DULLAGHAN After i.m Jim Price 1948 - 2018 Mountains climb up from their knees and stop praying to their merciless gods. Pain lodges in your home, sprawls in your living room, takes over your kitchen. It says I won’t stay long, as it unpacks box after box. The voices of the unborn hide in the trees like wasps. The sun crashes its song. Stars swarm, out of kilter. The moon lies on its back and refuses to fill. Machines busy themselves with monotony. Familiar streets arrive at wrong places; go back on their word, are uphill in every direction. You now keep your coffee in the medicine cupboard, your knives in the fridge. You wear your life like a revolver. Fish swim backwards. Dogs have no use for their tails. The lone swan lifting from the creek, cannot break through the air, is held there, its wings clattering, its heart hammering on the door.
35
FRANK GOLDEN One Days’s Claim
Upon a Soul Descending
In the fatal rhythm on the breaker’s shore the sea is running past Muckinish and Scanlan’s Island the channel slick with seals and shags and milk-tooth egrets the wind blowing West-South-West the sky ruched and florid the darkness in the wave hollows full of the same ghosts I see whenever I walk this stretch. Close on 30 years ago at the turn of the year like now, a time when no sane man or woman ventures in or wades, submerges, and flaps in the shelving cold and crippling wind. No one. Two brothers, their sister, and mother all striving in a cottage buried in marram, gable-blasted, mean and frigid. Why had M - the gentlest of them all walked that morning past the wind-break hill that led to the crumbling pier and faced into the wind? Perhaps he was glad of the noise the wind racket and wave sledge glad of the absences and the plough colour of the light. No one saw him ease himself out on round stones his feet shifting to maintain a balance instinct in play before surrender.
36
Men who die like this in their thirties break the mould. Just when you would have thought the worst of those impaling crises had been surpassed or the pressure of the vortex outlasted or the figures of circling daemons dissembled. He may have needed a bigger idea or a brighter tongue or a shift in how he named the world. He may have needed passage to an envisioned shore a love of something clarified in struggle an ownership of kisses and competent promises a chance to follow the haunting perfume of an unmapped future.
37
EILEEN F. CONNOLLY The Dead of Night Keep watchful and alert tonight on that winding westward road, dark spirits roam with demon wiles, engaged in reckless celebration. Their unfettered spraoí is short, they can’t afford to dally, when the dead of night will pass, dark powers will break and vanish. If you are a solitary traveller, ghostly terrors multiply, seek out a safe companion to enhance survival chances. Along the road at Carraig an Eidhinn, you’ll meet a red-haired beansí, don’t engage in conversation, she desires your soul’s damnation. Avoid the dreaded red-eyed dog, the crow with soft angelic tone, the begging witch at the cross-roads and the fiddle-playing tom-cat. Keep ears tuned-in and eyes in focus, as tall trees whisper ancient tales, treasures deep beneath the hawthorn, to ensnare the unsuspecting mortal. As dead of night gives way to dawn and demon darkness scatters, spirits melt in hollow shades to bide their time ‘til nightfall.
38
JEAN O’BRIEN Unspeakable After three days of rain, the sodden earth is pitted, water pooling like a hex, a shrug, a tug of feathers. The earth is unbuckled, if it doesn’t breathe it breaks. Now after disappointment in Derry, a familiar feeling, a whiff of Widgery and whitewash prevails, we are still gathering the bones. Pictures of a young man who
Probably had a stone in his hands—
but definitely had a lead slug splintered in his heart, shows frozen on our television screens. It is almost the Ides of March, the old Roman time for the settling of debts, they remain unpaid here. Then as the drear disconsolate rain beats down, and equinox bears grim news in from Addis Ababa, a 737 plane falls from the air, everyone dies, disappears, their bodies vaporized. A stricken woman pictured in the papers throws dirt in her own face as she knows. She knows. Earth and air are no longer a shelter bed, obdurate, we are breaking our own skin, sliced clean from our debts, the knives are out. Beware.
39
FINOLA SCOTT Revenge, a Dish Best Served Prepare your whetting stone, keen edged is best. Trawl cupboards, freezers. This is a special feast. Rummage below sinks to find unguents labelled Keep away from Children. Most precious. From the shed, gather Do not Consume bulbs. Yours will be a different spring. Find that oil brought by smiling guests. Long tongues, short memories. When all was well, all was celebration. When love was true.
40
BREDA SPAIGHT Avocado after Catherine Smith the first one I saw was greenish-brown : wrinkled / an old man’s testicles : contained so many calories I wondered why eat it at all / why not massage it straight to hips : the bony vegan flatmate coaxed me to nibble a slice sprinkled with lemon : it tasted of unsalted butter : of Thursdays with my grandaunt / who always inquired / Any sign of a boyfriend yet? : smelled of all those food binges I went on as a teenager : mirror my fat-arsed thick-waist enemy : the Kate Moss heroin-chic-look an event in which I couldn’t even hope to compete : the men’s shirts I wore to hide breasts that were too small / hips too broad : and I in love with David Bowie / Tilda Swinton : today / I catch an item on the Food Channel about boosting your sex life / an array of fruits and vegetables displayed / cucumbers / bananas / asparagus : the avocado more womb-shaped than I once thought : beta carotene / magnesium / vitamin E : a combination guaranteed to ignite hippocampus / limbic lobe : first / scoop out the flesh / then undo the button of your jeans : stretch out on the sofa : wait for your blood to blaze : then speed dial your lover : Can you call back / she says : her wife’s there : right beside her / opening oysters for their anniversary dinner : I swallow the creamy mouthful of guacamole : spoon another to my lips 41
CATHERINE ANN CULLEN Secret Birthday Every year it looms out of the calendar, the day your waters broke and the midwife with the hard mouth took your daughter. Your husband would not have known what to say if you’d told him. Instead you listen for the knock, search faces for one who would be that age, this age, with the lank fair hair of your brother’s friend. Every year you feel the pale silk of her head, her length of limb, the accusation of birthdays. Your other children evolve through time, blue eyes smoking to green or grey, white hair muddying to brown, but in your mind she is suspended, her face baby soft, her birth colouring intact. Every year remembers you sitting in the doctor’s in your ankle socks and summer dress, remembers everything organized for her to vanish.
42
ANNE WALSH DONNELLY Land of Saints and Shite Where has the land of saints and shite gone? When you could save and burn your own turf without fear of jail. When we slurped full-cream unpasteurized milk for breakfast and gulped potato poteen for dinner. When slices of bacon had a bit of meat in them, not like the scrawny things they sell vacuum packed nowadays. When the same slices came from a recently butchered pig we’d kept in the shed and fed vegetable peelings to all winter. When the done thing was for me to lodge my yoke into her yoke and it was no harm to be harnessed to each other - for life. When we’d wake up every morning next to each other and know we’d end up side by side in the graveyard when the time came. When she’d win the best sponge cake prize at the county fair, every year. When I could call her my woman. When she’d never miss an ICA event and I’d ignore how late it was when yer wan left her home. When women never fell in love with other women or worse still - end up running off with them. Fuck, no. When young Jim’d catch a load of wild salmon in the River Moy and present me with a five pounder. When I savoured the taste of the pinkish-orange flesh and didn’t retch like I do now, after eating a farmed fillet. Dear God, where has my land gone and how have I ended up in a lumpy single bed talking to a picture of the crucifixion?
43
ANNE WALSH DONNELLY Grief is a Rodeo
Cowboy on a Bronco
Grips my belly with his thighs grimaces as I stomp and snort inhales my excrement and his sweat roars as we burst from the chute. Grazes the girth of my body with steel, grips the leather rigging on my withers pulls his knees up as I buck then rolls his spurs along my shoulders. Leans back as I descend clings to me until I toss him to the ground. Grief is the next cowboy who straddles me just when I think I’ve broken free.
44
SIOBHAN TWOMEY Closing Time Thank you for pulling down the shutters those ones that unfurl in lines, wooden, sound like trains, bleached and convex rolling. The pulse of ovaries and fimbrae, quiet, scaling back the clack of day fourteen, ready for decomissioning Two lots of twenty eight, I’ve checked. Grinned when the nurse asked the last date before the anaesthetic. Free. And yet.
45
PIPPA LITTLE The First Three Words of a Wish*
No Loitering Here, Maccy D’s remind. No cash? No warm time at the old Spot White. The flyover splays giant fingers ringed with light, rime seals the multi storeys. Wedding ice. Learn to roost, bird-like, survive. Heels ring, oaths explode, sex-echoes rise from heated pipes. This is my life. My life is this: or not: what spell said twice could skin the rabbit, make it right wrongs done to me, to mine? I wish for morning as I wish for wine. Someone, something, on my mind.
*From ‘Potions’ by Yusef Komunyakaa
46
SUE FINCH The Antiquarium After lunch they often went to the antiquarian bookshop; their every other day companionable walk. Leaving behind the morning's Monopoly, Ludo, Chess for old burgundy spines with gold lettering. Time out in a place of possibilities where grey dust got disturbed and words were waiting to be seen. He wanted old battles, dinosaurs, classified animals, God. She was all table-tops not shelves. On the horizontal, where books moved and dust didn't gather, pages were tatty from handling not age. Rapidly her sharp eyes swept and scanned seeking out the sex while he was too absorbed to know. She bought twenty pence orgasms that she did not know were fictioned.
47
BINK OWEN My Father’s Quirk “ … and miles to go before I sleep” —RF “642!” He’d shout coming through the door— my ol’ man, freight hauler of distances whose first words were miles before sentences. “591! What’s for breakfast?” He’d roar and cuff my head with a grease-mapped palm, laugh, sitting down to eggs, hash, joe black as Dunlops, then sleep, his nose crackling like low gear off ramps while ma pleaded no to our screeches, riffraff.
Bragging miles, odd habit for the turnpiker who gobbled No-Doz, bagfuls of Hersheys until he, his cab, and tonnage became debris a guardrail couldn’t hold from the river. Mornings since, the silence bothered us a lot. But we got used to it. I drove there, the site where he nodded, punched through, and took flight: 133 miles from home. The least he’d logged.
48
JIM WARD Pay Day As oil fries chips in the kitchen the smoke envelopes the orange globe hanging from the ceiling -
tea-time on Friday – Friday... the goalpost of the week’s play – the corner shop’s milestone.
Already night outside, long winter, the news on the telly. Raised voices, the sounds loud, then shushed, obeying the score-sheet of ‘don’t let the kids hear’. UB40 play on my tranny ‘I am a one in ten...’ The reek of hops from his breath, no longer king for a day, the excuses stumble out ‘taxes’ ‘bills’ ‘I have a life too’ ‘And aren’t you in a union?’ I hear her ask. Only words but they hit their target – the front door slams behind him, the outside gate creaks on neglected hinges.
49
ROB PLATH Beneath My Boyhood Roof
when i was a teenager i didn’t have to play my rock albums backwards to catch satanic messages i’d only have to turn the volume down to hear the devil crystal clear cursing his wife & children thru hole-punched walls
50
WARREN CZAPA How Can Every Day be Like dried chitin on paving like black edges of clouds like blood seeping round thumbnails like soil like Ur like Yarikh was a moon-god like sand holds lost words like ants in brown sugar like what should i do to make myself heard like Facebook reminders fucking up time like mirrors like disco like snakes in a basement like Eve spitting language like Joey Ramone like peaches like vellum like biting on egg-shells to drink you down whole like mould on cold saké like off-label meds like Seroquel like Sertraline like being swallowed by water & what the fuck is that smell like bodies like Morphine like just take it straight like milk on the turn like swallowing coal like small blackeyed birds like doors like dinosaurs like surgical metal like it took six nurses to sit me up straight like a cage of dead meat like lungs filling up with the violence of sweat like witness protection like boy keep it shut so no -one gets hurt like Hitchcock like slow suffocation like caller unknown like low level noises pricking at nerves like tape on your mouth & locking car doors like winter like frost like the sun is so bright & i don’t know who’s standing where i’m meant to be
51
ROISIN BUGLER A Hodge-Podge of People Mill in a
Melting Pot
Squeeze in beside Tanisha or Rashawn on the 4 train She of outrageous nails, he of du-rag crown Whoosh through the Bronx to 59th Street Hop aboard the Orient Express 7 Clackety clack east to Queens Short taxi ride to arrive in Elmhurst for Jim Mc’s annual Hog Roast. In his Mom’s back yard A hodge-podge of people mill in a melting pot Of suburban Big Apple mugginess. Jim bastes the rotating piglet With pork juices and banter. Jason of mixed European descent declares he is a poet. Works for Verizon until he is discovered I query the best line he has ever written? The Pig hisses and spits in the background.
‘The beauty of a changing mind’
I try to keep my golf ball eyes, tipsy From rolling back the putting green of my head Nod smile think ‘July August September October November
Keep seeking your Golden Fleece’
The Pig is ready to be torn asunder Served with sauerkraut I taste Smoky bacon sharp cabbage. Cosmopolitan home.
52
ROSITA SWEETMAN After Dinner With Anne Madden she gave us everything her truth her beauty her champagne her art her exquisite home a perfected scenario stripped back for maximum drama candles and candelabra bending in the roundy mirror at the farthest end she gave us her best thoughts her opinions her ‘fuck offs’ delivered with machine gun force eyes glittering she gave us rabbit prepared according to Pierre’s delicious recipe potatoes mashed with scallions butter pureed carrots white wine red wine she showed us how paint lives how colours bounce off each other she sat us by Louis’s portrait of Lorca of all his work her absolute favourite the murdered poet silent watching us watch she gave us her blueprint: get on make something keep trying trying never give up! she kissed us goodbye in the small hours out into the starry starry night an Empress at her door the pavements frozen our heads spinning crowned with gold dust 53
RUTH QUINLAN The Angel’s Share We have come to Porto to taste the port: Tawny, Chip Dry, the Late Bottled Vintage. Beneath a lattice of vines that filter sun, we fondle glasses struck gold by light, use our noses to find walnut, berries in a wine merchant’s wares. Behind the white-washed walls of Taylor’s, life is mannerly, starched, civilised. It is the kind of place that keeps a peacock, where pristine waiters whisper like priests, and the family crest outside the gates marks the frontier of this British enclave. But the Americans at the end of the garden are at odds with it all. He has the lips and loose-hipped swagger of Jagger. Or an ageing lounge singer, escaped from disco balls and smoky rooms to stand here defiant, drunk and loud, combing his dark, thinning mane with thickened fingers.
54
His mate wears leopard print as skin, Lycra stretching up her thighs to disappear beneath a satin blouse that falls, black like water from a battened cliff-edge of cleavage. Her hand on his arm clutches as she smiles, grasps to catch each joke. They look thirsty, tired, dried-out, as if used to more punishing heat than here, as if a bath in the vineyard’s vats of olive oil could plump decades right back into them. Perhaps they came for the Angel’s Share, two lesser demons from the fires of Vegas who will skulk to the port storehouses, shake out tattered wings to soar above the casks, mouths open, evaporating liquor pearling upon their craving, craven tongues.
55
HOLLY MAGILL The Ferret and Off Stump is Closed Now Eric had his own barstool – no one would knowingly mould their bottom to those decades-sculpted buttock-grooves. The End was coming a long time. Barry and Lou tried to lure the Good Pub Guide set with organic fayre – local produce garnished with artisan condiments and fresh-foraged samphire. Cornfed chicken confit or hand-pulled beef, drizzled winkleberry jus with a nipple of parsnip noisette lost their appeal when served under old Eric’s sneer. 11 on the dot he’d be in, rain, shine or shite, accompanied by his personal fug of wet polecat, silage – regardless of season –and scrumpy farts, sit cursing and dribbling over the racing pages through dentures that often broke free entirely to soar the room on mucus kite-strings. Barry did try to bar him. But Eric’s custom paid daily more than a whole weekend’s truffle-rubbed pork roulades. Louise was seen in the chemist buying Fixodent.
It’s ok, really, as long as he doesn’t bring in any dead pheasants again. TripAdvisor is a callous mistress.
And most people in the village couldn’t afford to drink out these days. Barry and Lou got a place in Wolverhampton, 2-4-1s and Jägerbombs, Friday Fish specials, Sex On The Beach – well, it’s landlocked there. Barry, though he’d not say, occasionally thinks of Eric, face wrinkled and red as their new grandson’s, nose pressed to the boarded window, 11, every day, on the dot, regular as a beetroot-eater’s bowels and the harvest. 56
ANNA SAUNDERS Rare
Raise me a dais of silk and down / Hang it with vair and purple dyes; Carve it in doves and pomegranates/ And peacocks with a hundred eyes. (A Birthday - Christina Rossetti.) The flesh is glistening to a blue like the peacock behind her eyes magicked by the Rossetti he recites. The poem's bird is a body bejewelled with pomegranates rosy barbed fruits, Persephone’s salvation so she wouldn’t starve. As the lamb is served he recites the whole poem and her mind deepens its hues.
Because the birthday of my life Is come, my love is come to me. For months their marriage has been a butcher’s slab, tenderising her. The meat it is almost opaque- a slender leaf of red, a blood-stained diary. Persephone paid a price for those sweet fruits. Hades kept her in darkness for all the winters. He kisses her tenderly on the lilac petal mark on her wrist, she tries not to wince. He says his love for her is uncommon. Every mouthful tastes bloodied. He explains to her that it is rare. Fails to explain why it comes at such a cost. 57
PAT PESSOA Himmler A chicken farmer in his youth, he attended agronomy school, learned about broiler farms, could never slice an egghead clean. He hated the white sticking out of the cracks, reminding him of umbilical cords fluffed, or something half done, the egg itself. Shake a rotten egg really hard and listen to the sound of the egg swallowing itself or maybe a baby's rattle if hard-boiled. He gave us destinations, he gave us the way to get to them on time. Methodicalthe chicken blinks a slow white blink, a slot machine, its number up, Venetian blinds flicked right and left, arm in, arm out, jig Heil, goose-step. If he hated, it was hate of the five senses. six-packed, corrugated, sound-proofed.
58
MARK BAKER What goes round The skipping rope had her up catching mouthfuls of blue, it scalped the grass until the patch was bare, each beat whooped around, No! No boys just girls in tautened after-dinner air, foot-falls pounding, launching the distance between two sisters to be a third, a wavelength held that went somewhere I hadn’t been or shared just heard them talking, how they’d always be there, as the rope frayed and the ground hardened and cracked beneath.
59
JEFF PHELPS Takiwatanga In those days there were no words that contained his peculiarity, his being apart. He peered from a shawl as if hauled too soon into an unfriendly world. Later we learnt not to touch his sensitive sea-anemone feet beneath which the world turned unstable. A shower was a thousand pins, his hugs one-handed and brief. Today on a two-wheeler, helmet tilted in concentration, he wobbles like a hero across the yard. One teacher jogs by his side, another at his back. Just touching.
Now I am letting you go.
Gentler, lighter. A hand, then a finger; then he is off, at last a fine and balanced creature in his own space and time.
Takiwatanga: recently minted Maori word to describe autism. Literally ‘his or her own time and space’.
60
DOMINIC RIVRON Moebius Love Poem Take a strip of paper: twist it once and then glue the ends together so that when you run your finger along one side, it turns into the other side. This is extraordinary, you think. A one-sided piece of paper, proclaiming the reality of strangeness in a world full of two-sided pieces of paper. Somehow we got twisted up like this, so that when I run my finger along your side, I'm no longer sure where you end and I begin.
61
BIOS Liam Aungier has had poems published in Cyphers, The Irish Times, the Poetry Ireland Review & previously in The Poetry Bus. His first book, Apples in Winter, was published by Doghouse. Mark Baker is a Dublin-based poet. He is a previous winner of the Poetry Collection Competition at Listowel Writer’s Week and was chosen for Poetry Ireland’s Introduction Series in 2009. His has been published in The Stinging Fly, Revival, West 47, The Shop and Poetry Ireland Review. Mark Bolsover was a winner of the Into the Void Poetry Competition, 2016. His debut Chapbook, IN FAILURE & IN RUINS—dreams & fragments, is published with Into the Void (Dublin/Toronto, 2017), and his first collection, contra FLUX.—moments caught (arrested) whilst in-from motion., is published with Polyversity Press (Graz/London, 2019). Róisín Bugler is industriously working her way through her TBW (To Be Written) pile. She was the winner of Strokestown Percy French 2019. Louise G Cole won the Hennessy Emerging Poetry Award in 2018. In February 2019, ‘Soft Touch’ her poetry pamphlet, was chosen for publication by the then UK Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy. Louise blogs at https://louisegcolewriter.wordpress.com/ Eileen F.Connolly lives in Kenmare, Co. Kerry, Ireland, where she was born in 1944. She is a founding member of Clann na Farraige writers’ group. Jason Conway ‘The Ink Warrior’ is a passionate eco-poet, artist and designer based in Stroud. Drawing inspiration from life and the natural world, his mission is to encourage people to make a positive difference, protect nature, fight prejudice, face their fears and follow their dreams. Catherine Ann Cullen is a prize-winning poet, songwriter and children’s writer. She is author of six books and a recipient of the Patrick and Katherine Kavanagh Award 2018/19. 62
Warren Czapa has had his poems published in ,Closed Gates or Open Arms, (Verve, 2019), Magma and online with Burning House Press. In 2018, he was longlisted for the Troubadour International Poetry Prize and was commended in the Verve Poetry competition on the theme of Community. Patrick Deeley is the recipient of the 2019 Lawrence O’Shaughnessy Poetry Award. The End of the World, his seventh collection, has just been published by Dedalus Press. Anne Walsh Donnelly is the author of the poetry chapbook, ‘The Woman With An Owl Tattoo’ and the short story collection, ‘Demise of the Undertaker’s Wife.’ To find out more about Anne and to purchase her books go to annewalshdonnelly.com Frank Dullaghan is an Irish poet living in Dubai. His 4th Collection 'Lifting the Latch' was published by Cinnamon Press in 2018. Sue Finch lives with her wife in North Wales and enjoys exploring the countryside and coast. Poems in A New Manchester Alphabet, The Interpreter’s House and Ink, Sweat and Tears. Frank Golden’s most recent book of poems was ,gotta get a message to you, (Salmon) A novel The Night Game (Salmon Fiction) He lives in Clare, Ireland. www.frankgolden7.com Angel Ifyawuchi is a transition year student in Skerries Community College. She wrote this poem when life was weighing on her and wants to show young people that it is okay to talk about mental health. This is her first published work. Dominic James’ collection, Pilgrim Station ,was published in 2016 and he has recently had poems in The High Window, Poetry Shed and The Journal. Fred Johnston was born in Belfast in 1951. His most recent collection is, Rogue States (Salmon Poetry 2019.) Jack Kelly recently graduated from the University of Limerick. His writing features themes of young love, queer relationships and identity, family and pop culture. This is his first published poem. More can be found at jack-pamtre.blogspot.com 63
Pippa Little has a pamphlet forthcoming from Black Light Engine Room Press, and is working on her third full collection tentatively titled The Female Etcetera. Fran lock is a some-time itinerant dog whisperer and author of six poetry collections. Her seventh collection, Contains Mild Peril, is forthcoming from Out-Spoken Press later this month. Ed Madden author of four books of poetry, teaches Irish studies and poetry at the University of South Carolina. His work has appeared in Poetry Ireland Review, Cyphers, and other journals, as well as The Book of Irish American Poetry. Holly Magill is widely published. She co-edits Atrium – www.atriumpoetry.com. Her debut pamphlet, The Becoming of Lady Flambé, is available from Indigo Dreams. Abegail Morley's debut collection was shortlisted for the Forward Prize. Her latest, The Unmapped Woman is forthcoming from Nine Arches Press. Annie Muir won the PBS National Student Poetry Competition in 2013. Published in many magazines including The Moth, Sand Magazine, the anthology Love Like Salt (Like This Press, 2018).She blogs about handing out poems outside local libraries, at www.time41poem.wordpress.com. Jean O’Brien has published five collections with Salmon Poetry. Awards include Arvon International, the Fish International and a runner up in Voices of War. She was a 2017 Patrick Kavanagh Fellow. Grace O’Doherty is from Wicklow and is currently based in Lisbon. Her poetry has been published in Poetry Ireland Review,
Honest Ulsterman, Banshee, Stony Thursday Poetry Anthology and headstuff.org. In October 2018 she was awarded the Sylvia O’Brien prize for experimental fiction. Bink Owen retired in 2002 and lives in Walla Walla, WA.
Pat Pessoa writes many poems. Few survive. He travels a lot. He’s on his road. 64
Charlie Pettigrew Originally from Armagh, now living in Barcelona. Jeff Phelps lives in Bridgnorth, Shropshire. His two novels are published by Tindal Street Press. He has a poetry booklet Wolverhampton Madonna from Offa’s Press 2016 Rob Plath is most known for his monster poetry collection A BELLYFUL OF ANARCHY .He has published a shitload in the small presses. He lives in New York with his cat and tries his best to stay out of trouble. Lee Prosser lives in the Welsh village of Llangyndeyrn and has an MA in Creative Writing from Swansea University. Finola Scott was winner of Blue Nib's chapbook competition. Stanza Poetry Festival commissioned her work for multimedia installations and postcards. Her debut pamphlet is published by Red Squirrel in October. 2019. Read her at Facebook Finola Scott Poems. Breda Spaight's debut chapbook The Untimely Death of My Mother's Hens is published by Southword Editions and is available from their online bookstore. Rosita Sweetman a founding member of the Irish Women’s Liberation Movement, published author and critic. Her memoir, ‘Feminism Backwards’ will be published by Mercier Press early next year. Of everything she has made, her children , Luke and Chupi, are way and above the most precious. Ruth Quinlan, co-editor of Skylight 47, was selected for the Poetry Ireland Introductions Series in 2019. She has won the 2018 Galway University Hospital Arts Trust - Poems for Patience competition, the 2018 Blue Nib Summer Chapbook competition, the 2014 Over the Edge New Writer of the Year Award, and the 2012 Hennessy Literary Award for First Fiction.
65
Dominic Rivron lives and works in the North of England where he writes poetry and makes music. He has been published in several poetry magazines and was a winner of The Yorksire Prize at the Ilkley Literature Festival. He blogs at http://sackerson.wordpress.com. Carl-Martin Sandvold is an award winning artist. He studied in Italy and New York and lives in Oslo where he teaches painting from his private studio. His work placed second in the hugely prestigious BP Portrait Award, and is represented in private collections wordwide. Instagram:@carlsandvold Anna Saunders is the Founding Director of Cheltenham Poetry Festival, her forthcoming collection is, Persephone Goes on
Question Time.
Bobbie Sparrow a psychotherapist has Poems in Orbis, Crannog, Skylight 47, The Honest Ulsterman. Was featured reader at the Over The Edge August 2017 and at the Far From event in CuĂrt festival of literature 2018. She was awarded 3rd prize for her Chapbook in the Blue Nib competition 2018. Siobhan Twomey is an acupuncturist, mother, wife, mindful yoga and dance teacher. She is fascinated by human nature and emotional wellbeing and the transposition of that into story/poetry. She runs a clinic in Lismore, Co. Waterford. This is her first published poem. Vivian Wagner is an associate professor of English at Muskingum University. She's the author of a memoir, Fiddle: One Woman, Four Strings, and 8,000 Miles of Music (Citadel-Kensington); a full-length poetry collection, Raising (Clare Songbirds Publishing House); and three poetry chapbooks. Jim Ward is published for poetry and short stories in English and Irish. His play Just Guff won 'Best in the West' award at Galway Fringe Festival, 2017. He has had solo exhibitions of art and sketches. His poem 2016 Proclamation was runner-up at the Thoor Ballylee/Galway Bay FM Poetry Challenge, 2017.
66
67
68