poetrystuff

 A.M. Juster is an impressive poet by any measure. He has enough awards to bury you in, enough published books to build an exotic poetry tower and is a graduate of both Yale and Harvard, with two honorary doctorates. He has translated and…

September 11 was the anniversary of a violent event which brought about the modern world: the CIA-backed overthrow of Chilean president Salvador Allende in 1973. While the more recent attack on the World Trade Centre was a horrific tragedy…

Beware of the Hey Man Beware of the Hey Man, he’s lurking in the street. That hipster-hatted Hey Man, the coolest guy you’ll meet. He’s sipping on his coffee, a pained artistic soul. The only thing that this…

Mary Kennelly is a familiar name on the poetry scene. She's been involved in arts events in Ireland for many years, including Listowel Writers’ Week, taking to the spoken word tent at Electric Picnic's Mindfield and the Brendan Kennelly…

On Surviving Typhoid Fever In 1828 the Royal Astronomical Society awarded a gold medal to Caroline Herschel. No woman would receive one again for 168 years. My mother can't forgive me for being alive. The typhoid made me stooped,…

The first time I saw Paul Timoney he was standing on a chair in the middle of at least a hundred teenagers pretending to be a talking shoe. I watched as he leant down and a young woman giggled helplessly as he spoke the rhyming words at…

When we slot figures neatly onto the plinths of our national pantheon, the heroic status we make often require some scrubbing before they are fit to be viewed by the public. Figures of national renown are scrubbed clean of their more…

Attic Dust is particles of dead skin, among other things stored here; a Christmas tree chopped in boxes like a magician’s trick, trapped dreams in school notebooks, rusting pieces of hobbies abandoned, the long gone still…

Is This The Thing? (L--- Poem) Could this be the Thing, I’ve read Of poets knowing, so well, too well And lamenting, and indulging, with inky raw palms, behind Chipped wood shuttered-light panels, (Too bright to see, clearly; a…

The Secret Only I know the length you go lying awake at night drawing the countdown, 41,40,39, all the way down to 1 and then the magic zero over and over like counting sheep till you sleep. Only I know the length you go…