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I spent Saturday evening at the fantastic Laurel Villa Townhouse in Magherafelt for a poetry reading from three poets, two from Australia and one from America. Jeffrey Thompson is from Maine and is currently spending some time in Belfast as a Fulbright Distinguished Scholar in The Heaney Centre. Petra White and Paul Hetherington are Australian poets representing Australia on a tour of Ireland. There was a packed house for the reading and I really enjoyed hearing some new(to me) poets, all three with very different styles and subject matter; and all extremely talented.
Afterwards we had supper, including some luscious pavlova and several glasses of wine. I had a great time sitting out on the patio in the lovely warm evening, chatting and hearing about the Australian poetry scene from Paul who also tried to convince me me that really, red backed spiders were not a reason for me to stay away from Australia. I wasn’t entirely convinced.
Sunday morning involved more food, all home made and delicious.
It’s a wonderful place to stay, and Eugene and Gerardine are great hosts. To round off an excellent 24 hours, Eugene gave me a piece of bog oak to take home with me, thus fulfilling a long held wish of mine to possess a piece of this black wood.

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As part of the London 2012 Festival, Director Deborah Warren was commissioned to create an installation to celebrate love poetry and landscape in collaboration with actor Fiona Shaw. Eight encampments will be set up in beautiful coastal settings and will be filled with lights, visual arts and a soundscape of love poetry. The camps are designed to be visited between dusk and dawn and there will be one set up at Mussenden Temple. I’m going to be working with two schools to enable the pupils to write and record their own love poetry to go into the tent. I think it’s a wonderful and ambitious project and can’t wait to see the finished installation.
I met Fiona Shaw at the Verbal Arts Centre last Monday and was privileged to read some work on stage with her. She was wonderfully inspirational and her performance of a range of poetry was amazing. I particularly enjoyed listening to her perform part of A Game of Chess, from The Wasteland – it was fantastic!

If you want to learn more about the whole Peace Camp project and how you can contribute on-line, go to
http://www.peacecamp2012.com/

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I’m going to be sharing a stage with Fiona Shaw at the Verbal Arts Centre on Monday 23rd April at 7.30 to talk about love poetry. Marie-Louise Muir will be interviewing Fiona and it promises to be a great evening. Here is a link to the event           
https://www.facebook.com/#!/events/296949313719278/

I’d really appreciate it if you would let me know which is your favourite love poem. I have a few in mind but would really like some more ideas!
Thanks

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I’m really pleased to have a couple of poems included in the next edition of the Cincinnati Review (9.1).
They have asked for an ‘author commentary’ – a brief comment on the inspiration behind the poems. Never been asked for this before! Here’s my attempt at it …

A few years ago, a friend gave me a beautiful Thai stone Buddha for my birthday. Straight backed and elegant, he sits on a railing outside my kitchen window where I can see him every time I glance outside. The Buddha wears all weathers with equal equanimity, a cape and cap of snow in the winter; unblinking in the summer sun. Crows regularly perch on his head. I came to think of him as ‘the patience of stone’, and around that phrase, my poem Rock gathered and grew.

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I’m really pleased to be able to share a couple of poems by Sheffield poet, Rob Hindle. These two poems are from Yoke and Arrows, a poem sequence about the killing of Lorca in the early weeks of the Spanish Civil War, to be published by Smokestack Books in 2014. Luis Rosales was Lorca’s friend in whose house he hid until his arrest.

Rob’s other books include
Some Histories of the Sheffield Flood 1864 (Templar, 2006) – pamphlet
Neurosurgery in Iraq (Templar, 2008) – collection
The Purging of Spence Broughton, a Highwayman (Longbarrow, 2009) – pamphlet

And you can read more about his work and ideas on his excellent blog, http://robhindle.wordpress.com/about/

Song for Luis Rosales

When we are the old dead

we will sit in a boat on the river

at midnight, singing.

We will make a candle

with the yellow moon,

a heart with a guitar

and we will sing up a wind

to make the olives’ silver leaves

crackle and the orange flowers

fall like snow in the squares.

We will sail to the sea,

all the towns like bonfires

and in your eyes the night

of Andalucía with all its stars.

From a Window in Calle Angulo

He came out and the street was full of cops,

the black cars in Plaza de la Trinidad

with their engines running

like he was an ambassador or a king.

Everyone remembers the shirt he wore –

white, symbolic. Certainly, with his tie loose,

his jacket hanging lifeless on his arm,

there was something cinematic in his going.

But after he had gone, the cars’ noise

lost among the din of the city, I stood

in the window looking at the still street;

nothing I could tell was different.

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I’m so looking forward to reading in Paris next week with Deirdre Cartmill and Maureen Boyle at the Irish Cultural Centre.
Hopefully there will be time for a little sightseeing and as I’ve never been in Paris before I want to fit in as much as possible. Thinking Montmartre and maybe a boat trip on the Seine. One of the best tips I’ve had so far, from a friend who lives in France, is before I say anything else say, Je suis desole. Je ne parle pas bien Francais. Detalils of the event below – and any other tips welcome.
http://www.centreculturelirlandais.com/modules/movie/scenes/home/index.php?fuseAction=litterature

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I am really delighted to have a poem included in the second volume of the Waiting Room Reader, published by the excellent CavanKerry Press, New York.
The Waiting Room Reader: Stories to Keep you Company, will be placed in many waiting rooms in hospitals in the tri-state area. Over 10,000 free copies of the first volume of the Reader were placed in over 300 waiting rooms in more than 63 hospitals in the tri-state area.

Have a look at what CavanKerry do at the link below

http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cavankerrypress.org%2F&h=gAQGs_4T–