The Poetry Project brightens my Mondays – and let’s face it the days could certainly do with brightening given the snow and icy winds that have wound themselves around us. So, what is it?
‘A poem for a Monday morning…What better way to start the week, wherever you are in the world? Every week, from January 1st 2013, we will be uploading a poem and accompanying video artwork, in celebration of Ireland’s literary and visual creativity.Week by week, over six months, you’ll be able to follow the work of leading, and emerging artists and writers, and discover Ireland through different eyes.Be moved, inspired, enthralled.The Poetry Project is absolutely free, and is presented as part of the Culture Programme of the EU Presidency’
You can sign up to recieve this on the website. This week’s poem is ~ Derek Mahon’s beautiful, Everything Is Going to Be Alright ~ which begins:
How should I not be glad to contemplate
the clouds clearing beyond the dormer window
and a high tide reflected on the ceiling?
Also brightening my Monday is the way my new 3,ooo word story is shaping up, (finished but not edited ) working title (I think there’s a better title in there somewhere) – Behind the Curtain, Behind the Wall and I’m especially happy because at one point over the weekend I thought the computer had swallowed it! It begins:
Sometimes it was the place he blamed. If they’d never come to live in Paradise his son Aaron might not have died and he might not have taken against Fergus, Aaron’s twin. He tried never to show it but it was there in his heart, like a weight that couldn’t be dislodged; a son he no longer knew or wanted. A world poisoned, the air suffocated with the dust from a lifetime of bricks …
In New Writing North’s newsletter this morning ~ Iron Press’ Root anthology launch: Forum Books at the Tea & Tipple Cafe, Market Place, Corbridge: Wednesday 3 April, 7pm
Forum Books and Iron Press present a launch event for the Root anthology with readings by Costa Short Story Award winner Avril Joy and Northumberland poet Beda Higgins. Free entry, no booking required. For full details about Root and further readings across the region, see www.ironpress.co.uk
I’m looking forward to reading in Corbridge very much and also reading closer to home in Bishop Auckland Town Hall on Wed April 10th.
Finally – a friend pointed me in the direction of this review – I was bowled over!
Happy Monday!
Avril Joy and Ernest Hemingway. Good pairing, I do like the point she makes and the importance of inference – a subtle skill sometimes neglected by new writers.