Today is Ireland’s ‘Poetry Day’
This afternoon.
Three point poetry manifesto
(1) Poetry must at all times be fun. Or at least aspire to be. Fun to write, and fun to share with others. Not earnest fun of the Episcopalians-allowing-themselves-a-second-sherry variety. But the sort of fun which sometimes involves laughing at funerals. Usually your own funeral. We will be dead long enough. Some of us already are.
(2) Every poem is a potential revolution; no real poem is ever a means of the poet getting in with some kind of in-crowd. The out-crowd always have the most fun, and hence are the most poetic. The only crowd a real poet want to get in with are the out-crowd.
(3) No poet who has climbed some way up the ladder towards poetry heaven should ever try and push back down those immediately behind her/him. And no real poet ever kicks the ladder away, having climbed it themselves. No real poet ever retreats into a snob ghetto where they can pretend to be more important than they are. Every poet must be a mentor to someone or be compelled by law to take up some more honourable occupation, such as for example becoming a human trafficker or, worse, a Fine Gael member of the European Parliament, a Lib Dem member of the House of Lords, or a spokesman for the Small Firms Association.
Alternatively…
“Poetry enriches our lives, searches our past, illuminates the now of our lives and imagines our future, making us stop in our busy-ness. Far from being marginal, poetry by its distilled use of language can help to centre us…” #PoetryDayIRL pic.twitter.com/vhq7jpAHe6
— President of Ireland (@PresidentIRL) April 28, 2022
Fight
Kevin, tell that to Colette Colfer…
Sadly I was not aware of this day until today. I occasionally lament that I am unprepared for days of momentous glory.
I do really love poetry, and the flow of words and ideas is something I find soothing. I kept my old school Soundings, squiggles, torn edges and all, and bought one of the new ones for my Little one. The breadth of topics and poets covered is wonderful. I still find myself occasionally quoting a snippet, as in wild earth aa Grecian vase, as it were.
And Kevin, I definitely agree with your point 3, about a true poet helping those looking to achieve the same standard. I have met far to many lofty names who sneer with disdain on those still struggling to achieve. The true poet, regardless of words, is the one who helps elevate all, and indeed raise those above their own status.
My sadly departed father despaired of my scribbles, as they did not always rhyme at the end of every line. It was ‘not quite poetry’. So in typical adolescent rebellion, I named my first handwritten collection The Not Quite Poetry Sessions. I felt great, one in the eye of the old man, and a collection for my future heirs.
I have forgotten where I put it. Poetic justice, perhaps :-)
Was it Sean O’Faolain who said that Ireland has a standing army of 10,000 doggerel poets? The Irish Times editor refuses to publish verse in the Letters page.
Does that make the Times averse to verse?
I’ll get my coat
can’t remember who said it, but ‘ireland is a nation of poets without poetry readers’ is very true.
I think the way poetry is analysed/taught in school, with an emphasis on what the poet meant etc. is very dated and a frustrating way to learn about poetry. A perfect way to suck the joy and emotion out of language.
Yeah, poetry is best performed, not read.
This is a current favourite.
Advice to Young Poets
Never pretend
to be a unicorn
by sticking a plunger on your head.
by Martin Espada
March 2019 Winning Poems in New Irish Writing – Colette Colfer and Lynn Caldwell
https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/new-irish-writing-march-2019-s-winning-poems-1.3831654
https://www.quaker.org.uk/news-and-events/news/quakers-pledge-to-welcome-trans-and-non-binary-people
March 2019 Winning Poems in New Irish Writing – Colette Colfer and Lynn Caldwell
https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/new-irish-writing-march-2019-s-winning-poems-1.3831654
I take it your main point in posting this is to let me know from your courageous anonymity that you know what my religious afiliation has been and I should possibly be anxious that I am being watched. Soft doxing, as it were. Quaker decisions are made (laboriously) by consensus, not by majority vote. Two people can effectively upend the views of 200 in that their perspective must be reflected in all decision making. That said, everybody regardless was already welcome at MFW anyway. I can assure you there are plenty of Quakers who while welcoming anyone to worship do not agree with gender ideology. But this is all off topic.
“I take it your main point in posting this is to let me know from your courageous anonymity that you know what my religious afiliation has been and I should possibly be anxious that I am being watched.”
That’s quite a leap. This isn’t your first gig on Broadsheet or elsewhere. Perhaps you forget the things that you’ve posted yourself online or which have appeared in print? Who needs to ‘watch you’ when you’re informing on yourself?
“By their hobby horses shall ye know them.”
Well you clearly have been watching me very closely indeed – a fanboy, I see – and have gone to some trouble – hunting out a link and all – to introduce my religious affiliation into a discussion that has nothing at all to do with the object of your bother.
Miriam, you live in a place where nobody has to form a posse to track down a braying jennet. The jennet advertises itself.
Incidentally, the link was indeed connected to the issue that Colette Colfer recently (re)introduced here and which featured in at least one of her ‘poems’. Perhaps it will be read long after the work of Eibhlín Dubh Ní Chonaill and Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill has been forgotten. But not until then, mind you.
Thanks, Kevin (and Slightly too)
I wandered lonely as a cloud
Floating on coke and grass,
When suddenly I tripped on daffodils
And landed plop on a crowd
Of odorous liquid cow patties
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze
Waiting to catch yokel paddys
Smack bang on their corduroyed ass.
I gazed and gazed, fully dazed
And gave up poetry as a wheeze
For daydream eejits in jocund company
Unable to outdo sparkling waves in glee.
– aged 17.5