Cabbage comes to Dinner

... and will be served with bacon and spuds - yes, we are going to toast it in Irish-style!

Yes, Rob Mackenzie is swinging by this blog next week, as part of his Decabbage Yourself Cyclone Tour, which recently stopped by the blog of Bernardine Evaristo (author of the excellent Blonde Roots).

We will dine in simple Irish style, and raise a pint of the black stuff while we're at it. And of course, we will investigate aspects of Rob's book from Salt, The Opposite of Cabbage, reviewed recently here, as well as other pressing questions on writing.

A tiny bit of good news

Those energetic guys who organised the UK Latitude Festival linkup with Pen Pusher magazine had a competiton running for poems about one's postcode.

Today they announced the winner from a shortlist of ten poems that they liked, and the winner is Inua Ellams with 'Lovers, Liars, Conjurors and Thieves'. Inua's poem is an 'ode to Southwark', London, and his poem will be published in issue 13 of Pen Pusher due on July 23rd. He will read on the New Voices stage on Sunday 19th July at 11.40am at the Latitude Festival and will also receive a cool T-shirt with the winning postcode on it, provided by I love my postcode. Well done to him!

Why am I telling you this? Because this poem, about dear old Dundalk, 'Because I Heard About the Harp', made it into the final ten! Oh my :) I knew there was something good about having a beer factory in the town - hai (as we say here!).

Two Irish Winners at the Templar Pamphlet Comp

Congratulations are due to Paul Maddern and Nuala Ni Chonchuir. Strictly speaking Paul is from Bermuda, but we've adopted him in Belfast, and what's theirs is ours and vice versa. I know Paul from my days in Queen's last year and where he is just finishing off a doctorate on sound and poetry.

In Templar's words:

Templar Poetry is delighted to announce the winners of the 2009 Templar Poetry Pamphlet Prizes. The full results, including the anthology poets, and other new titles will be placed on the Templar Poetry Website on Sunday 12th July. The publication of all new pamphlets and collection will be celebrated at the Derwent Poetry Festival in late autumn.

Nuala Ni Chonchuir: 'Portrait of the Artist with a Red Car'

Paul Maddern: Kelpdings

David Morley: The Rose of the Moon

Dawn Wood: Connoiseur

A huge congrats to all the winners -and a special shout out for Nuala - yay!

Work from Kairos

is featured on Peony Moon, Michelle McGrane's blog. She is very kind to host Roosters, which is one of those poems that keeps getting comments, whether by mail, email or at readings. If only we knew what we were doing when we wrote them!

Michelle has work featured on the latest issue of ouroboros which you really should check out - it's packed to the rafters with work, including John Walsh from Galway; not just in print but in sound and vision too.

More on The Wounded Deer & Frida Kahlo's Art

I pulled down a book I had forgotten I had at the weekend, it's a bio-art book on Frida Kahlo's work, and I read it very quickly, and had a good stare at all the pictures in it and a read of the details of her life. Dear me, but she had a tough life, physically-wise, but she never let it get her down, and in her 47 years on earth managed to produce some amazing art.

Then I read 'The Wounded Deer' again, and I really feel that Petit has gotten Kahlo's voice, or as close as you could dare without the services of a medium. My absolute favourite poem in this pamphlet is based on, and is also titled, 'My Birth,' which you can view here . Don't let the picture put you off in any way, the poem is the most positive thing I've ever read, a real making of good, life-affirming art from -well, good life-affirming art. Art was what kept Kahlo sane and allowed her a true expression of her soul.

Another favourite line comes from 'The Wounded Deer,' also available to view here. 'And once, when I opened my eyes / too quickly after the graft, / I could see right through / all the glass ceilings...' Love that glass ceiling - class.

Pascale has two poems up on her blog today to celebrate Frida's birthday, one just happening to be, yes you've guessed it - 'The Wounded Deer'. She's also reading down in Bantry (thanks Liz) at the West Cork Literary Festival, Ireland on Thursday morning at 11am in Bantry Bookshop. I can't go (sob, sob), so I shall just have to make do with me imagination... ah well!

Poetry Collaborations for Horizon Review

Editor Jane Holland, of Salt's online Horizon Review, has been looking for poets to link up with other poets to create collaborative work for the new issue, Horizon III. The deadline is 30th August, and there's no limit on the topic or the length. I assume that it's poets working with poets and I've seen really successful results coming from projects like these, especially in the last but one issue of qarrtsiluni, where they had some very thougtful collaborations between artists and writers. Gorgeous stuff.

So what are you waiting for? Link up with another poet and get collaborating! Submission guidelines for Horizon Review can be found here.

First Thoughts... on The Zoo Father et al

... are how disturbing I find the poems in this compact collection (but not in a bad way). I can see why The Zoo Father was much talked about when it came out. There's a fusion of personal mythology with a wider mythology which really works: it's scary in places and has you asking lots of questions, not just of the text, but of yourself too. It makes me excited by the possibilities of poetry: what you can do with material when you're not prepared to just go with ordinary face value.

It also makes me question what I'm doing in my own work - no bad thing. My own stuff has gotten steadily darker lately, and I was wondering if I was going the right way. I'm a bit obsessed with people who are fallen and implements of torture and it's all very heavy going at times. I know I haven't finished mining the present seam I'm excavating, and I can see that in Petit's work, the way that her themes continued into a follow-up collection, The Huntress.

I'm very excited by the pamphlet I got, The Wounded Deer, (only £3.00!) which will be developed into a full 50 poem collection, What The Water Gave Me, expected next year from Seren. I think that Pascale captures not only Frida Kahlo's voice, but the way that she made art, very well. I have a real soft spot for Frida's work, ever since I came across it in an article in the Sunday Times magazine a good few years ago. I like the allegory and symbology that Kahlo uses, which is why her work makes a good subject for Petit to work with.

If you like the sounds of these, go over and check out Pascale Petit's site, there are sample poems you can read, including the award winning The Strait-Jackets.

Now, I'm off to mind this lamb tagine I'm cooking. I'm so sick of salads!

Another yummy book

While waiting for my Pascale Pettit books to arrive, I've got this lovely book to read: The Wake Forest Book of Irish Women's Poety, 1967-2000. I found a copy of it in the library at DKIT, Dundalk Institute of Technology, last week, when I was up there on other business. I came home and sourced a copy of it online, because books like this you really want to own.

On the day I opened it randomly in Medbh McGuckian's section and ended up spending a good half hour lost in her work. The more I read her poetry the more I want to read it. It doesn't offer its meaning up easily but still I find that I do understand it inherently.

Her work is widely read and enjoyed by 'Merkans. I know of one young man, a student from Harvard (well now he's finished there and is going to Notre Dame to do a doctorate), who specifically made a point of going to Queen's to do an exchange semester there so that he could attend her poetry workshops. That's a small example of her weight in poetry terms.

Anyway, I will enjoy it, especially as a counter to the lovely Penguin anthology of Irish Poetry (1990) that my sister found in a second hand bookshop. In which there were very few women poets.

Things I really ought to do

Stock up on drinks and sun-lotion and get boys' hair cut. Apparently the weather is about to get even hotter again. Temperatures of 30 degrees are expected.