Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Mithering and Dithering

Our second assignment for the Research Methods module is due in about 2 and 1/2 weeks... and I am having a good old dither about it today. And yesterday.

I think it was the sheer scope of the task at hand. On the face of it, it looked simple: a 1000 word report evaluating the archival resources available in Northern Ireland - or near where you live - that's if you can winkle anything of 'literary worth' out of a provincial Local Authority Archive that specialises in water board records and minutes of meetings... you get the picture don't you?

A visit to Armagh is in the offing to look at the rather splendid sounding Armagh Public Library or Robinson Library, where they specialise in lots of interesting books, manuscripts and documents mostly before the 1800s. They have a first edition of Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels, with his own emendations there!

Meanwhile, back at the Kairos/poetry ranch, the two November readings have sort of snuck up on me. Galway and Over The Edge is next Thursday 1st November, in Galway City Library at 6.30pm. I am reading with two other poets, Megan Buckley and Jean Folan, both with tremendous literary credits to their names.

After a wee visit to some outlaws in Cahirciveen on Friday 2nd, it's back to Tralee, my adopted home for a good bit of the summer, for the big read on Saturday 3rd November, at Siamsa Tire. This time it's with the other Doghouse Pups from this year, Catherine Ann Cullen, Anatoly Kudryavitsky and Hugh O'Donnell. It's a nice way to meet up with Noel our editor again and the other three.

7 comments:

S. Kearney said...

Sounds interesting, and will no doubt keep you busy. It's amazing what these kinds of trips can throw up as well. :-) Good luck with the readings.

Middle Ditch said...

Hi, good luck. Please check out David Caddy, renownd international poet. You can listen to him on So Here We Are poetic letters from England on http://www.miporadio.net/DAVID CADDY/index.html
and read the text on
http://davidcaddy.blogspot.com

If you like humour check out middleditch.blogspot and listen to quirky tales of village life or Google Middle Ditch to find the site.

Monique

Jan said...

Good reading your news as I havent called in a while.It's a fine life!

Jon M said...

I only had to do 400 words for my first sample Post Grad course writing and of course left it late, last minute rush but got there. Know what you mean. Got to do 4000 by Christmas!!! eeek!

apprentice said...

Must be hard to keep focused with all that love material around.

Good luck with the readiings. I read the book some more last night. You've done a grand job with it. I'm sure your audience will enjoy hearing the poems. What's on your reading list?

Unknown said...

My Goddess woman, you're a whirlwind!

Tickets booked for London - can't wait!

Kay Cooke said...

What a lot of exciting things planned ... great stuff. Have fun! Hope there's something to whet your appetite among the dusty portals.