Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Strokestown Shortlist

And the shortlists have been announced on the Strokestown website!

19 comments:

Peter Goulding said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Peter Goulding said...

Nominated for the humorous verse prize again, three years out of four!
One day I'll be recognised as a serious poet...

Unknown said...

I saw that Peter - congratulations! Here's hoping for you, you've obviously got it cracked ;)

Group 8 said...

Congrats, Peter!

Angela France said...

Hi Barbara
Will you be going to Strokestown? (if you are, I'd love to meet up) I am thrilled to be on the shortlist and so excited about going for the weekend.
Angela

Peter Goulding said...

Thanks for the kind words. This is my 15 minutes of fame!

Angela, well done! will you be reading at Strokestown?

Angela France said...

Thank you Peter. Yes, I'm going to read - and I'm so excited about going.
I have booked flights - does anyone know how I get from Knock to Strokestown?
Angela

Unknown said...

If you are driving Angela, use AA Roadwatch.ie, you can get a route planner from them. Add that to an actual map and you're 'sucking diesel' (means you're sorted) as we Irish say!

And a big woohoo to you as well, well done. I might be persuaded to go over and meet you, which night are you reading on..?

Might get to meet Peter too!

Angela France said...

Thanks Barbara!
I believe it is the Sunday evening - but the programme will be out by the end of march, I'm told

Unknown said...

Well, don't worry: I am sure that you'll be looked after well. Talk to you closer to the time!

Peter Goulding said...

Looks like you're provisionally reading at 10am on the Saturday morning, Angela.Don't enjoy yourself too much on the Friday night!
The finals as usual will be on Sunday evening

Angela France said...

Thank you!
I am looking forward to going very much.

Unknown said...

Cheers Peter, good to have someone in the know :)

Coirí Filíochta said...

Congratulations Angela.

If you are on foot, these are the timetables from Bus Eireann. By the looks of it you get a 15 minute shuttle coach from the airport to Charlestown and then its 90 minutes on the Balina - Dublin coach from Charles to Strokestown.

They leave the airport (mon-sat) at

8.15, 8.55, 11.15, 12.15, 14.30, 15.35 and 17.35

They leave Charlestown at

11.00, 13.00, 15.00 and 17.45

These are the links.

Knock to Chrlestown

Charlestown - Strokestown

Good luck.

Angela France said...

Thank you - that's really helpful. I might hire a car - it isn't as expensive as I'd feared, but I'm glad to have the information so I have options.

Coirí Filíochta said...

It's only fifty miles but ninety minutes, because the roads are only two lanes.

Ballina is pronounced as a dactyl - bal-in-ah, with the primary stress on the final syllable, ahh, which is completely different than saying it - baleena, that the eye on your side is used to reading a spelling like this.

It's because it still retains the acoustic structure of its original toponym - Béal an Átha - mouth of the ford.

~

I know through experience, you can be asking for a place or person and everyone you ask will be shaking their heads and you think they must be having you on or a bit daft, and its pure luck how long before you realise the linguistic misunderstanding.

When I first came here I'd be stood outside Doran's pub asking where Du-ranns was and going nearly mad until a chance element entered the equation, the penny would drop and I learned I was pronouncing it completelty wrong enough as to be a totally different word than what I thought it was on sight - Door-ans.

Unknown said...

Dour-ans? Shurely shome mishtake... Thanks BA for dropping by with your, um, directions :)

I'd hire a car too, Angela :)

Coirí Filíochta said...

Yeah, i was thinking that when i saw it written Barbara, that phonetically - Door-rus - runs a bit closer to the actual way of saying it here, but even this is still phontetically (fairly far) off for the English reader if they promounce it as it is spelled. Still not nailed it wiv door-runs, more door-rns perhaps?

~

WARNING HIGHLY EXPERIMENTAL ILLNESS OCCURRING BELOW, DO NOT READ IF EASILY BORED.

So, trying a bit more to convey the correct way of saying Dorans this side of the sea, i should say - that all the stress falls on the *door* part of Dorans, making it a trochee, and not an iamb as it is to most English speakers who place the stress on the second syllable, saying it more duh-rannes than door-rns, which you will notice is spelled differently to the door-runs I spelled it above.

This is because door-runs is still off phonetically, the way of saying Dorans as we do here, is more door-rns, the vowel in the second syllable eliding almost nothing.

I noticed this wholly different way of pronunciation when I first got here.

On about my second week in Dublin, after the weekly Write and Recite poetry gathering in Brogan's basement on Dame street next to the Olympia, I approached Cavan man PJ Brady the actor, producer theatre director and poet, who played Patrick Kavanagh for many years in Hugh Carr's one man play of him, the monolgue of which was 95% Kavanagh's own words in prose and poetry, and i asked Brady if he was the fella who could tell me about a man called Patrick Ke-VAN-eh - and he stood there shaking his head for ten minutes.

He lierally didn't have a clue who I was talking about, and he played the fella for 15 years.

I was close to thinking either he was daft or I was, and i was close to walking away forever perplexed, when he copped onto to who i was on about and went a ha ! you mean

Patrick KAV-anagh.

Most English speakers pronounce Kavanagh as I had been to Brady, an amphibrach, the stress falling in the middle ke-VAN-eh, emphasising and lengthening the second vowel. But Irish English speakers pronounce it a dactyl KAV-anagh, the stress falling on the opening syllable.

I found it difficult to pronounce, as I was so used to saying it as an English English speaker rather than an Irish one, and it was only at this point in the early part of my arriving here from England, from whence I had come to claim the throne and take what is rightfully mine as Her Majesty's servant, that I was getting the hands-on learning of stuff which just doesn't occur to English English speakers and for which one has to be on the ground hearing to grasp and understand.

One which sheds light on the nuts and bolts of the technicals and gubbings of the whole biz Babs.

And - des id as - is the word verification, in that sequence, which suggests Her Majesty the muse is batting for the Deasmhuman Rí and dreamy div wiv the idea that, here they wuz all barkin bonkers coz in one fell swoop, the whole chatter and blather on the actual science of Poetry as serious activity and event, the deeply straightr faced gear of gravity and import rather than the open mic palavar of mental illness to which I have made it my life's work to celebtrate and turn into verse - Prosody, was rendered redundant, in the senseo of there being a collectively shared metrical understanding on scanning language and getting gabby of the X=MC squared level of pomes me 'arties. How can there be if a two syllable trochee like Doran can also simultaeneously exist as it's exact oppositional iamb, and when three sylls like Kavanagh can also do the same by being both an amphicrach and dactyl.

No, it was revealed to me at that point early on in the mission to hoke deeper into faeryland upstairs with the intention of becoming Amergin, that there is no
pan-global shared world-view of the poetry village blueprint, and that all we have is out own way in to self and the sense that self brings and the meaning of self and sense and the own way in and whatnot and really, very very challenging and deeply deeply moving, at source - the chat and how a trochee and the runs pronounced rannes and Kav and vans and oohs and ahs and that Babs.

gra agus siochain

cheers.

thanks very much Smith (Barbara)

please forgive me, i am only wanting to pretend to be serious and France in Ireland - well, I was there, watching, in Brogans the day Liverpool came back and stuffed Villa right after BOD and the boys set about getting the grand slam.

Unknown said...

Hi BA, you really do remind of someone I know in Cork..!

Ah, sporting victories, you can't bate them wid a gud shtick, sometimes.

The 'Pool V Villa match, the boys in Green snatching victory from the jaws of defeat and yer man Bernard Dunne - shome would shurely shay that that wuz a gud weekend, in shporting terms :) (said in my wurst Dub accent)