A new normality

Nuala giving it socks at Miss Emily launch.

It's been taking a while to get used to my new normal since surgery. When you are at home all the time, you get cosseted into a false sense of being better than you are. Some of the things I've done this month keep reminding me that I am recuperating, at a better rate than I think sometimes, but still with a cost.

Poetry Divas: my gig essentials!

For instance in week 2, about the 6th August, I decided it would be a good idea to drive to Cavan to visit a good friend and colleague of mine - about an hour and a half of driving. Halfway into the journey my eyes started playing stalks with me, making me wish I'd waited perhaps another week: but I did do it and enjoyed the most wonderful afternoon tea at the Crover House Hotel, minutes from her home. This looks like a great place to stay in for a weekend away from it all, scenic lake, woodland and lots of walks - one for the future!

Afternoon tea at the Crover House Hotel

A few days later I enjoyed a whistle stop tour around the Ring of Gullion region with an artists' collective, ROGHA (Ring of Gullion Handcrafts and Art) which I thoroughly enjoyed, but also tested my tiredness limits. I was very enthused by the work on show, and the artists and handcrafts' people were really passionate about their own fields of interest, which rubbed off on us, their lucky audience.

Felting demonstration at ROGHA day out

Two weeks later I had a mini-holiday in Belfast with a friend, which consisted of an awful lot of talking, a huge deal of laughter and two (non-alcoholic!) late nights, but reminded me just how much I seemed to have lost when I was actually ill before the surgery - I'd gotten very 'cowish': quiet, insular and withdrawn (some of the symptoms that presage a pituitary tumour).

Sandwiched between those, was the wallpapering of feature walls in the family bedrooms, which was necessitated by the moving out of another offspring - middle son! - into his own independence. This means that the three left out of the sic, now have a room of their own, which of course they are delighted about.

My lovely bedroom wallpaper & a piece of felt art by Rachel Tinniswood

Somewhere along with all this I've been nursing a pinched nerve in the neck. I think I may have picked this up from the surgery, as I've since discovered that they bend your head right back, so as to get a good downward angle up your nose to the brain-base where the pituitary is located. I've been getting physio, and another MRI scan of the cervical spine reveals that there's a lot of disc degeneration - again, could have been related to lack of some hormones that help your body maintain its bone repair.

But in all this, I think there's an element of impatience with the recovery period - getting back to normal is all I want, but I don't have much patience with myself, as those who know me well, know only too well - so it could be said I've been getting in the way of my own wellness; although it's understandable when you've missed so much. There's an Irish expression that people have: not lying under an illness... as though it's a mortal sin to give in and admit you're unwell!

Anyway, a sign that things are coming to a new normal was that I was able to attend Nuala Ni's book launch last night, for her new and third novel, Miss Emily (nice review there), as well as performing with the Poetry Divas at Flying South, in Dublin 7, a wonderfully convivial artsy gathering of musicians, spoken word artists, comedy, drama, and whatever else you're having. They gather in the name of promoting the theme of mental health issues and I must say there was some really good music, stories and poetic material being aired: I was hugely impressed! I didn't do a lot of 'mingling' as I was trying to conserve energy, but I was happy with what I managed to achieve and I suppose you could say it was an affirmation of my own mental health.

More Divas? And a Divo..!

Oh boy it's a busy season for the Divas! At 6.30pm, Wednesday 28th November, the Divas read in DkIT in Dundalk, in the Tomas Mac Anna theatre, emceed by the new Writer in Residence, Ferdia Mac Anna. Us Divas will be Kate Dempsey and Triona Walsh, and meself.

This time we are featured readers with a guest: Michael Farry. I wonder does that make him a Divo - even just an honorary one!

Pussy Riot & Poetry Divas

At our Poetry Divas gig at Electric Picnic this year, we dedicated our reading to the girls from Pussy Riot. We said, before we got started, how much we appreciated that we lived in a society where our freedom of speech was not curtailed and that we could pretty much say what we wanted, poetry wise.

Little did we know that a few hectic weeks later, we would be involved in a mammoth protest project, co-ordinated by English PEN and some very hard-working writers and poets. Two weeks ago, I noticed a call on Twitter to submit poems to Eng. PEN to show solidarity with Pussy Riot, in time for their appeal, which is this Monday, 1st October.

I responded with Pair Bond, a poem that Poetry Divas usually do together, taking various stanzas each. It's a poem about the many words for breasts, and began life as a sort of riposte to Alan Gillis' poem in Hawks and Doves. My poem has taken on a life of its own, and always seems to go down well at live gigs, especially when we use our visual aids.

Well, us Divas got ourselves together very quickly, got my son roped in and recorded ourselves all reciting various stanzas. Big son went off to UL, where he studies multimedia and music, and used our visuals and voices to bring a short video to life:

Then I discovered that there was an e-book in the offing as well: Catechism  - but wait! The book only goes live on Monday 1st Oct, so you will have to wait to read what George Szirtes says in his introduction, and to read all the varying voices contained. They are distributing it on a 'Pay What You Think It's Worth' scheme.  I've had a sneak preview, so I know what I think it's worth. Enjoy and think of the girls in Russia on Monday; here's hoping that they are freed.

Poetry Abounding

Apologies for disappearing again - holidays came and went, back to school came and went and so did back to work - yes the hamster mill keeps on spinning round!

Just back from Dromineer Literary Festival this weekend, where I was lucky to be part of the Poetry Divas big gig in the Whiskey Still. We were treated like the Divas we are, and the feedback afterwards was tremendous. Fair play to those who came along to support us, in spite of the awful weather and after the readings/Q&A sessions with writers Jennifer Johnstone and John McKenna.

Our set worked out at around the hour mark and included the by-now-infamous 'boobs' poem, complete with accompanying visuals (think Bob Dylan's song). We were well-received and mightuly looked after by Declan & Fiona in Lough Derg House as well as Rita in the Whiskey Still. The weather wasn't good enough to allow anyone a decent view about the lake, but it looked as though it would be really beautiful on a sunny day.

Tomorrow is All Ireland Poetry Day, as well as being National Poetry Day across the water in the UK. There's plenty happening up and down the country for those who want to join in.

Here in sunny Dundalk, there's a lunch time broadcast on Dundalk FM at 1pm featuring people from public life (including me!) discussing favourite and non-favourite poems from Soundings. You can listen online by clicking here but be aware that you may need to download a plugin in order to stream it.

There's also a lunchtime reading taking place in DkIT Library featuring John O'Rourke in the Slieve Foye Room.

Divas at the Festival of the Fires

The Poetry Divas ride out again into the Festival of the Fires tomorrow at the Hill of Uisneach. This is located in the very centre of Ireland, quite near Mullingar, where traditionally the five provinces of Ireland met (yes, five, you read right!). I'm thinking I'll be airing some of my 'Celtic' poems, and perhaps any to do with fires. Incidentally, I'm a fire sign, so perhaps that's a Good Thing.

Take a look at their website; there are some stunning photographs from last year's festival. If you're in the area, come along and take a look-see at the Spoken Word stage around about 3pm tomorrow and say hello to the Divas.

Is that the time already?

In response to a previous commenter (yes, you Dick! :) )Body and Soul was fabulous - the weather and the craic there too. I met a good few musicians, and not a few poets either. We Divas rocked the kasbah of course, even managing to sell copies of Poetry Divas 2 (or Divas in Blue, as it may well become known), the new pamphlet released by the Divas Collective. We're planning an even bigger version for the Electric Picnic, but more of that later.

Tomorrow I'm on Sunday Scrapbook, Liffey Sound 96.4FM with Niamh Bagnell from 4pm to 5pm. It is possible to listen live on the web - I hope. If you get lost, try the ordinary website: Liffey Sound . I will be reading the, by now, infamous 'boob' poem on the programme, so there's an excuse to escape the droning vuvuzela on the footy for a wee while! Ahem.

I have so much teaching work on at the moment it's really not funny, but I am looking forward to July immensely - I have a nice, chunky review to write on Wes Davis' Anthology of Irish Poetry, which had an 'interesting' review in the Irish Times today. I must save my own myriad thoughts for the review, which will appear on Eyewear in July... but the IT review has already been garnering attention on FB today, and not just because of the feckin'size of it. God help the students it may be aimed at (take that one whatever way you want), is all I can say. It is massive. And has shamrocks all over it. Hmm.

The only worse than being talked about is not being talked about. Think Wilde might've said that. Right?

Shh, Don't Tell Anyone

But the Poetry Divas are all set to ride again. . . there is a really special boutique festival this weekend at Ballinlough Castle, Co. Westmeath.

Those lovely people from Body & Soul at Electric Picnic have organised a discrete summer solstice celebration - and the weather forecast is set to be an absolute cracker! In case you don't know what I'm on about, Body & Soul at EP was the really chilled out area with small tents and teepees and lots of like-minded relaxed dudes 'n dudettes with great attitudes, lovely mugs of tea and the occasional freebird hairstyles.

But don't let on - right..? We wouldn't want too many people there...

Now, I am off to think about my outfit, nails and other sundry things that Divas must do - oh yes, and some poems too... think I'll bring me boob poem to this one for an outing... always goes down well... :)

I survived Electric Picnic...

and lived to tell the tale.

My tale involved wellies, lots of mud and an inordinate amount of walking. I think I may have shed a few pounds this weekend too. And my blisters have blisters..!

It was brilliant. I arrived (after three hours walking around outside) on Saturday afternoon to support writer Kate Dempsey's children's writing workshop in the Kids area, where we and Niamh B helped some very imaginative retellings of fairytales come to life on the page.

I caught a quick blast of Rita Ann Higgins on the Literary State in the Mindfield area, followed by Irish comedian Tommy Tiernan reading from William Burroughs' iconic classic, Naked Lunch.

The rain managed to hold off and later on I caught the last ten minutes of Billy Bragg's set in the Crawdaddy big-top tent. Billy hasn't changed a bit, still angry and still giving out about politics and capitalism, but still giving us a fresh take on it all, aided by his lonesome electric guitar.

Later after a quick chill-session watching a bit of Heath Ledger in Dark Knight, I watched Imelda May, with mi amigas from the Divas (and hubs!), and we enjoyed the tight band, complete with slicked hair, and rockabilly shirts - ooh and a strummed double bass.

Highlight of Saturday: Madness. Even better second time around, their saxophonist is bonkers and Suggs, well, is Suggs. We had prime positions for this hour-long gig, and the band actually started early - and encored late! Yay, "Madness, Madness, they call it Madness..."

Sunday was a much wetter affair, alas, with our own Poetry Divas collective kicking off the day's lineup on the Literary Stage. Photos here, courtesy of EW - thanks! Can you see the state of my wellies?

Some of us Divas went off to the Body and Soul area, to hit the Bog Cottage with more poetry, and that random hit seemed to go down very well, after some session muscians kindly allowed to us to read.

Later I enjoyed the Poetry Chicks' set on the Spoken Word stage, being ably managed by Marty Mulligan - also saw Raven, Miceal Kearney, Billy Ramsell and Maighread Medbh in the crowd relaxing on cushions and taking in the show.

Long story short: the mud was really sucky and mucky. It took me an hour to find my car afterwards, and I had to get a very nice gentleman on a tractor to drag me out of the field - backwards - adding a new twist to that expression, 'looking like I've been dragged through a hedge backwards...

I'd do it again though!

Flatlake - bloody brilliant!

I'm just about revived from the Flatlake Festival in Monaghan. Pat and Kevin and their very able crew ran a very tight ship and I got to see quite a few other acts as well as reading with the Prufrocks, and the Diva Collective.

I saw a brilliant one-act solo show about the wife of Dylan Thomas, Cait McNamara. The actress doing this ran the whole gamut of emotions and really got across what it might have been like living with someone like Thomas, being tied down with babies and wanting to have a life of their own too.

Our act, The Prufrocks, was sandwiched between this show and a Harold Pinter tribute (which included the lovely Keith Allen, nowadays better known as Lily's dad).

Liz Gallagher led us off down the path reading from her brand new, hot-off-the-press collection from Salt books, The Wrong Miracle. She was followed by Jaki McCarrick, who not only writes poems and prose, but writes plays (award winning ones too!). Mary Mullen, originally from Alaska but who now lives in Galway gave us some poems that evoked living in Alaska in the 60s, and then Nuala Ni Chonchuir took the stage to read some poems that will feature in her new pamphlet forthcoming from Templar, Portrait of the Artist in a Red Car. I finished up the set, and I got a bit of a fright when I stood up to read. I had been sitting in the front seat, focussed on the readers, so I hadn't been aware of the crowds pouring into the tent. It was by now packed to the rafters!

*** Late edit: Nuala Ni Chonchuir has posted her report, complete with pictures of all the Prufrocks who read - do pop over and take a look! ***

Some pics:
If you embiggen this one, you'll see Cillian Murphy, star of Breakfast on Pluto, gazing enraptured at, well aparently it was me! EW took the picture.


And this is meself in my reading garb, complete with de-rigeur wellies! Despite the shadows, we had a lot of sunshine on the day - some weather gods smiled on us!

Later on I read with the Diva collective, at Radio Butty/Mondo Rancho, compered by Pat McCabe himself. We were on after The Poetry Chicks, who did a specially commissioned piece by Dermot Healy for the occasion as well as some of their own inspired performance pieces. If you get a chance to see them anywhere, you should go along for a look, they are brilliant.

As for ourselves, the Divas, we also amazed with our own work, and that poem about boobs I may have mentioned a good while back finally got a good airing in public. Seemed to go down pretty well, judging by the laughter it got...

Unexpected highlight of the day: Jinx Lennon's act in the Butty Barn. I'm willing to bet you've never heard such a great song title as 'Gobshite in the House,' or 'Everyone's got a mental home inside their head.' Jinx is described as a "a proper seanchaí, a punk, a poet, a troubadour and fuckin nutjob to boot," in a review over on his website - and I'm not joking, I was mesmerised by the whole act that I saw. Words just don't do him justice - go and see him if you can. He's got my respect and he lives here in Dundalk, right under my nose and I never knew what he was up to!

Now, I must get on with this back-to-school malarkey and do me other job: being mum-of-six ...

Flatlake - Stop Press!

A quickie from holiday land in Ciarrai to let you know about - Flatlake Literary and Arts Festival on this weekend, 14th, 15th & 16th August at Hilton Park, Co. Monaghan.

I'm in two acts: The Poetry Divas, and separately with the Prufrocks, which also features, Nuala Ni Chonchuir, Liz Gallagher, Mary Mullen and Jaki McCarrick. Saturday for Prufrocks and I think the same for the Divas ... my (limited) internet connection here in the wilds of Kerry is a bit intermittent.

Links later dudes - in the meantime, think Butty Barns, madcap antics, possible mud and definite enjoyment - then you have the essence of Flatlake!

Bring your stylish wellies and your feather boas... :)