According to the recently deceased Kevin Higgins: ‘Poets may be divided into three types: those of us who must be and are, or have been, suppressed, at least until after we are dead; those whose subject matter is so commonplace/banal that it doesn’t matter either way; and then those who become pure decorations of the … Read more
Poets may be divided into three types: those of us who must be and are, or have been, suppressed, at least until after we are dead; those whose subject matter is so commonplace/banal that it doesn’t matter either way; and then those who become pure decorations of the Regime. One key qualification for a poet … Read more
Formation of a Young Irish Intellectual after Nazim Hikmet You will go far young person if as soon as you enter this building you follow standard operating procedures and stop thinking altogether. We will do the thinking for you. For the more intellectually curious of you this will be as difficult initially as nailing yourself … Read more
Memorial to Myself I have been away toasting tables lined with the pricier variety of imbecile; humouring old buzzards in Aran sweaters and cranky caps until their sweaters collapsed threadbare off their bastard backs. I have cut ribbons for guys floating balloons across the town square and calling it dance. I have eaten with people … Read more
Safe To Say How ghastly the day before yesterday was now everyone associated with it is dead. In the future I’ll be against what’s going on now. I’ll be on the television, horrified. But not yet. As a civilised person, I’m absolutely in favour of the nice policeman now, one hundred percent against the tear … Read more
This Is Not a Well Made Poem The well made poem puts on its dicky bow, walks to the top of the hill, and has what it calls an epiphany. The well made poem sees every side of the argument, except those proscribed by the BBC. The well made poem has between twelve and twenty … Read more
We Lie after Holly McNish My one remaining friend, now I’ve plugged out my Mum, is in my pretend life because he’s willing to not notice what I metaphorically call things. Like the fact that I carry about with me, smiling up out of my man-bag, a two day dead pike that looks like it … Read more
The Most Risk-Taking Poet In Ireland My split infinitives clearly the work of a man who dries his clothes recklessly, sometimes not emptying the lint tray two cycles in a row. At the height of my experiments with formal verse I once drove a Ford Focus at a tantalising twenty nine kilometres per hour when … Read more
‘Liberals’ & ‘Death’ Two words that strut confident of their own historical inevitability. Everyone in time meets them, though hopefully not both ringing your door bell the same day, unless your name is Nagasaki or Vietnam; or you’re the first village no-one’s ever heard of successfully abolished from thirty thousand feet by a transgender person … Read more
