literature

Contemporary Turkish Poetry Considered

Review: Fog Bells: 8 Contemporary Turkish Poets (Dedalus Press, 2025) “A writer’s life”, the poet Nick Laird once remarked, with a self-assurance befitting a Royal Society of Literature Fellow, “is a cycle of trying to get to their work, sitting staring at the blank screen, wandering off, steering their reluctant bodies back” to the desk … Read more

Poem: Luke 2:1-7

Luke 2:1-7 _           It was the time Augustus Caesar had cried pax As children used to do, and said the world must now be taxed, _           When Joseph, following the government decree, Went out of Nazareth and travelled down through Galilee. _           If … Read more

Poem: ‘External Return’

Eternal Return My sixteen year old daughter comes to me to complain about Patrick Kavanagh. O great irony, hardly are the words out of her mouth And I can see those fucking potatoes, The drills and the furrows of old bloody Monaghan! Why do we do it? Why does every generation get subjected To this … Read more

Fiction: The Cliff

  “It’s been two days. We gotta to do something. It’s gonna go rotten.” “I know. I’m thinking.” “About what we talked about?” “What?” “Get on the Great Ocean Road. Out past Martyrs Bay.” “Yeah. I know the place. Near the twelve apostles.” “We were there with Jessie that time, remember?” “Yeah, I remember. Alright. … Read more

Zambia: Literature through English

I spent a number of years in Zambia, in the early seventies, the mid-seventies and the early nineties, teaching the English language and literature in English to school students in their early and late teens. They were preparing for public examinations including GCE overseas certificate organised by Cambridge University. It was called Literature in English … Read more

And the Flesh was Made Word

Through Fernando Pessoa the flesh was made word. Reminiscent of the renowned Chinese painter Wu Daozi, who, as legend has it, vanished into one of his own landscape paintings, Pessoa (1888-1935), the great Portuguese poet, appears to have disappeared bodily into his written works. Dispersing himself into the many lives of others through the medium … Read more

Ciarán O’Rourke: Breaking the Cycle

One Big Union is a self-published collection of essays by Irish poet Ciarán O’Rourke. The essays, many of which have been previously published in such outlets as Poetry Ireland Review, Irish Marxist Review, and indeed, Cassandra Voices herself, are a mix of literary criticism, political theory, and personal writing. The book’s introduction locates itself in … Read more

The Zenith of Pessoa

In how many garrets and non-garrets of the world Are self-convinced geniuses at this moment dreaming. Álvaro de Campos, ‘The Tobacco Shop’, 1928 In the early days of the Internet – end of the 1990s for me – while a history student in UCD, a friend took a passionate interest in a volatile political situation … Read more

Love and Literature in Numbers

Whenever I think about Literature I think about Love. Both are written with big Ls. The Elles. Like an enjambment of run on legs, going on ad infinitum. And when I think of Love I think also, inevitably, of betrayal. One cannot be without the other; the two legs upon which humanity stands. Only in … Read more

Literature: Ireland’s Last Minotaur

In Ireland, North and South, the Arts Sector, currently, is a sinecure. Those middle-class mentalities which dominate, and, indeed, hold most high profile positions, would argue vehemently against such – as they would see it – an offensive statement, but nevertheless I believe it to be a fair characterisation. ‘Stephen says bitterly, “It is the … Read more

Restoring Wild Literature

L’histoire naturelle, ce n’est rien autre que la nomination du visible. Michel Foucault – Les mots et les choses Walking with my dog this morning, I was struck by the various rewilding projects which certain aspects of my local community have been embracing. For example my twelve-year-old daughter’s primary school, in its wisdom, has decided … Read more