Riposte

Mixed Marriage which is published in the current issue of 'Riposte' is my 29th poem to appear in this publication

Mixed Marriage

Trying to make sense

Of this Babel of Polynesian and Yupik

You move among the guests

Try not to notice the whirling bolos

The harpoons

And the swinging stone clubs

Pause to sample

The yam paste and roast gibbon

Or slurp a spoonful of moose soup

Applaud as the bride now resplendent

In printed cotton, immaculately manicured Garlands

And sun bucket hat enters

The Groom, magnificent in beaded walrus hide

Caribou skin goggles

And matching moccasins

Two steps behind

Robert Frost

At the Robert Frost Farm in Derry New Hampshire

Where I read Frost's Poem 'Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening' to an audience of five people

 A beautiful poem written in

x/x/x/x/  Iambic Tetrameter

With a rhyming scheme that goes AABA- BBCB -CCDC-DDDD

Renewing  the memories of an anthology I shared with a fellow poet some years back

Dr Arthur Broomfield said...

Hi Tommy, Many thanks again ! I've just been looking up that Dundalk anthology, and, of course there you are with The Roadwatcher. It reminds me of another one I wrote 'The cello soloist with the Leningrad philharmonic'. The rural Ireland I grew up in was enriched by these men. Yours is still a lovely poem, it bears witness to those whose like we'll never see again.

May 24, 2011 12:59 PM

Two Success Stories

The news that Arthur Broomfield is to be published by Lapwing  with a launch in the Count Hall  Portlaoise on Thursday 16th June is hardly surprising to those of us who are familiar with his work. Naturally on hearing the news I wanted to be the first to congratulate him.  The poem ' which is the title of the collection was first published in an anthology that we both featured in.
This is Arthur's  response to my congratulations

How wonderful that you should remember
Tommy. It was the first poem I had published and it's
been published many places since. It all began with a literary group we
got going in Portlaoise round about 1985 and I've been at it ever since.
This is a collection of the 'best ' of them.

The second success story is the news that Eileen Casey is this years Hennessy Emerging Fiction Writer of the year.
I share a trophy with Eileen we both having received wood carvings by renowned wood carver Clibhe de Gibney  .  She is probably the most successful writer to come on the scene in recent years.  Her work appears regularly in  Riposte.  I also share a number of anthologies with her including 'The Ingredients of Poetry' the Syllables anthology published by Michael O' Flanagan

The June Bank Holiday Week end

Having decided to go to Listowel Writers Week another reading this time for the Beat on  the Boyne Festival in Drogheda comes up   Just got word from Dennis Greig of Lapwing and Roger Hudson Drogheda that we may be having a Lapwing team in the event.  If this goes ahead then the team will be Marie McSweeney , Roger Hudson and myself.   Too far ahead to make any  plans.


Word today from The History Press (Nonsuch) about my Book 'Haunted Meath.  It is at the design stage and that is something to look forward to.

Listowel Writers Week

Several enquiries asking me am I going to the Writers Week this year, one yesterday from Eileen Kavanagh from Ratoath who was a member of the Writer’s Circle?  This year the week runs from the 1s to the 5^th June.   Haven’t decided yet but without the presence of JB and Brian it won’t be the same.

Anyway here is a poem that I wrote for these two stalwarts some time back.  A metaphorical exercise
in free verse, I would imagine

On Reading Two Poems at Writer’s Week

To Listowel I came

To savour

That Brigadoon of pubs and pints

Pathways lined with waving quills

Climb perhaps

The odd creative hill

Alternatively

Just hoping

To stroll along some quiet shore

Listen to the ebb and flow

Maybe hear the distant breakers roar

Instead

Between the twin peaks

Of Brian and John B

I stood upon a mountain top

And gazed across the sea

And later in the harbour

In view of everyone

I walked lightly on the water

Out into the sun

May Meeting

The May Meeting of the Meath Writer’s Circle

After two meetings in which the attendance had dropped below eight the May meeting saw the biggest attendance so far with only two members absent.  By 8 pm we had thirteen present and that was causing endless anxiety for me because I am a bit superstitious and the thought of maybe having to announce that the meeting was over was not something that I looked forward to.  I had always heard that when thirteen sit down at a table the first one to leave might be tempting fate.   Then it happened who should stroll in but Mark Doyle closely followed by Moira Lawlor, fifteen now I could settle down and get on with the business of reading and listening. 

It was something of a happy occasion to welcome two new members and the fact that they are both embers of the Scurlogstown Olympiad was even better still.

 Packing up after the meeting