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
Hi Tommy,
ReplyDeleteMany 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.