Allie and Daisy

It is so interesting and encouraging to look at what is happening in creative space and in terms of artists - none more so than Allie Sherlock.

With almost 5m subscribers she has more right to speak for Ireland (than many) and so should be appointed our creative Ambassador (and paid by the Govt of Ireland - tighten up now Govt, get into the digital domain ffs)

Over the years I've seen her move from better to great and now to fantastic, so professional so polished... 

I was so impressed with Allie giving space to Daisy a lock of days ago... and so impressed with Daisy - fair play to ya Daisy :-) 

..the Allie Sherlocks channel

so a wee poem

Daisy
15.Oct.2021

up se Daisy
as old saying
ah jaysus Daisy with Sherlock
such magic
almost like a godfather 
I’ve watched Allie Sherlock grow up
good becoming better becoming fantastic
such hope I feel for Ireland
'away from the maddening crowd'
focusing on the music on the craic
on our unique perspective
up se Daisy the personification
a mighty performance beyond her years
the hug of gratitude saying it all
for all...

Salute to Che Guevara

Che Guevara

Once again... October 9 2021 marks the anniversary of the fall in combat of Ernesto Che Guevara, freedom fighter and legendary guerilla born: June 14, 1928, Rosario, Argentina.

His father Ernest Guevara Lynch said "The first thing to note is that in my son's veins flowed the blood of the Irish rebels", he said in a 1969 interview. He went on: "Che inherited some of the features of our restless ancestors. There was something in his nature which drew him to distant wandering, dangerous adventures and new ideas".



As an Irishman I must again reiterate my immense pride in the fact that Che Guevara has family connections with Ireland.

a toast to Che... y hasta siempre

Home and Sense of Place

 As always the diversity reflecting the Ireland that we may become is exciting and none more so than the readings from Home and Sense of Place.

Home and Sense of Place presents nine poems exploring the idea of home and belonging, the experience of migration, and the importance of place:

• Nithy Kasa reading “The Lake Isle of Innisfree” by W. B. Yeats (Dublin, 2020)
• Selina Nwulu reading her work “Half Written Love Letter” (London, 2019)
• Seán Hewitt reading “Queens” by J. M. Synge (Coole Park, Co Galway 2020)
• Mahogany L. Browne reading her work “If 2017 was a poem title” (New York, 2019)
• Denice Frohman reading her work “Puertopia” (New York, 2019)
• Doireann Ní Ghríofa reading her work “Brightening" (Coole Park, Co Galway, 2020)
• Liz Berry reading her work “The Republic of Motherhood” (London, 2019)
• Camille Rankine reading her work “It Would Sound Like a Dream” (New York, 2019)
• Marian Richardson reading “Girls Bathing, Galway 1965” by Seamus Heaney (Dublin, 2019)

I fully intend to provide video / links to the above as I find them, in the first instance here is a reading from Nithy Kasa reading William Butler Yeats' "The Lake Isle of Innisfree".

https://www.poetryireland.ie/whats-on/poetry-speaks-poems-and-moving-image

Congratulations to William Wall

Mega congratulations to William Wall on his appointment as the Cork poet laureate, an initiative of the Munster Literature Centre... (funded by Cork City Council). 

The laureateship runs for ten months from May 2021. The laureate will publish a new poem at the end of each month.
 
https://www.munsterlit.ie/
Read more... https://www.munsterlit.ie/cork_poet_laureate.html
William Wall's website http://www.williamwall.net/
On Wikepedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Wall_(writer)

William's first poem is... 

Hometown Blues 

Listen to William Wall reading here...
https://www.irishexaminer.com/lifestyle/artsandculture/arid-40308719.html

In memory of the late great Rory Gallagher, I remember being at a Rory Gallagher concert in the Stadium in Dublin and as William says... "the whole floor a drum" for those not familiar with Rory Gallagher please search for Going To My Hometown (1972)... I know, we are all ancient, how else can you survive... ;-)

On Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rory_Gallagher

Further to The Elusive Elise poem

Further to The Elusive Elise poem

The beautiful lyrical lyrics of L’illusionniste spring to mind... nostalgia and regret rolled up in a song...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnn38Ne1aKs
here is a version but the best version is via Google music if you have it...
merci beaucoup Keren Ann... 

Je sème les souvenir que j'aime

Toute seule ou en tandem

Mes années de bohème

J'ose faire d'un lys une rose

Prendre un temps, une pose

Je suis magicien d'Oz

J'oublie dans la lumière orange

Où je tutoie les anges

Je suis illusionniste

J'oublie que tu me manques hélas

Combien les années passent

Je ne suis pas un clown triste

J'aime rêver d'un carnaval

D'une aurore boréale

De l'Atlantique à l'Oural

J'ose malgré les ecchymoses

Parler de vie en rose

Refaire le monde en prose

J'oublie dans la lumière orange

Où je tutoies les anges

Je suis illusionniste

J'oublie que tu me manques hélas

Combien les années passent

Je ne suis pas un clown triste

--

I sow the memories that I love

Alone or in tandem

My bohemian years

I dare to make a rose out of a lily

Take a time, a pose

I am the Wizard of Oz

I forget in the orange light

Where I talk to the angels

I am an illusionist

I forget that I miss you alas

How many years go by

I'm not a sad clown

I like to dream of a carnival

Of an aurora borealis

From the Atlantic to the Urals

I dare despite the bruises

Talking about life in pink

Remake the world in prose

I forget in the orange light

Where I talk to the angels

I am an illusionist

I forget that I miss you alas

How many years go by

I'm not a sad clown

I forget in the orange light

Where I talk to the angels

I am an illusionist

I forget that I miss you alas

How many years go by

I'm not a sad clown

The Elusive Elise

I met an elusive Elise at an airport,
crossing over from one life to another.
French with perfect English, Arabic as well, I guessed.
Gatwick to Casablanca, or so she said,
somewhere sort of secret for the weekend, probably love,
or playing a part in a popular holy war.
An accent to melt ice cream,
a smile to light up the terminal.
The sort of girl you wish to meet once in a life
with the moon in the right place.
Staring at her, open mouthed in wonder,
a glimpse of another version of reality.
Do I deserve this? a girl that’d hang on my mind…
only knowing half of her name…not even half of anything else.
Just a memory, a wisp of passing perfume on the street,
turning it’s gone, a quick flash in a life...like an old camera momentarily blinding,
the after effect visible to the naked soul.
Stark in a reverse negative, forlorn.
The risk of standing at the edge of the love pool…
the splash of a girl washing over you…
in another moment away from the water nymph…
back to the hiss of volcanic life…
regret and sadness bubbling over…
a dream in an imagined path.
Only ever waking to shadow,
she oblivious to the bells and sirens of déjà vu…
fading away, like love…

==
Background~
This was in the latter half of 2013 - if you know an Elise from then / there ask her to reach out... :-)