Patricia’s Blog
http://www.writing.ie/writers-toolbox/writing-better-poetry/getting-started-poetry/131-mary-odonnell-what-is-poetry.html Mary O’Donnell’s piece from the recently launched Writing.ie provides an insightful perspective from a practitioner into what poetry is and what poetry is not. Mary O’Donnell: What Poetry Is
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I made it on the very last day. The Moderns – the major exhibition of the Arts in Ireland in the 20th century at Dublin’s Irish Museum of Modern Arts (IMMA). It covered modernity in Ireland from the 1900s to the 1970s through the visual arts mainly, but with photographers, film-makers, composers, architects, designers –…
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Neil Jordan’s new novel Mistaken is about two Dubliners, Kevin and Gerard, who spend their lives being mistaken for one another. A mix of thriller and gothic genres, it is Neil Jordan’s first novel in six years. You can see Neil Jordan talk about his work on TV3 here. All the Kyleglass Book Worms agree that the book…
Read MoreColumnist who gave her readers glimpse of the Burren calls it a day – The Irish Times – Fri, Jan 28, 2011. Sarah Poyntz’s essay gems in The Guardian’s Country Diary have come to an end. Her subject was the Burren, a place where I love to ramble and ruminate. In her final contribution she…
Read MoreFT.com / Life & Arts – The art of good writing. I fret about writing a sentence: whether to make it concise, minimalist and pared-down or, exuberant and rhythmic to match the tone. Are the rules that dictate brevity and concreteness enduring? My new year resolution was to craft the best sentences I could. Adam…
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It was one of my books for Christmas. The Granta Book of the Irish Short Story. And it was my recommended read for our book club this month. But they’re a stubborn crowd, my book club lot. They know their own minds. What did they think of the book? Took a long while to get into.…
Read MoreThe Anti-Room blogger Catherine Crichton has the strange January addiction of watching the Dart Championships on TV and finding solace in the post-Christmas gloom. I’m not a dart enthusiast but I enjoyed her account below. Magic Darts January 7, 2011 by Catherine Crichton January. Don’t we all just hate it? The dark mornings, the return to…
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Jo Slade’s biography poem The Artist’s Room traces the artist Gwen John (1876-1939) through Paris at the start of the twentieth-century: ‘I looked for her in Paris…/ walked from place to place, lived the smells, the sounds, / followed a plan I’d drawn.’ A painter-poet, Jo Slade uses her artist’s eye to distill the essence of Gwen John’s…
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This morning I watched online as crowds at Newgrange gathered to experience the coincidence of a winter solstice and lunar eclipse only to be disappointed when snow clouds prevented the blended light of sun and moon from seeping though the passage tomb. Out the window a blackbird chases a robin from the bread I’ve left under…
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