round-up

1. Small Press Poetry and Indies 2013
Leave a reply
A moveable feast of blogs and websites dedicated to poetry as literary form necessarily lacks
an authoritative critical hub, which is an excellent thing. Current literary critique lends weight to
fictional work and celebrity biography as ‘cultural’, thus levelling newspaper inches at some
phantasmagoric hybrid audience of child/woman now perceived as the Irish literary market.
Those of us who have left the nursery and have achieved literacy may require less saccharine
fare. The following is a list of some indys and small­press publishers that caught my eye in
2013.
Indies for working poets fit well alongside small press publishers

2. Left to Right
●
The Pickled Body
●
Southword Literary Journal
●
The Stinging Fly
●
Poetry Ireland Review
●
Crannóg Literary Journal
●
The Burning Bush Online
●
The Poetry Bus Magazine
●
Bradshaw Books

3. Poets that are much missed 2012­2013
●
Dennis O’Driscoll
●
Seamus Heaney
●
Doris Lessing
●
Ahmed Fouad Negm
●
Kofi Awoonor

4. Talking about Books Ireland losing its Arts Council grant is unseemly
Talk about Books Ireland losing its Arts Council grant
Commentators are employed by newspaper editors, they all talk about the same books in one
form or another across multiple newspapers, which I no longer care to buy. Heaven forfend
that an editor would employ someone to review, edit and discuss poetry. Newspaper editors
and list­contributors play their part here by blurring the lines between culture and entertainment,
coming out with some type of lifestyle fiction based in the simple and unchallenging precepts of
accessibility, simplicity and passivity.

5. Books Ireland lost its Arts Council grant and was threatened with closure, as this is Ireland,
protest was confined to a few letters in the paper and a Facebook group. Well done to those
who protested, many just sat down and counted their lottery cash, not thinking of Irish writing
as a diversity. Books Ireland has a new publisher and will recommence publishing in January
2014.

6. Poetry that caught my little eye in 2013
Left to Right
●
The Shadow Owner’s Companion by Eleanor Hooker
●
Throats Full Of Graves by Gillian Prew
●
Nobody Wants To Go TO Heaven… But Everyone Wants To Die by David McLean
●
The Wild Pupil by Kathy D’Arcy

7. Left to Right
●
All Stepped/Undone by Michael McAloran
●
Mysteries Of The Home by Paula Meehan
●
The County Durham’s Miner’s Grandaughter’s Farewell To The Harlan County Miner’s
Grandson by Kit Fryatt
●
Zinger by Alan Jude Moore

8. Disposable crap sells Newspapers , fact
Poetry is clearly not a disposable form, like so much semi­literate
fiction destined for B movies or for chat­couches on daily tv. It is a literary form that requires
the reader to drop off their passivity and complacency. This presents a difficulty to the general
editor, who relies on passive consumption as many of us rely on oxygen.
The drop­off in newspaper purchases is only matched by the immense growth in blogs and
websites that fill the void left by this magnetic pull to homogeneity expressed in an approach to
arts that is based in arts as entertainment/arts as product.

9. Anti­poetry is now culture in Ireland’s market­driven media.
The issues of the day provide fodder for the chattering classes in much the same manner as
fast­food fills an endless hole and thereby generates obesity. Fiction and gossip are the
disposable trans­fat of the entertainment world. But like trans­fats they glut, and end up
distorting the shape of the body, in this instance the body of Irish literature. The shape of
literature in Ireland is becoming simplistic and disposable and indistinguishable indeed from
Hello Magazine! It has morphed into fiction and chick­lit comestibles, the easy hitters.

10. Contemporary Irish Arts : anyone can get an artist exemption
I suppose that someone has to pimp poetry and to blog about
what goes on at the nether end of the literary spectrum, whilst awaiting for decent reviews
and discussion on arts , as opposed to fashionableedutainment. Literally anyone can apply
for and get tax exemptions for their artwork, go on and apply.

11. Poetry Ireland deleted the PI Forum from their servers in 2013
Since I started blogging about poetry in 2008, I have noted
more international poetry editors opening out magazines and writing spaces to the
committed poet. Although in Ireland, Poetry Ireland has been busily closing down their
2000­2013 poetry forum which housed an area for peer­review of original work. Poetry
Ireland announced this in short­form and then proceeded to delete a lot of original work from
their servers. I await with bated breath their new web­development ideas.
In the meantime, I suppose that Irish poets can use groups on Facebook or Linkedin and
consign their copyrights to Mark Zuckerberg who may be more sensitive to the provision of
working spaces than PI. The Irish editor appears to be less generous about creating
accessible archives and working­spaces to the emergent writer than his international
counterparts.

12. Revival Literary Journal ceased operation this year of 2013,
as didDoghouse Books in Kerry. Books Ireland was recently threatened with closure after
the Irish Arts Council pulled their grant. Books Ireland has a new publisher, but these issues
go largely undiscussed as really there is no place where poetry is discussed in Ireland. Just
as we, a poetic nation (apparently), have no Poetry Foundation. Our colleges do not
adequately index our poetry history, or provide accessible archives to the reading public.
Poetry in Ireland is paltry feast left to the wit and wisdom of individual publishers and
bloggers who must construct a cloak of holes and moths to illuminate Irish poetic work.
There is no provision made or the poetry reader that is centred in a semblance of respect
for poetic form, or for its growing variety.

13. Avant­garde is a dirty word in Ireland, like grief, sex, or poverty

14. Left to right
●
Crack Poet by Kate O’Shea
●
Skylight 47
●
The Blind by C. Murray
●
In Damage Seasons by Michael McAloran
●
A New Ulster Magazine
●
The Zero Eye by Michael McAloran
●
Nobody wants to go to heaven…but everybody wants to die by David McLean
●
Throats Full of Graves by Gillian Prew

15. Irish Poetry Imprints and Websites
●
A New Ulster
●
Abattoir Whispers
●
Aine MacAodha
●
Éigse Michael Hartnett
●
Ó Bhéal
●
Belfast is my Mojo
●
Bone Orchard Poetry
●
Bradshaw Books
●
Burning Bush 2
●
CanCan
●
Cló Iar­Chonnachta
●
Crannóg Literary magazine
●
Dedalus Press
●
Doireann Ní Ghríofa
●
Elizabeth Kate Switaj
●
Elliptical Movements

16. ●
Gallery Press
●
Irish Pages
●
Kate Dempsey
●
Lapwing Press
●
Lapwing Publications
●
Michael J Maguire
●
Munster Literature Centre
●
Nuala Ní Chonchúir
●
Partial Shade
●
Poetry Ireland Review Newsletter
●
Post
●
Revival Literary Journal
●
Salmon Press
●
Smithereens Press
●
tender journal
●
The Burning Bush Revival Meeting
●
The Columba Press
●
The Dolmen Press
●
The Gallery Press
●
The Galway Review
●
The Metre Archives
●
The Moth Magazine
●
The Penny Dreadful
●
The Poetry Bus
●
The SHOp , Poetry Magazine
●
The SouthWord Journal
●
The Stinging Fly
●
Wurm in Apfel

17. Apparently Poetry has little significance to those who collate end of years lists. Poetry tokenism
is become a joke. I would rather not read some attempts at poetry book review unless they are
in poetry journals. Having often wondered at newspaper editors’ tendency to dislike poetry ,
came to the conclusion that it is down to two issues, money and ignorance.
When the literary arts are approached as product, as opposed to artistic process, a whole lot
of crap floats up. Poethead is about poetry as process, and likes to show poets working.