tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-155525542009-12-18T10:44:14.755+02:00News from a global Scene.Background Artisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15137576329670368944noreply@blogger.comBlogger225125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15552554.post-47139029880553722062009-12-04T04:32:00.004+02:002009-12-17T01:14:01.542+02:00

Background Artisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15137576329670368944noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15552554.post-54830941872477762292009-12-02T07:39:00.016+02:002009-12-17T01:15:04.527+02:00

Being very much a minority art-form since time immemorial, all one can hope for is to create well, that which appears, here and in the applications with which literature's delivered to a minimum six hundred million of us who speak, read and write the quarrel within ourself that is..this experience of a container and lens, mind and consciousness presenting itself: us in what we construct, demolish

Background Artisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15137576329670368944noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15552554.post-16862272879846013642009-11-21T19:38:00.020+02:002009-11-23T08:22:46.846+02:00

"Ireland had chances at Croke Park and in Paris but didn’t take them. France were there for the taking but Ireland never grabbed it – as usual. They were afraid of that next step and were mentally not strong enough. They can complain all they want. That is not going to change anything. France are going to the World Cup – get over it. They want sympathy as usual. It is the usual carry on and it is

Background Artisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15137576329670368944noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15552554.post-18944180164948184742009-10-28T04:42:00.009+02:002009-11-21T12:42:23.145+02:00

Congratulations to Craigavon's Séamus Fox for securing the first prize winnings of 200 euro at last night's All Ireland Poetry Slam Championships, in the Crane Bar, Galway.Second was Stephen Murray from Cork and now resident in Galway.It was all good fun and more about the doing than the winning. Judging poetry and performance is an on-the-night lottery, and often the difference between first

Background Artisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15137576329670368944noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15552554.post-77682821280611361442009-08-15T23:51:00.018+02:002009-08-16T01:47:03.566+02:00

Along the flight-path of angels was a village called Poetrywhere stir the artful dawn-dropped moments picturedthree floors above a flat centre of what green coldsweat, threatening to tear out your eyes, as lust, bushelledunder a thick rain, pitch black, no flickering spotlightin the earth's ceiling this morning:"not the scars of your childhood and childbearing, not the birthmarks and blemishes of

Background Artisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15137576329670368944noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15552554.post-86604756591493338022009-08-02T09:18:00.008+02:002009-08-02T09:31:51.452+02:00

TAZZSometimes, at night the same darkness shares the same tablewe pull this swollen current across: this river, this stream and oceanof memory where lines cast as if, not by you who keeps us barelybreathing at dawn, but this climate; always the same warm windby a river, and walking this river, or any river, whether the Rhineor la Plata, a depth wisest in the widest dark of the world, closedwhere

Background Artisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15137576329670368944noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15552554.post-11338308252327345212009-07-12T01:41:00.018+02:002009-07-12T02:26:47.663+02:00

Conceptualist Tony Gormley, a substantially subsidised intellectual ex-public schoolboy and deep thinking sculptor whose rusty works supply a metaphor for all that is (not) new, exciting, shared, (or) inclusive in Britain, and whose conceptually common experience of Britain mediated through the mind of an artist who can empathise with the average Briton so much they attract £140,000 of gambling

Background Artisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15137576329670368944noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15552554.post-82241111408256073872009-07-09T02:44:00.008+02:002009-07-09T03:25:34.394+02:00

What is the Muse but Memory of a great tradition, Finnegas and Finn McCool speaking the meaning of *éces* - which the modern Irish word for poetry, *éigse* routes to.Éces is an Old Irish word which the word *poetry* as we understand it today doesn’t really capture. In the most basic of sense it means the nuts and bolts of knowledge.~Mnemosyne, the original Greek muse, the etymology rooting to a

Background Artisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15137576329670368944noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15552554.post-2806614791814920072009-06-15T22:35:00.006+02:002009-06-15T22:48:02.604+02:00

At five pastTuesdaycelebral lunaticstalking of relevanceon art boardsin cyberspacegather soundclaiming to makepatterns of exchangewhich createa number of truthsthat show their commitmentto concrete expressionby anchoring sensein earth-bound imageswithin the contextof modernity.She listenstransfixedhypnotisedby the weightof voicesandtests a theoryof howto picturemeaningby measuringthe

Background Artisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15137576329670368944noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15552554.post-5610078778399387232009-05-31T13:15:00.003+02:002009-05-31T13:21:37.433+02:00

I just received an e mail which is both laughable and interesting as it raises a fundamental question about Freedom of Speech:Dear Background Artist:I just ran across your article entitled Guest Poet: CAD Laureate, posted on May 6, 2009, http://irishpoetry.blogspot.com/2009/05/guest-poet-cad-laureate.html, and I would like to raise an issue that is of concern to Selling Power magazine, which is

Background Artisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15137576329670368944noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15552554.post-71497694251115019072009-05-20T23:05:00.007+02:002009-05-21T00:02:20.417+02:00

The 14 psuedo-autobiographical second world war books of 91 year old Danish author Sven Hassel, (translated into 19 languages), stands up to numerous re-readings. Danish, he joined the German army, he claims, because it was easier than getting to England and joining the army there.He deserted and when caught, was put in a penal tank regiment made up of "criminals and dissidents" and the material

Background Artisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15137576329670368944noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15552554.post-87167864659349593272009-05-16T20:55:00.001+02:002009-05-16T20:57:23.431+02:00

Rupert Brooke was dreadfull borewho never wanted da de da morede da de da de da de da da andwho wrote with a rubbish handde da de da de da because hecould not write for effin toffeeAnd now here he is held up highTo us the plebs, as high as skyJust because he could rhymeBut not do enjament ever at allWhich even a ten year old cande da de da de da da da da andso we have him now as the man.~Dear

Background Artisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15137576329670368944noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15552554.post-58982871952921223312009-05-11T19:10:00.009+02:002009-05-17T18:25:30.583+02:00

EyeletFor GillianDecommissioned by sleepI wrestle a dream’s surface tensionto near breaking point-disarmed in her weightless arms.*Housed in a natural tiltlike an unstoppable riverlooping through a slope’s eyelet;my laced-up touchskims her impalpable rush.*Her ghost-lipsmeet and partmy transparency.~Adam Rudden was born in 1983 in London to Irish Parents. He has been living in Dublin since 1986

Background Artisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15137576329670368944noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15552554.post-24269817546983270912009-05-07T01:42:00.004+02:002009-05-07T02:11:01.169+02:00

I was never a rugby fan. I hated it. Rugby was a shite game for thickos.The rules were more baffling than cricket. A load of fat fellas huddling into each other every two minutes, throwing in and lifting each other into the air and all in all, utter wank.Then i got a number stewarding at Lansdowne Road when i was dossing in Dublin's premier homeless hostel.It was a uniquely Irish set up. There

Background Artisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15137576329670368944noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15552554.post-54025354422048752312009-05-06T02:48:00.013+02:002009-05-06T04:42:57.907+02:00

***We love the English, IrishScottish and Welshbut not the Britonpreaching imperialism.***Trevor the Tramp***Carol Anne Duffy is a much cannier choice for Poet Laureate of Britain than the previous incumbent.A red brick gal, more or less polytechnic class, who knows how to parry and jab; how to stick the stilleto in and make herself the centre of things with a few choice words her supporters in

Background Artisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15137576329670368944noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15552554.post-18996650371459812202009-05-05T00:40:00.009+02:002009-05-06T04:15:09.776+02:00

Rooms. Writing-rooms writers reconnoitre and delve into, in search of some spine-tingling inspiration begotten by chancing upon notebooks, draft manuscripts, pens and even the clothes of everyday wear our scriptural gods and goddeses wore as they peered through inward windows contemporary literate polity rotates out from and into. Revealing day to day around this business of being human we all

Background Artisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15137576329670368944noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15552554.post-53799952338589779932009-05-01T21:55:00.003+02:002009-05-01T22:00:54.400+02:00

Birds, the symbol of our souls and deeply embedded in myth and mystical literature the world over, represent the ultimate freedom a poet can attain upon qualifying after their course yields - in original voice long imitative study and practice sets free to sing in its own note -- a spread of wings spanning the spectrum of skill and artistry needed to swim out amongst one's peers and capture the

Background Artisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15137576329670368944noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15552554.post-24667038080266533902009-05-01T01:18:00.004+02:002009-05-01T01:31:30.820+02:00

The day begins at dawnJust before the rush of pure cut chit chit chattingets surround sound switch on boiling into life.They’re talking on the sofaTripping out celebritelly voices and whipping up instructionsthat are pointing all directionssending out to the brainwave central spacebehold no loss or trace in space becausebecause; the tv told us soto listen watch and have a goat knocking up some

Background Artisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15137576329670368944noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15552554.post-68171914435315629882009-04-27T01:16:00.007+02:002009-05-06T04:12:29.480+02:00

There are so many great American poets working, and so few reliable recommenders to know who they are who champion them.I chanced across three very different ones in the last week, all with distinct reading styles.Tonight it was Jane Hirshfield, who appeared at 15 Usher's Island on the South side of Dublin Quays, reading with Irish poet's John O'Donnell and Dennis O’Driscoll, marking the 40'th

Background Artisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15137576329670368944noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15552554.post-5470405001872871812009-04-20T06:58:00.007+02:002009-04-20T07:43:29.559+02:00

Woke early this morningTo the sounds of you leavingClipping the wingsOf a new day dawning.I grieve-like, then cleaveTo space in bedWhere an angel used to be.Ah ! faint form - like breathingThe ghost: tasting it whollyAs it hovers in, on, around,Under the bed-cover - onlyA memory.To discover, I turn againTo sleep, eat dreams, sweetDreams fed to the soulWhile spirit-likeOn a silver thread, it's

Background Artisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15137576329670368944noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15552554.post-75792280949046772632009-04-20T05:14:00.011+02:002009-04-20T06:14:03.378+02:00

Dún Fhearghusa (Newgrange) on a bend in the Boyne valley, 5000 years old and restored by Prof. Michael J. O’Kelly, from the Department of Archaeology, University College, Cork; was originally a tomb and its corbeled roof has never leaked since it was built in 3000BC.~Highgate cemetry, Karl Marx, i think i saw once, or perhaps not. If i did it was a singularly uninspiring experience.~Keats in

Background Artisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15137576329670368944noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15552554.post-74017480059330935192009-04-16T23:15:00.009+02:002009-04-20T06:32:22.578+02:00

Every Saturday and Sunday, three second-hand bookstalls appear in Dublin's Temple Bar Square, a stones-throw from the river Liffey. One in particular is run by a chap (sat down with his back to us in the photo) who is the moustachioed, fez-wearing shopkeeper to my Mister Ben - (from the children's TV series of that name, whose secret doorway and portal to the otherworldly adventures was a

Background Artisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15137576329670368944noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15552554.post-208798709303577472009-04-10T19:14:00.009+02:002009-04-10T22:46:06.032+02:00

Good Friday?Grant me sleepEven in this raw shaking spring -And a new bird in a tree. Fill meWith yourGood news,Or mould meIn your redBreast.Spend a million yearsIn the hunger of my hands,When every tree wavedAnd every shadow grew.Passion wasA profane clause to unite the lonelyBlood that spilled into me.From the intriqueOf flesh and lust.And lies of lust.And love andLies of love.Where I've waited

Background Artisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15137576329670368944noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15552554.post-87739538880107608752009-04-09T00:43:00.005+02:002009-04-09T06:09:17.294+02:00

Remember when we laughed at life square onin days existing now as only memories held inside,distanced from this momentby rotation measured timewe'll never haltor with any words define?Words will conjure imagesand spark all sorts of trains of thoughtcareering through the mind,like kaleidoscopic pictures,but these we only glimpse upon in passingwith internal eyesthat swiftly frame in wordless

Background Artisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15137576329670368944noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15552554.post-20189815586905653742009-04-02T06:03:00.008+02:002009-04-08T21:59:27.631+02:00

The obvious tenet on which the concept of Fashion is founded, is the principle of the fewer the more fashionable, achieved through either exhorbitant prices or extremely sophisticated (good?) taste.As a life long fashion no-go area sartorially, I cannot begin to pretend to speak with authority on fashion; but as a younger chap, remember it well. Lime green kecks (pants) at the barn dance. The

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