Novels, Poetry & Creativism
On my back in the dark. given up to night, I lie, a fool aground. A suckling. yearning, turning in … Read more
The work is continuing in the background, building the Creativist Club for all those who are interested in learning more … Read more
Love hurts, they say. I say, no way. The only thing that never hurts is love. Lust festers, envy bites. … Read more
“It was all ‘father, oh father’,” Bob Geldof says, mimicking a pious female voice addressing a priest. Then in his own voice: … Read more
Another video, this time reading two poems — “Halo” & “Long Light” — at The Alliance of Independent Authors's Indie Author Fringe Fest.
See below for the text of the poems.
HALO
My brother, Conor, used them as they should be used,
the rings. Hoops of grey rubber to throw at numbered
hooks on a board and make the grownups who came to our place
for their daily drink call out. Well done! when one caught on.
To me, each one was a thing to
My mother’s name is Brigid, though everyone knows her as Ida, named as almost every Irish person used to be, … Read more
Last Week: Go Creative With… Patti Smith
Ten Thoughts on creating from Pamela Travers, author of Mary Poppins.
[Adapted from “The Interviewer” in Creators on Creating: Awakening and Cultivating the Imaginative Mind. Frank Barron, et. al.1997. See Ms Travers, rather poorly represented, in the new Tom Hanks & Emma Thompson movie, Saving Mr Banks.]
Next Week: Go Creative With…Sebastian Faulks
WB Yeats had a connection with many places across the country of Ireland, particularly the counties of Galway, Mayo and … Read more
On Saturday, I did an interview with Marese O’Sullivan, a young Irish student here in London who is fascinated by … Read more
In “A Memory of Youth” Yeats acknowledged how his poetic inspiration had dried until the intervention of “a most ridiculous little bird [who] Tore from the skies his marvelous moon.”
The little bird was Iseult Gonne, who saw herself as both pupil and teacher to Yeats.
Their friendship was founded on intellectual and spiritual connection and an attempt by Yeats’ to cast her in the role of muse from which her mother had disqualified herself.
At the time of his romantic attachment to Iseult, When he was seriously considering her as a wife (1916 to 1918), Yeats was working on the first volume of his autobiographies – reliving his infatuation for the mother while becoming
Willie, Maud and Iseult, three of the most imaginative people who ever lived, never imagined the Internet or Twitter.
If they were alive today, I imagine Maud would leap on Twitter for PR purposes, Iseult would shun it, and Willie would dismiss it for a time, with a lofty air of Parnassus, for the low-brow level of the conversation and the low-bred emotion of the crowd… but then be drawn in by finding his own way to use it.
I like to tweet regularly about Yeats and the Gonnes, as I find interesting new information about their life and work. You can follow those tweets here.
And here's a Storify list of people to follow if you're interested in learning more:
I wrote last time about first hearing of the strange love triangle between WB Yeats, Maud Gonne and her daughter, Iseult.
Iseult is less well known than her mother though her life story is equally dramatic, in a different sort of way. Born on August 6, 1894, she was the only surviving child from Maud's thirteen-year affair with a married
French politician and journalist, Lucien Millevoye.
She lived with Maud who passed her off, variously, as her niece, her cousin, or as “a charming child I adopted”. But she did know Lucien and he acknowledged her as his daughter, if not publicly.
It was an inauspicious start to life and Iseult struggled with issues of identity and self-worth always.
Most of my novels begin with a question. Here, the question was: how could Yeats, who had carved a poetic career from writing about his unrequited love for Maud find himself, some years on, proposing marriage to his muse's daughter? To a girl almost 30 years his junior, and one to whom he had long acted in locus parentis?
Other extraordinary connections between these three characters include:
Now that the Go Creative! Books are at the editing and formatting phase, I’m back writing fiction again – specifically … Read more
I’m honoured to be reading at the London Irish Centre’s Tribute to Seamus Heaney tomorrow evening. I’m thinking of reading “Ballynahinch … Read more
The story so far: Jo Devereux has returned to Mucknamore, the Irish seaside village where she grew up, for her mother's funeral after an absence of 20 years. There she reconnects with her sister Maeve and her ex-boyfriend, Rory O'Donovan, the only man she has ever loved, who caused the rift between her and her family. Now read on:
‘So, Dev,’ he says, after my sister has made her excuses and scuttled away. ‘What’s going on? Why are you receiving us in bed, like a courtesan? You don’t look sick to me. You look better than ever.’
As he’s talking, he’s pulling out the chair from the corner and bringing it over, close to the bed. ‘Don’t think I don’t know what you’re up to. Lying low, avoiding the mob. Avoiding me too, you brat.’
Brat-sh. The soft Irish T. He sounds so Wexford to my ears now, such a strong streak of Mucknamore in his accent: the nasal vowels, the singing rise and fall to his sentences. But of course it’s my speech that has changed, not his. I am stuck again by the newness of him, the short hair that makes him look unfinished.
‘It’s all a bit Mucknamore for me.’
‘I knew it.’
‘I hear you’re a full fledged resident now.’ I speak as if I only heard today, as if Maeve and Dee, my Wexford friend who also lives in SF, hadn’t passed on everything they knew about him since I left. ‘Was the progressive liberalism that drew you? Or the cultural stimulation?’
‘No need to sneer, city girl. It’s a good place to live.’
I raise my brows into a question. The Rory I knew could not have