Joanne Walsh

Joanne Walsh launched her first collection Inspirational Dream - A Book of Poetry (2nd Ed.) on July 20, 2012. She described here collection as having been compiled over the past fifteen years, during a time of deep struggle. She thanked all those who had believed in her, especially the staff and her friends in LeChéile, and with with greatest gratitude to John Johnston. She hope her poems would inspire, uplift, and give strength and consolation, like a lucky dip, you don't know what you will find until you read it.

Joanne Walsh was White House guest poet on August 1st, 2012.

... hope her poems would inspire, uplift, and give strength and consolation, like a lucky dip, you don't know what you will find until you read it.

- Joanne Walsh

Fiona Clark Echlin

Fiona Clark Echlin is a regular reader at the White House Poetry Revival session. She teaches Creative Writing and her sonnets and villanelles collection From the Rib was published by Revival Press in 2011.(!/"%)

Mark Whelan

Mark Whelan is a regular reader at the White House Poetry Revival sessions. Born in Limerick, his first collection, Scarecrow Diptych (Anam Press, 2002), was a collaboration with Limerick artist John Shinnors. He has published in various reviews including Cyphers and The Stony Thursday Book. Most recent collections include, Always Pushing the Pull Door (Revival Press, 2007), Brighton Suite (Pighog Press, 2010) and The Sear of Wounds (Doghouse,2012).

POEM

(1)

SOLSTICE

i

bring her to speech

                    vanguish her

the rare one to mind

          the still one to heart

the gone one to words

/...(opening lines)(*)

POEM

(2)

MEMORY OF NEW AMSTERDAM

(For Teddi Durac)

I flew and swam and ducked

A heron glistening

With fallen rain

Over the port of New Amsterdam

/... (opening lines)("")

LINKS

Margaret Mary Glasgow

Dominic Taylor

Dominic Taylor is a Limerick poet and songwriter who has produced two music albums with the band Burning Embers; the first, 'Songs From The Ashes', was inspired by Frank McCourt's book, 'Angela's Ashes. Working out of the Limerick Writer's Centre on Barrington Street, he manages the literary journal Revival (currently in its 27th issue) and organises the 'On The Nail' poetry reading sessions at the Lock Bar.

POEM

(1)

THE SIXTIES

Like a gleam of light

It descended

Through a slit in the fabric of space and time

We caught it

Transformed it

/... (opening lines)(*)

POEM

(2)

SHEILA'S BELL

It is not part of a carillon

It does not toll for midnights witching hour

Nor does it echo the joyful wedding bell

It strikes a gentle chord

/... (opening lines)(!/"%)

POEM

(3)

THE PARK

In the People's Park in Pery Square

 we forged our first beginnings.

Like Eden it was our paradise -

a haven of harmony and tranquility.

/... (Stanza one of four)(!!) 

Liam Mulligan

Liam Mulligan was born and bred in Limerick. He retired in 1990 after forty years working in Irish Rail. A born traveller, he twice travelled the world, in 1992-3 he published Mulligan's Travels, a serialised account of his travels and also published short stories. In 1998, while studying for a B.A. in English Literature, he published Coddle and Tripe (1998, Stonebridge) along with his partner, poet Teri Murray.

A second collection, The Doppelgangers Carnival, was published in 2001. ((/1ns) 

 Personal memories from his life's experiences play a large part in Liam's poems in which the essential quality is serenity, his acceptance of the ups and downs of life with a stoic's outer skin. But that is a mere pose which hides the chameleon-like inner man, a mere boy, ready and willing to poke fun at the most sacred of cows. Particularly poignant is the sympathy Liam expressed for the mother of Frank McCourt, the Angela of Angela's Ashes, the childhood memoir later made into a film. Liam, who became involved in a long-running debate on local and national radio about Angela's situation, wittily addresses her situation in his poem Cinderella while the lightness of his wittiness shines through in the poem, Aunty Acid. 

POEM

(1)

CINDERELLA

Frank McCourt

blamed

Lam Griffin

for raking amongst

Angela's ashes,

exacting the

payment of rent.

/... (stanza one of two)

POEM

(2)

THE STEREOTYPERS

Editors stereotyped Sean South

as a conservative Catholic bigot

on the strength of two letters

to The Limerick Leader

/.... (stanza one of three)

POEM

(3)

RED BLOUSE, BLACK SKIRT

She sits curled up like a ball,

at rest now, reading.

Pages of the play

lie strewn around

her shoes

carelessly tossed aside.

/... (stanza one of three)

See also:-

Teri Murray