I had a great night at the Spokes Poetry Evening in Waterford City this week. The event is a monthly one where Waterford’s poetry enthusiasts take part in a very friendly open mic, all organised by Colette Colfer. Every term, they have a guest poet, and I was lucky enough to be there to read […]
Author: simon
Published: Hodges & Figgis Anthology
I’m featured in this special anniversary edition of the Hodges and Figgis anthology with over 200 other writers. I have a poem in there somewhere about Emrys, less than a minute after he was born, called Apgar Score. I’m very grateful to Alan Hayes from Arlen Press who was kind enough to ask me to […]
Blue Nib Chapbook Competition
I was very happy to see that 8 of my poems were a runner-up in the Blue Nib Chapbook Competition. The 8 poems are all about my son, Emrys, most of which had their foundation in the small hours of the morning as he settled down after a feed. I left them alone for a […]
Troubadour Poetry Prize 2017
I was delighted to be one of the winning entries to the Troubadour Poetry Prize this year. I won a 2-year subscription to the Manhattan Review so I am looking forward to that. The poem I entered is a relatively new one, Man Talk. I have only recently changed the title and this was the first […]
Doire Press on Tour!
Tonight, I headed to Kilkenny for the first of the Doire Press Reading Events with David Butler and Annemarie NíCurrain. It took place in the lovely Stone House Bookshop. After buying and reading Annemarie’s poems, it was great to get a further insight to the poems and she told us the background to some that […]
Debut Collections
I went to Dublin to see Brian Kirk, Emma McKervey and Amanda Bell read from their respective first collections. Lisa Frank from Doire Press interviewed the three poets and each read a couple of poems from their collections. I also took a visit to Books Upstairs and bought three more books.
Viva Los Gatos!
I had a great time in California over the last week with a trip supported by Culture Ireland to the Los Gatos Irish Literary Festival. I spend 4 and a half days in sunny California hanging out with some of Ireland’s best writers. I was involved in two events: the representation of Jews in Irish […]
Sunflower Sessions Reading
I was the featured reader at the Sunflower Sessions in Capel Street, Dublin on the 27th September, my first reading of the new year, nicely sandwiched between Rosh Hashannah and Yom Kippur. The venue is probably the most hipster place I’ve ever read in and the crowd were way cooler than me! I took a […]
California-bound
I have been asked to be one of the 16 Irish writers to travel to Los Gatos in California for the 2017 Irish Writers’ Festival. I will be taking part in two readings/discussions. The first is centred around the touring of the Representation of Jews in Irish Literature, which will be exhibited. The second is a reading for New […]
Bryan Cheyette Lecture
I attended an interesting lecture about Jews in Irish Literature, including “metaphorical” Jews, by Bryan Cheyette in Trinity College. I had heard about the talk as he mentioned that he was going to mention Jewtown. Bryan had a theory that my poem “Patched Up” which featured a boy called Sweeney and T.S. Elliot’s Jew-hating character, […]