Category: Blog

I’m looking forward to my next reading in the Irish Jewish Museum in Dublin. This will be my second time reading in this venue and my first since Jewtown was published. Last time I read, it was part of a celebration of Jewish Cork. It was a very interesting day where we watched video footage […]

Here’s my latest pile of books sitting on my bedside. As usual I’m in the middle of all of these except for David Marcus’ novel, A Land Not Theirs, which I should probably have read already. I’m really pleased to have William Wall’s Mathematics there on the top. When I started writing poetry, I was intrigued by […]

I was delighted to attend Eleanor Hooker’s launch of her second collection, A Tug of Blue. Eleanor read a number of poems from the book. It was also very nice to meet some familiar faces in the packed room.

My blog is usually dedicated to poetry in the written and, maybe, spoken form but now that Bob Dylan has won the Nobel Prize for Literature, I’ll divert just once to the poetry of Radiohead. A few weeks ago, it was announced that they were to play a concert on 20th June 2017. It brought me […]

I was interested to see that the new issue of Books Ireland, which features the beautiful cover of Eleanor Hooker’s new poetry collection, also features an article about Jews in Irish Literature. This article is inspired by Ruth Gilligan’s wonderful novel, Nine Folds a Paper Swan, which I’d highly recommend. I’ll be buying the journal as […]

November the 8th is going to be a busy night for book launches. A total of 5 Irish poets will be launching their new collections that evening. Adam Wyeth, Jean O’Brien and Patrick Chapman will be launching their respective books in Books Upstairs at 6:30pm. Here are the lovely covers: Meanwhile in the Teachers’ Club on […]

I was very sad to hear of the passing of the poet Shirley McClure today. Since meeting Shirley at the launch of her second collect, Stone Dress (Arlen House), she has been very kind to me in my own writing. In Carlow, we had the pleasure of her company with Jane Clarke and Breda Wall Ryan, which Derek […]

It’s interesting that it appears the closing of the Cork Jewish Synagogue seems to have resurrected some form of community in the Munster region. Interestingly, from my own perspective, it is not an Orthodox community that is coming together, but a Reform Jewish Community, a more modern version of Judaism, which confirm to more of […]

I’m looking forward to my next reading in Waterstones in Cork City this coming Thursday with William Wall. When I say I’m looking forward to it, I’m also feeling most nervous about this reading because it’s going to be the closest I’ve been to Jewtown physically for a reading. I assume some of the crowd […]