I was delighted to have my launch featured in the Carlow Nationalist. Text is below the photograph
A BOOK of poetry about a generation of Jews who emigrated to Ireland from Lithuania during the late 19th century was the inspiration behind a new book of poetry by Simon Lewis.
Simon, who founded and is the principal of the Educate Together school in Carlow, launched the collection Jewtown in Carlow town library last week. “It’s been five years in the making so it was a privilege to see it in paper form,” Simon told The Nationalist.
The title of the book comes from an area in Cork city, Jewtown, so called because of the Jewish people who settled there. Simon was prompted to use his own religious background as a source of material after it was suggested to him by Derek Coyle, the director of the Carlow Writers’ Co-operative, of which Simon is a member. “I see Derek as a mentor. He started myself and many others in the writers’ group and guided us,” Simon said.
Simon’s delving into his past has indeed paid dividends because last year some of the poems garnered him the coveted Hennessy Literary Prize for emerging poets as well as a runner-up’s prize in the Patrick Kavanagh poetry awards.
“Jewtown isn’t a derogatory term. Its history has been fascinating,” he said. “I wanted to explore the first people who went there and to hold a mirror up to this new generation of immigrants that we have now and how they survive in a new country with little money and no language.”
Published by Doire Press, Jewtown is available online and from independent book shops, priced €12.