Tonight was the launch of my first poetry collection, Jewtown. We had a small get together in the house with some friends and family. I made cholent, a Jewish-Lithuanian stew that takes 16 hours to cook, and the title of one of the poems in the collection. It seemed to go down ok and hopefully lined the stomachs for the night ahead!
Before the launch, it was lovely to have the 3 Carlow finalists in the second level 1916 commemoration poetry prize read their poems and I presented them with their medals with Fintan Phelan, who organised the competition. It was then down to business. John Shortall, the head librarian in Carlow Libraries, introduced the evening. John Walsh from Doire Press, spoke about the publishing journey and the relationship he has with Carlow. I was honoured to have Grace Wells to launch Jewtown and her speech was amazing – she even made a few of the audience cry! After that, it was time for me to step up to the lectern.
There were almost 100 people who came to support me including family, friends, work colleagues (I guess they all fall into several of these categories) and they all survived my very poor jokes and almost all of them managed to look interested when I read the poems. I chose 6 poems for the launch: Foot, Creosote, River Walk, Mary Daly, The Choral Synagogue, Kaunas, and The Last Sabbath at South Terrace Synagogue. Once it was over, it was time for book signing, photos and finally to Teach Dolmain for a few drinks.
It was a brilliant night and a huge big thank you to everyone who came along, sent messages of support or even liked and shared the Facebook invite! The risk of forgetting someone in a list is always inevitable so I won’t tempt fate. I’m looking forward to the “tour.” June is bringing me to Borris, Belfast and Kells and I’m looking forward to a busy few months ahead. Here are some photos of the night.
