Kevin Higgins The Most Risk-Taking Poet In Ireland My split infinitives clearly the work of a man who dries his clothes recklessly, sometimes not emptying the lint tray two cycles in a row. At the height of my experiments with formal verse I once drove a Ford Focus at a tantalising twenty nine kilometres per hour when … Read more
for Susan Millar DuMars More than a quarter of a century ago a man-child called Kevin retired from politics as he turned twenty seven. He had joined the then somewhat notorious Trotskyist group, the Militant Tendency[i], at the age of fifteen. After twelve years of activism, which began as a member of Galway West Labour … Read more
‘Liberals’ & ‘Death’ Two words that strut confident of their own historical inevitability. Everyone in time meets them, though hopefully not both ringing your door bell the same day, unless your name is Nagasaki or Vietnam; or you’re the first village no-one’s ever heard of successfully abolished from thirty thousand feet by a transgender person … Read more
Note From The Organisers Feel free to turn up (or not) wearing a full suit of armour, or a hat with a big feather in it and transparent trousers; or to come dressed as a future Bishop of Cork and Ross, or as the prophet Isaiah’s discredited older brother. But this march is no wild … Read more
My Approach to Literary Networking after Francois Villon Most days I’d rather be bundled into the courthouse between two hairy policemen, with a highly debatable anorak dragged over my face, and blamed for killing Kirov – the crowd lobbing big thick spits and battering the van as I’m carted off – or be stopped at … Read more
The Happy Song of Us Okay to buy your grandchild an ice-cream. Illegal for them to lick it. Fine to bake granny a gleaming fruit cake, as long as you only email her a high resolution photo of it. Okay to give your son or daughter a bright new football. Illegal for them to kick … Read more
Our Posh Liberal Friends for Susan Whenever I show them the Future, they refuse it; say: this future has bad hair, waves its arms around too much, is too Jewish, or not Jewish enough, too not-a-woman, or the wrong sort of woman. This Future has a face that one day might raise the corporate tax … Read more
Presidential When you finish reading this poem, you’ll remember only the Black Forest Gateaux I bought you once. I had no option but to vote for that tax on women’s shoes but greatly admired the fight you put up against it; have kept all the press cuttings, especially those that took care not to mention … Read more
Tribute Acts Each witch hunt is a tribute act to the last. There is always a committee of three. The gravity in the room is such they struggle to manoeuvre the enormity of their serious faces in the door. Except in the TV version, there is hardly ever a microphone. Though they will usually give … Read more
The Joke after Walter Benjamin A barrel of industrial waste poured into a suit donated by a casino owner who knows people with a tangerine tea towel tossed strategically on top because it was the only available metaphor for hair was running for re-election as CEO of South Canadia against an old coat with holes … Read more