When I’m Allowed Leave The Cancer Ward with thanks to Claire Higgins for four of these lines When I get out of here I plan to open a factory that manufactures miniature guillotines which will be given away gratis to bullied schoolchildren to keep hidden in their bedrooms until I give the signal. When I … Read more
Formation of a Young Irish Intellectual after Nazim Hikmet You will go far young person if as soon as you enter this building you follow standard operating procedures and stop thinking altogether. We will do the thinking for you. For the more intellectually curious of you this will be as difficult initially as nailing yourself … Read more
Memorial to Myself I have been away toasting tables lined with the pricier variety of imbecile; humouring old buzzards in Aran sweaters and cranky caps until their sweaters collapsed threadbare off their bastard backs. I have cut ribbons for guys floating balloons across the town square and calling it dance. I have eaten with people … Read more
Kevin Higgins’s sixth poetry collection under the sardonic title Ecstatic starts with a dedication to the recently married Julian and Stella Assange, and this initial gesture is a perfect set-up for the poetic world we are about to enter. Prepare to be disillusioned, experience embarrassment for your government, mourn the death of journalism (and common … Read more
This Is Not a Well Made Poem The well made poem puts on its dicky bow, walks to the top of the hill, and has what it calls an epiphany. The well made poem sees every side of the argument, except those proscribed by the BBC. The well made poem has between twelve and twenty … 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
The Irish winter came early in October with another lockdown, to the disappointment of Billy O Hanluain: Lockdown measures remind me of the prescription of anti-depressants and other psychiatric medicines. They are both harsh, and both are administered in response to a moment of crisis; both often have severe side effects, which in time often … Read more
Many Europeans enjoyed a blissful August while storm clouds gathered overhead. That month photographer Daniele Idini travelled from North to South of Italy, finding a country in severe economic distress, and desperate to resume the good life. Dr Marcus de Brun, meanwhile, saw a perfect storm forming on the horizon. He predicted there would be … Read more