Cover Image: George Shaw Ash Wednesday: 8.30am, 2004-5; Humbrol enamel on board 91 x 121cm

Image courtesy of the artist Courtesy of Wilkinson Gallery

Abridged is a division of the Chancer Corporation 2010. No part of this publication may be reproduced without permission.

Copyright remains with the authors and artists.

Designed by John McDaid at Verbal MediaA division of the Verbal Arts Centre, Derry/Londonderry

Tel: 028 71266946 verbalmedia.co.uk

EditorialKathleen McCrackenZoë MurdochRhoda TwomblyKim MontgomeryGary AllenSusan KellyZoë MurdochJohn O’RourkeMark RoperLynda TavakoliJenny KeaneClare McCotterMairead Dunne Kathleen McCrackenPeter RichardsOlive Broderick

3

Contents

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Gerald DaweZoë MurdochGary AllenLibby HartJenny KeaneSusan KellyMairead DunneAngela FranceMaoliosa Boyle Gerald DaweClaire McCotterPeter RichardsKathleen McCrackenZoë MurdochGearoid O’BrienMark Roper

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We sit in the acid stomach of evening and define ourselves by what we are

not as much as what we are. The human condition seems to be attuned to absence. We’re always missing something or someone. The artist or poet has used this lack to fuel creativity; the politician uses it to change society, not always for the better; the priest fixes God into this hole; everyone has filled it with drink, drugs or chocolate. We are abridged. We all need something to aim for however. As such the Abridged is not a paean to an absent past rather a call to arms for endeavour and challenge; power in the face of misery if you will. We take absence and imperfection as sources of inspiration. As Mr Cohen observes: ‘There’s a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in.’

‘Absence’ is the companion issue to the previous ‘Time’ and the second in our new format. Abridged is a curated poetry/art space which offers a platform for poets and artists to explore contemporary themes in an imaginative and innovative manner. The poetry and art are not merely decorative additions to each other but conceptually integral to an overall thematic concern. We aim to move beyond the traditional poetry circles therefore Abridged is free and distributed beyond the bookshop.

…a time when angels…a time when fear…

abridged is Maria Campbell (Editor) & Gregory McCartney (Project Coordinator)no part of this publication may be reproduced without permission

copyright remains with authors/artistsabridged is a division of The Chancer Corporation

c/o Verbal Arts Centre, Stable Lane and Mall Wall, Bishop Street Within, Derry BT48 6PUTelephone 028 71266946 Email abridged@ymail.com

Abridged 0-18 Absence

Abridged grew out of a somewhat legendary and rather bad tempered little magazine called The Chancer, a Derry based publication that explored the darker and quite often funnier sides of our night-time economy. The magazine published writing that no-one else at the time did and supported by occasionally riotous pub performances by the editors and associates lasted more years and issues than it probably should have. The Chancer faded quietly back into its cave and others covered similar ground, a lot worse, some much better but few with the same panache and dark humour.

Eventually it was felt that another vehicle for exploring the shadows that surround was necessary. We did not wish to transverse similar ground to previous or existing publications but to create something that brought artistic excellence to the public in a manner that experimented with poetry/art presentation and design. Each Abridged is conceptually linked, as each is essentially an exploration of the concept of ‘abridged’ or of things that abridge. Of course each poem/artwork should also be considered separately. Previous issues have been titled ‘Romance and Assassination’; ‘Mutation’; ‘Time’; and the next issue is entitled ‘Magnolia’. We operate an open submission policy so as to encourage emerging talent and publish material based solely on quality and how it meets the remit of a particular issue.

5

Trains at Tempe

Let me tell you about the trains, he said

How the moon won’t bring you sleep

or the sun either, how it’s all always

Peckinpah, Malick

on odd days pure Lynch

out there in Arizona

How they came each day at dawn

Santa Fe hot shots

Canadian Pacific freighters

all graffiti and gondolas, all lumber and grain

and makeshift crates of Asian figurines

How the earth on its axis stalled

while the low light fixed the camera

a full eight minutes and forty four seconds

and the film we are watching now

five thousand miles, three hundred and sixty six days later

unavoidably arrived

and the trains – unblessed, burdened – were again

gone

Kathleen McCracken

Zoë Murdoch The Comfort of Strangers, 2009 Photo Manipulation

Hay Days 

Warm air rising from the easterly field melts into the briny on-shore breeze as a strong, spiny thistle pricks the farmer’s thigh.He walks his land, absently swinging a pliant salley rod through the mix of grass and random weeds,the white, red and purple of the invader’s blooms flashing within the waves of green. Squinting at the haze dappled peaks across the bay, his fingers brush the tips of grass past ready to cut. Tomorrowhe’d smile as the scent of mowed fields mixed with sea air,pray the high June sun stayed the course andhope the rust pocked tractor made it around those hilly fields one more time. The salley rod sings, slicing through swaying stems speckled by bird shadows.Swallows swooping, diving, teaching their youngthe tricks of the trade, while the starlings gather in dark rising clouds, coming to rest on telephone lines.Tomorrow he’ll hear no birdsong; only the tractor’s ancient grumbles. In the bright twilight of this Solstice day, when light never fully dies,his rambles return him to his seaside gate, to the timber bench worn by memories.He fancies he sees those now long gone, hears theirvoices and laughter rising and falling, in sync with the slap of the incoming tide. Sweat-stained cap in hand he sits, arms crossed hard across his chest.He waits, sea-blue eyes red rimmed, stung by salty wind, until midges force him to face theghost-riddled house he hoped to avoid for awhile. Standing, stretching his tired back, he glances out of habit at the small wooden boat, lifeline to the mainland, bobbing dozily on its rope. Work hardened hand pushes the red metal gate, its rasping hinge somehow immune to oil.His boots crunch softly against the pebble path neatly trimmedwith whitewashed sea-smoothed cobbles his mother collected.He turns his eyes from the small grave, freshly dug,nestling under the stone wall: the resting place of

the last cat of the house.

Rhoda Twombly

7

Kim Montgomery Happy Keith Haring Day , 1997

Unclaimed

My father is a cardboard suitcase left in the lost luggage

like his life – no beginning or end

something that was, and is gone

a minor movement among the planets.

He was known for a moment in North Africa

burning through the desert night

a quick burst of tracer fire

in the lower caste brothels and gambling dens of Cairo

put in mothballs with his truck

imagined he found grains of sand

in the folds of his skin years in the future.

That they loved each other, I have no doubt

but what is love when one is naïve

in search of a life within limits

and the other is weary of a world without advancement?

so here he gathers dust, never to be collected

a dog-eared locker ticket somewhere in Liverpool

already forgotten, stuffed to bursting the knotted string

with useless tags that mean nothing –

a square of Donegal that keeps growing smaller to a hankie size

a terraced house shrinking under a railway bridge

the arbitrary madness of everything contained in the universe.

Gary Allen

9

A Life Unanswered

Dust smothered hat boxes stacked, empty,

blue and white Switzers stripes dulled by years.

Flapper dressers, bridge club receipts idle in drawers

lined with the Letters page of a 1940’s Irish Times

redolent with lily of the valley talcum powder.

I have your eyes but I can’t see what you saw;

history witnessed, decades endured.

Did they roar, were they hungry, did they swing?

Did scarcity wage a local war to leave you wanting,

did world events impact, always make contact?

Did you mind leaving Achill to settle in Westport?

Urbanity on your new doorstep.

Did faith and prayers of two Roman collared sons

ease untimely widowhood?

Clacking of rosary beads, the murmur of novenas your mantra.

Was my mother an appreciated ally,

righting the balance, nurturing anima?

Did she steal your mantle as lady of the house?

Did you mind or was your arched-eyebrow sternness

an act of survival in a male domain?

November evening your pen ran dry, books accounted for.

Expired batteries silenced your radio

yet you required no replacements.

Who knew you would follow; ready, willing

that very night? Only you.

Susan Kelly

Abridged 0-17

11

Zoë Murdoch A Laying On Of Hands, 2009Photo Manipulation

MARATHON MANIn memoriam Patrick Doonan

“The foxes have holes….”

ABC manages to stifle a silent titter.

Let’s begin again.

The foxes have dens.

“The birds of the air,”

who, like the man from Subiaco,

(Beloved Francis)

Packie loved so much

“have nests.”

Speaking of nests

It has been some time since Packie

when clearing

a chimney out in Ballinagh

amidst the jetsam

of accumulated ages

uncovered a five-pound note;-

pure Marquez’ magic realism.

Locusts and wild honey

took on the magic of whey in the desert,

the husks of swine and

the exotic sea-bird’s eggs off Skellig.

In a week when I flicked up a ball

as Packie was wont to demonstrate

(How his uncle, the great Bill

one of the Cavan heroes of ‘47 and ‘48

might have done with Bristol Rovers)

and double-headed before back-heeling to

Calvin, the perfumier, not a saint,

and within minutes

before collecting Clara from drama

and Ella from ballet

was already staggering

from the onslaught of vertigo.

I knew immediately that

all was not well with the world

and as with malaria in ‘93

in lonely Lagos

I surmised my mortality.

It was Packie who with some built-in radar or other

tapped on the now deceased

Bishop Mc Kiernan’s car window outside the Post Office

saying that, “ he was on the way”.

Who or what on earth

he was talking about

the good bishop did not know

until Packie sidling off

muttered something about Lagos.

Attendant en Godot.

The turning mass of the earth

was all awry

and it was not until two full twenty-four hour revolutions later

that the spinning stopped.

It was at the artist’s Ann Floody’s house

who had just completed a beautiful painting

of two horses cantering before the Laytown races

photographed by the local Parish Priest this September

when I got the sudden news.

Sudden Times! Sea the Stars.

Leopardstown on Stephen’s Day,

after dinner with Marie the cousin in Castleknock;-

myself and Packie.

Downpatrick and the old sterling debacle.

Parkhead, Clones, Croke Park.

The day before

Harding had inquired about

a metre-high statue of the National patron.

Una Pooka, John Paul the Second.

Anniversaries, my first year in Maynooth.

Like all the bad news

I never would have guessed

when Marie rang from the Presbytery.

The bank holiday marathon was on the horizon.

How many?

I had lost count a long time ago.

When we did Dublin in ‘98

I came in last

but enough to be

registered as completing the course.

I know now it was

Packie who kept the timekeeper at the finish line

and have the plaque to prove

and the document delivered months later.

Nearly half a day,

twice the time of Packie’s

13

I also have one for the year after

which day I was in absentia

and imbibing sub-secreto in an up-town bar.

Not the Top of the Town,

not the infamous and correctly titled Do Drop

(After two sudden deaths on the premises in the late nineties).

But as James Doonan,

another Ulster Senior medal hero,

informed me in Cullies graveyard, An Sibin.

Now I see him on his bike

headed for Barran

After the forty odd mile trek from Cavan

loaded down with Gulliver like findings

light too with lore and co-incident connected detail.

And headed back with an assortment of old bottles,

some for holy water.

ancient metal (Marquez again) and paper cuttings

with a curious interest

in cures as in the Well of the Saints

and more pouches and poches.

Everything is childlike wonder

and at Mass with the girls

the Sunday after his death

the din of the children is like

the beating of thousands of starling wings

along the twilight border.

The Lord is indignant.

The Gospel welcomes little children.

Soon he’s at the starting line

and he knows,

like Heaney and Horace,

without wings

Anything Can Happen.

John O’Rourke

Shell

On a beach

you might find

a scrap of shell

so small you will

wonder why

you noticed it,

so clean you will

not be able

to say what life

it might once

have housed,

so thoroughly

has all trace

of that life

been consumed.

The scrap is all

but lost

in your hand

though warmed

in flesh

it seems still

to give off

faint

familiar light.

When you put it

down with all

the others,

all the others,

when you walk

away, it will not

be found, not

be held, not

be seen again.

Mark Roper

15

Forty-Three Grams

Too early to name

you were too unfinished in the womb

for anyone to love

but me.

At fourteen weeks

your stubbed appendages

denied you somehow proper meaning

to the world.

Yet I imagined then

the promise of your touch

and flying fingers some day

glancing on piano keys

or toes that curled like leaves in winter

after frost.

Behind those swollen sockets

I would never know

the colour of your eyes -

if they were brown or blue

or hazel like my own.

But somewhere

past a sea of years

I watch you

dance beneath a saffron sky

on meadows crusted yellow

in a summer sun

or hear your footfall

whisper soft

on winter snow.

Yet now

your nearly heartbeat

grieves in me

its pulse the baby miracle

I never knew.

Just three and forty grams -

a single letter’s weight

of life unfinished

in the womb.

Too early then to name

so I completed you

inside my head

and loved you

just the same.

Lynda Tavakoli

Jenny Keane Interview with the Vampire, From the Lick Drawings series, 2009

Graphite, saliva and blood on Fabriano paper, 100x70 cm

17

First Colourin memory of Josephine McCotter (née McGill)

The earliest appear to be those with the short wavelengths, and therefore the colour blue

- Julia Kristeva, Desire in Language

You were the keeper of the shrine, serpentine prayers

faded scapulars, petitions sequestered in oak and myrtle

under a mazarine moon. In its languorous light you knelt

beside feral fires, a poetry of silhouettes unfolding on

your hand the windwept mountain rose, damask message

from my namesake carried to a locked door.

Gift of sign stained with hope and nothing else for what

did you know then or ever know of the carneled chamber.

A crouching girl burning the blighted image with alchemilla

and marigold. The flame darkening her deep basamite bowl

as she read your falling petals and saw from afar the benevolence

of ambient anomalies glittering like a carcass of stars.

When stars and time frayed, your almond soft seahorses

(hippocampi) surrendered with cauterised calm.

Bleached memories on their closed lids, your face lowered

over a brimming basin awaiting ablution that could not come.

Two reflections sorrowing the intricacies of water

hanging like rhizomes from extended fingers.

If I could have closed them as later I closed your eyes with

more relief than decency demanded. Wondering at the ease

of it all until your absence grew with the prospect of return

from a harem’s domed sky stencilled with gold and carnadine.

Or were those halls an arithmetic of sound where the oud player

almost always heard the music of the spheres?

Mystical mathematics stark on the reddening ridge of day

as acequias flow to the Gate of the Pomegranates.

Theorems, fractals, surds in a place of cisterns

rebus for the faithful elided as cedar hexagonals unravel

on the scales of silver fishes. Below the vanished

oratory, a rawda where the nomad plants no orange trees.

Moving among the sparrows and Arabic script

you will be there when the lions return to the courtyard.

The orphanage of their ancient eyes watching at noon

as you mix the secret of azure with saffron and rain.

It is here we will meet: standing in the space between

where a dark green silence has always been.

Clare McCotter

Mairead Dunne See your better self (Girl in white), Oil on board, 60cm x 60cm, Sept 2009

19

Flight

By habit I would hunt and delve

worry the meaning of dreams about flight

not in biplanes or bombers or featherweight gliders

but solo, body neither machine nor animal

nor sheer soul either

rather a candent rain of molecules

oxidized, dextrous, wired, designed

for tracking roofbeams, skimming floorboards

grazing the tarmac, rushing

that porthole southwest of Arcturus

its lure, its thrown uncanny music.

Until you cautioned not to speculate

instead to take the thing whole

(a gold stone, a cuneiform tablet)

be sated knowing that movement

is all the property we own.

This weather the nights are short

and laminar the light rides in

on bright neap tides.

I trace its long retreat, the lough’s span

and west out over the plateau

sometimes with you

but mostly I fly alone.

Kathleen McCracken

Opposite: Peter Richards On target: twenty four minutes in Belfast ii Pinhole photograph on colour archival paper (8 minute exposure)

h 150 x w 121cms, 2005

SOSAfter the Sean Scully Retrospective at the Ulster Museum (Nov 2009)

ALL NIGHT I HAVE WONDERED WHAT THIS WOULD LOOK LIKE WITH THE

WORDS STRIPPED OUT HEAVILY UNDERLINED PAUSES I HAD HOPED TO

HEAR FROM YOU THIS YEAR EVEN IF IT WAS TO SAY THE SAME THING

BUT IN A DIFFERENT VERSION I HAVE SAT THIS AFTERNOON

CROSSLEGGED IN THE CENTRE OF THE UPPER EXHIBITION SPACE OF THE

ULSTER MUSEUM STUDYING HEXAGRAM 57 INNER DOORS OPEN CLOSE

PEOPLE PASS BY WHISPERING TELL ME WHICH IS BETTER THE SEA BREEZE

IN BARCELONA OR THE HUMID AIR OF THE YUCATÁN A POLAR BEAR

IN AN ENVIRONMENTALLY CONTROLLED CASE IS SUSPENDED BETWEEN

FLOORS A CELTIC CROSS IS FLANKED BY A LEPIDOPTERIST CABINET A

HUMMING BIRD A SUBTERRANEAN TEA SET THEY HAVE PACKED AWAY

YOUR TROUBLES BUT THE LATEST TROUBLES ARE

SHOWN HERE IN PANELS OF TEXT THE NEXT ROOM EXPLORE YOUR

HISTORY IS INTERACTIVE THERE IS A SHOE DISPLAY AND A

LARGE MIRROR I SPEND MOST OF MY TIME ON THE WALKWAYS NOT

TOUCHING THE GLASS RAILING SEEING A SIGN FOR

WHERE I WANT TO BE BUT NO WAY ACROSS THE AITRIAL CHASM THE

LIFT HAS A VERTICAL LINE OF BUTTONS TRYING TO

REMEMBER I TOUCH A SEQUENCE AS IF I HAD SEEN THE WORKINGS OF

THE BALLAGH EXCHANGE OUTSIDE OF A DREAM NO

CALL WILL BE PUT THROUGH FROM ME BUT ALREADY I HAVE PREPARED

MY FEW SENTENCES UNCLE SEÁN I AM LOST I WANT YOUR COMPANY.

Olive Broderick

The Afterlife

One dark windy night all you’d hear was –

‘I’ll tell you another time’ floating up

from the street into the moist night air,

and down below, the house darkens too

as he peruses the book on the afterlife –

the ‘medium’ is bound hand and foot,

out of his mouth, the white stuff of life-in-death,

lost generations, swoon, and in the muzzy room

drapes are pulled back on such a bright afternoon.

*

I remembered the house well

with the back door that never opened,

jegs of glass on top the yard wall,

a few pots of flowers, the wind rustling

down the hillsides, just as the sun was rising.

Gerald Dawe

Centrepiece: Zoë Murdoch Silently Fly the Birds, 2009Photo Manipulation

23

No one listens

First they took away the field below

the black roots of the hawthorns

giving ground to new houses

that hemmed him in –

nobody asked him

no one would listen

the bells of the chapel sounded different

crows picked across the furrows, untouched

the tractor lay rusting and useless

in the drainage ditch

the burnt-through pots on a cold hearth,

a wife’s barren laughter from the grave

like the wind in the chimney flue

the microwave oven still in the box

and the lone star of a helicopter

lifting off girders

from the watchtower hills:

a niece found him on the stairs

a heart attack

but he knew he had no heart attack

what do doctors know?

four tablets of warfarin a day

enough to melt the bones of rats

of course he stopped taking them

and then some days he was confused

couldn’t remember not putting on his trousers

they took him to that red brick place

trying to catch him out –

one-hundred and fifty questions,

he answered one-hundred and thirty-eight

but still they wouldn’t let him out

no one listens, in this world

you’re only a voice in the wilderness.

Gary Allen

Thread

I take the loom

to craft a collapsible horizon,

a true definition

of this tyranny of distance

between me and you.

Full of rowdy wave

it charts a map of senses,

a cartography of memories.

If I could recreate your fingers

I would do so every day.

I sit surrounded by invisible words,

for only you can know my real name.

I think I’m not so much faithful, but patient.

No. Perhaps not patient, but vigilant.

My eyes take in all things --

each weave and unpicking.

I become all but a thread

as the curve of night takes hold.

That’s when I unravel and tangle.

That’s when I become a troubled dream.

No more than a rhythm

of making and unmaking.

One day this shall be my own undoing.

Libby Hart

27

Jenny Keane The Exorcist,From the Lick Drawings series, 2009Graphite, saliva and blood on Fabriano paper, 100x70 cm

Disassociation

Debris tumbled to November earth,

swirling squall tore leaf and branch from the great oak.

Early evening’s winter-beauty maligned by night,

her own; ravaged by excess, time.

Vengeful sky illuminated in a flash,

night laid bare for all to see.

Storm rained down darkness,

faraway full beams, beacons in blackness.

Her faded glamour, vacant presence,

former glory a vague memory.

Her journey home hampered by vice, vanity.

No one watching, no one waiting;

no home fires burning, no curtains twitching.

Solitude surrounded her,

she welcomed its detached company

preferring it to the coldness of the human touch.

Susan Kelly

29

Mairead Dunne See your better self (Girl in red), Oil on board, 60cm x 60cm, Sept 2009

Absence

Night-walking into fog a torch throws

blindness back there is no way to know

what is beyond the space paced out

you can’t think tree or house

something must be there

Finding an object for keeping safe

say an empty frame in a stack of darkened oils

the gilding chipped dirt defined corners

an engraved plate gives a name that means nothing

you know what is missing can’t tell its shape or style

A small enamelled box a crystal lid

and silver clasp the lining deep-buttoned blue

fabric straining with importance

the curl of hair it was made for

missing.

Angela France

31

Maolíosa Boyle Thujone, 2010

33

Essences

I pick up a ball of twine

to tie off newspapers for recycling –

ordinary brown twine

that’s been here since Adam –

twine from the butchers,

twine from the electricians,

twine for parcels, the kind

everyone had, alongside candles,

Camp coffee, waxed oven paper,

silver foil, essences,

a ball the size of your fist,

left in the recess of a cubby hole,

the last thing you’d ever

think of until you go looking.

Gerald Dawe

The Day of the Angelin memory Mary McGill (née Moran)

A week of waiting and yellow roses, of winter benediction

in artefacts of light - lustral shapes or communion of dust and water?

Cold consecration sealed in an origami of doubt.

The healer left you nothing but her tears and a royal covenant

of wings, malaaikah, mal’ach, messenger

or your own heart’s breath diaphanous in lazuline and white?

It is four in the morning and you are still here; beyond the

night-struck glass a chaos of silence crowds eucalypt and beech

once a child’s time-thronged cathedral, you always near

lambent lark-light hands signalling encouragement and reprimand

to family and those where bloodlines run less clear

now they lie calm and lovely in a galaxy of spheres.

I wish you had worn the earrings that I wear today for this poem

symbol of an adopted land, the studied stars you bought

when I was twenty one, long before these hours of astral ambassadors

of lucent pale blue orbs; of a young saint’s favourite flowers.

Before I saw feathers of morning and gold gleaming there

in the unflinching black of your daughter’s black hair.

Clare McCotter

Opposite: Peter Richards On target: twenty four minutes in Belfast Pinhole photograph on colour archival paper (8 minute exposure)

h 150 x w 121cms, 2005

The Sun on His Back

In my daughter’s atlas

Spain is the colour of a cool satsuma

the one I watched him peel and section

not so long ago, fingers recollecting

the contours of a dozen Christmas mornings.

And even if he’d chosen not to name

the places and the dates

(each one a mystery, each one an abstract noun)

before he had to go

I would know the sun crossing

the skin plateau my pelvis makes

is the same sun casting

blessings on his back where he works

measuring light and the angle

of the Andalusian mountain’s influence.

Today’s the seventh day of March.

I trace the lines from there to here

distracted midway by the centre fold

to wondering if desire like the double helix

(those symmetrical economies)

has something yet to say about the way

fresh water finds a second life far underground

or sea creatures routes to sanctuary

without recourse to maps.

Kathleen McCracken

37

Zoë Murdoch The Difference Between Temptation, 2009Photo Manipulation

Beaufort I

The old granite pillars haunted

Me for years

Etched with the word “Beaufort”

Leading to a half-forgotten house

Though I was family

I wouldn’t allow myself to trespass

Here,

To filter back,

Into childhood memories

Instead I built-up “Beaufort”

In my mind

Walked through darkened hallways,

Imagined Maude arriving home with

The groceries in a paper bag.

Once lodger, then my grand-aunt’s

Companion

Her life revolved around this crumbling

House - she enjoyed the borrowed status

It conferred.

When I look now at the new houses

Built on these grounds

I see Maude leading a feeble Kate

Through that old door

To the “Beaufort” that stands forever firm

Behind the granite pillars of my mind.

Beaufort II

How can I ever untangle this dream

Now that you are no more

The gardens and tennis pavilion

Are etched in my mind’s eye

I still taste the eucalyptus cones

And smell the green bay

But you are a faceless woman

Forgotten out of my childish fear

And still on St Stephen’s Day

I think of you fondly each year

Sitting in that filthy kitchen

Stroking an ageless cat while

Keeping two grand-nephews in chat

Catching up with your sister’s news

Second-hand

And wearing your tell-tale blindness

Like a dreaded black diamond

Sewn on the sleeve of a good dress.

Beaufort III

Here is where the shades linger

Capturing the music of past seasons

I wonder briefly whether Ned Carey

Ever knew this garden?

Did he turn lazy-beds

Or plant trees here for his daughter?

And what of poor Granny Carey

Brought here in her blindness

To soak up the sun

To taste the fresh air.

But somehow I sense only music

There is always music here

Annie’s violin which rotted away

In her garden-shed

Played for many a hearty session

Nick, an old bands-man, kept time

Granny Carey sang her favourite song

“Sitting on the bridge below the town”

And even when I pass today

It is the absence of the house,

The people,

The music and life that most affects me.

Gearoid O’Brien

39

In Between 

You are down at the brink,under the black poplars, ready to give up the ghost.

But each time the boatman finds no coin in your mouthand will not take you.

We can hear your tut, impatient tut. We know soon you will decide

to creep away, nip under a fenceand swim across yourself.And then neither life nor death

will know where to find you – you’ll be swimming somewhere between and in the dark

you won’t be able to tell which shore is which and you will never ask for help.   Mark Roper

41

Gary Allen was born in Ballymena. He

has been published in, Agenda, Ambit,

Antigonish Review, The Edinburgh Review,

Irish Pages, London Magazine, Poetry

Ireland Review, Poetry New Zealand, The

Poetry Review, Stand, The Stinging Fly,

The Yellow Nib, etc. A tenth collection

is due this autumn from Lagan Press.

He recently received an award from

the Arts Council of Northern Ireland.

Maoliosa Boyle is a practising artist

and Manager of Void. She studied

Fine Art at The National College of

Art and Design, Dublin and has an

MFA from The University of Ulster in

Belfast. Maolíosa has curated several

exhibitions at Void over the last five

years as a member of the Curatorial

Committee. Maolíosa has exhibited

in group and solo exhibitions in

Ireland, Scotland, England, France

and America. Before Managing Void

she co-ordinated public art projects

in the Derry area and was a part-time

lecturer at the North West Regional

College and University of Ulster.

Olive Broderick was published most

recently in the Stinging Fly, Sunday

Tribune, Ulla’s Nib, Abridged 0-17. She

has an MA (Creative Writing) from

QUB. From Co. Cork originally but now

lives in Downpatrick, Co. Down and is

an active member of the Write! Down

collective.

Gerald Dawe’s recent publications

include Points West (Gallery Press

2008, Country Music: Uncollected poems

1974-1989 (Starling Press 2009)and The

World is Province: Selected Prose 1980-

2008 (Lagan Press 2009). He is a Fellow

Contributors

of Trinity College Dublin where he

teaches modern literature and directs

the graduate writing programme.

Mairead Dunne, originally from the

Midlands graduated from the National

College of Art and Design Dublin and

the University of Ulster Belfast. She is

currently based in Belfast where she

is a member of Platform Arts Studio

Collective. She has had both solo

and group exhibitions in Ireland and

the UK and has recently received an

Offaly Arts Council grant for a solo

exhibition in 2010.

Angela France is a Gloucestershire-

based poet whose second collection,

‘Occupation’ is available from Ragged

Raven Press. She has had poems

published in many of the leading

journals, including Agenda. Acumen,

Orbis and The SHOp and has been

anthologised in a number of small

press anthologies – most recently in A

Twist of Malice: uncomfortable poems by

older women. She has just completed

an MA in Creative and Critical Writing

at the University of Gloucestershire

and is now studying for a PhD.

Libby Hart’s first collection of

poetry, ‘Fresh News from the Arctic’

(Australia, 2006) received the Anne

Elder Award and was shortlisted for

the Mary Gilmore Prize. She is also the

recipient of a DJ O’Hearn Memorial

Fellowship at The Australian Centre,

University of Melbourne. Her work has

been published widely and broadcast

on ABC Radio National.

Jenny Keane, born in Co. Clare

and currently based in Belfast is

a video and drawing-based artist.

Her practice is focused on the word

‘horrific’. Through performative

drawings captured from horror films,

in which elements of the drawing

have been licked away to remove the

‘horrific’, the work investigates the

dichotomy between fear and desire,

its relationship to language and

connection to the (female) body.

Susan Kelly is a poet from Co Mayo.

Her work has appeared locally and in

Cyphers and she is due to be published

in Crannóg and wordlegs this spring. She

is a member of the Westport Writers’

group who produce The Broadsheet, an

annual collection of poetry and prose

from Westport-based writers.

Kim Montgomery is an artist in the

midst of MA studies in Fine Art at

Wimbledon College of Art. She is an

enthusiast of drawing, Keith Haring,

dancing and reading the Bible.

Clare McCotter’s haiku have been

published in the leading haiku journals

in Ireland, Britain, Canada, the United

States, India and Australia. Her tanka

and haibun have also been published

in international journals. In 2005 she

was awarded a doctoral degree from

the University of Ulster. She has

published numerous peer-reviewed

articles on Beatrice Grimshaw’s travel

writing and fiction. At present she is

working on a paper which explores

cannibalism and miscegenation in

Grimshaw’s Pacific fiction.

Kathleen McCracken is a Canadian

poet currently based in Belfast. She is

the author of seven books of poetry,

the most recent of which, Tattoo Land,

was published by Exile Editions in

2009. Her poetry has appeared in,

amongst others, The Malahat Review,

New Orleans Review, Writing Ulster and

Exile Quarterly. She has given readings

in Canada, the United States, Ireland

and the UK.

Zoë Murdoch is a visual artist living

in Belfast; she studied Fine Art at

the University Of Ulster and is based

in Queen Street Studios. She has

exhibited in a wide range of group

shows throughout Belfast and Ireland;

her work has been included in shows

in London, China, New York and

Pennsylvania. In 2007 she was awarded

the Robinson McIlwaine Architects

“Original Vision” Award at the RUA.

Her art is a visual expression of the

language of her life, created from her

own realities and imaginings; it is

fundamentally illustrating the inner

workings of her mind and is, for the

most part, inspired from memories.

Gearoid O’Brien, librarian, author

and broadcaster is a native of Athlone

and has been writing poetry for over

thirty-five years. For some years he

ran a small press called Kincora Poetry.

His poetry was widely published in the

1970s and 80s including works in: The

Stony Thursday Book, Neptune’s Kingdon,

Prospice and Poetry Ireland Review. After

a break of fifteen years or more he’s

back!

John O’Rourke was born in Glasgow

in 1961 and now lives in Mornington,

Meath. Has contributed poetry to

Issues and Drogheda Creative Writers

publications. Teaches part-time in

Patrician College, Finglas. Previous

publications include: Glimpses - As

seen through a Veil. 2001 Flares - Caught

in a Glance, Captured by the Dance. 2005

Waves - Ripples of Life, Cascading to Death.

2007. Website www.johnorourke.com

43

Peter Richards (b. Cardiff, 1970) has

been based in Belfast since 1994.

He completed his M.Phil. studies,

‘Representations of Representations’,

at the University of Ulster in 1998 and

has exhibited in numerous solo and

group shows worldwide. Richards’

practice is primarily concerned

with the processes of constructing

representations of existing

representations, usually working with

combinations of photography, video

and performance. His work can be

found in the collections of the Czech

Museum of Fine Art and the Arts

Council of Northern Ireland.

Mark Roper’s collections include The

Hen Ark (Peterloo/Salmon 1990), which

won the 1992 Aldeburgh Prize for

best first collection; Catching The Light

(Peterloo/Lagan 1997); a chapbook,

The Home Fire (Abbey Press 1998) and

Whereabouts (Peterloo/Abbey Press

2005). He wase editor of Poetry Ireland

for 1999. Even So: New & Selected Poems

was published by the Dedalus Press in

Autumn 2008.

George Shaw, in Spring 2009, held

a solo exhibition Woodsman at

Wilkinson Gallery London. Other

recent exhibitions include Solo

shows, The End of the World, Galerie

Hussenot Paris, and Poets Day, Centre

d’Art Contemporian, Geneva, and

What I did This Summer, Ikon Gallery

Birmingham, Newlyn Art Gallery and

Dundee Centre of Contemporary Art.

Group exhibitions include Master

Printer, Tate St Ives, Cornwall, Idle

Youth, Barbara Gladstone Gallery, New

York and You Dig the Tunnel, I’ll Hide

the Soil, White Cube, London, Crash:

Homage to J. G. Ballard at Gagosian

Gallery London. Forthcoming

exhibitions in 2010 include a solo

show at Void Gallery, Derry.

Lynda Tavakoli in 2008 published her

first novel, Attachment and prior to

that literary successes included the

Eason’s short story competitions, RTE

Sunday Miscellany, BBC ‘My Story’ and

twice winner at Listowel. Her second

novel is presently under consideration

with a London publishing house.

Rhoda Twombly has lived in Ireland

for over thirty years. She owned and

ran a pub on Inish Mor in Galway,

then moved to Inishlyre, one of the

small Clew Bay islands. The close-knit

communities laced with traditions

and story telling, the spectacular land

and seascapes and ever-challenging

weather provides the inspiration for

her short stories and poetry.

Abridged Personnel

Maria Campbell is Abridged Editor.

Maria has just completed her PhD.

She will take the edge off an academic

career with as many forays into the

poetic world as is financially viable.

Gregory McCartney is Abridged Project

Coordinator, freelance exhibition

maker, North West Visual Arts Archive

coordinator, PhD researcher, and poet.

He is still damning the torpedoes.