Robert Duncan is a little known American poet, he was a friend of Thom Gunn and remembered in Gunn’s poem “Duncan” in Boss Cupid (2000). Gunn says of him: “While the pen wrote, and looked beyond conclusion” I am a bit haunted by metaphors about conclusions of late; Lorna Shaughnessy in “Sacrificial Wind” has Euripides…
I posted my introduction to this piece when it was performed at the new theatre space in National University of Ireland Galway on the 23 rd of November 2016. https://hugofgaia.com/2016/11/24/my-introdution-to-the-sacrificial-wind-at-nuig-24th-november-2016/?iframe=true&theme_preview=true The space is now officially opened and is called The O’ Donoghue Centre for Theatre and Performance apparently becoming known as The ODT among students. The…
I wrote a poem some time ago called “On Being Lost” which talked about a river called “Bunowen” in Connemara, Ireland and how the river was my guide out of a wilderness place in which my partner and I had lost our way. The poem is below but at the time of writing I also…
A Letter to My Friend David: U.K. Policing and Crime Bill 2017 (Note this Act does not apply to Scotland or Northern Ireland) (Thousands of gay and bisexual men found guilty of decades-old sexual offences in England and Wales have been posthumously pardoned. Statutory pardons will also be granted to people still living…
Max’s NUIG production of The Bacchae by Euripides in a version by David Greig will be performed in the Mick Lally Theatre Galway from the 14th to the 18th of February. If you missed his Caucasian Chalk Circle don’t miss this. It is a small theatre, actually the old Druid in Druid Lane, so it…
Scott McVay, writing in the Prelude to “The Biophilia Hypothosis” (1993) edited by Kellert and Wilson says: “My conscious entry into the living tapestry of the Earth was through the whale tribe…My mentor was Ishmael, who on one occasion in “Moby Dick” was linked by a monkey-rope to Queequeg, a seasoned harpooner, standing on the…
In the Homeric Hymn to Dionysos we hear: “We, the poets, beginning and ending, we sing of you. Anyone who forgets you cannot remember sacred song.” All song is contained within that sacred space. Sitting here to day you should be very excited: very excited for two reasons. Firstly, because you are about to witness…
The Meaning of Life RTE ONE Sunday 20th. November 2016 Last night I watched RTE ONE’s “The Meaning of Life” with Gay Byrne. He was interviewing Archbishop Charles Brown, the Papal Nuncio to Ireland or the Vatican’s Ambassador to Ireland and Dean of the Diplomatic Corps here. What made me particularly angry with…
This was published in The Stinging Fly 2016 Centenary Edition “In the Wake of the Rising” Edited by Sean O’Reilly but since not many of my followers abroad will have seen it there I thought I would post it here now. Sorry about the double spacing in the poem …its a mystery..anyone have a solution?…
I have a new poem in the Spring 2016 Edition of The Stinging Fly called Remembering at a Civil Union the journal comes out in the shops on February 15th. 2016 but I think you can get it sooner on line: http://www.stingingfly.org/issue/spring-2016 I love the cover design by Fergal Condon. The Edition is to comemorate The…
Poem on Bartra Beach A “tombolo” is a sand spit that joins an island to the mainland and is largely, if not entirely, the creation of the sea itself and then the wind and vegetation and wildlife and it all becomes holistic and part of the mystery of Gaia herself. Like Gaia it is vulnerable…
Shipwreck Scene and Poem: This image is a reproduction of the scene on an ancient Greek drinking vessel of a shipwreck. The fragments of the “crater” where found on what was the ancient Greek colony of Pithekoussai, an island in the Bay of Naples, Italy, now known as Ischia. The crater has been dated as…
