“Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness. Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here.” (The Desiderata) It is the Christian season of Lent and just as I like to sing carols…
My favourite poet, if not the first living poet that moved my soul somehow was Thom Gunn. He was an English, “leather boy”, who moved to California in the 60ties and lived the rest of his life there. He died, maybe of an accidental drug overdose, in 2004. My title is really a quote from…
Odyseus and Hermes by Thom Gunn It is amazing to find this poem I had never seen before in Thom Gunn’s collection “The Man with Night Sweats”. The second line, “-beard scarcely visible on his chin-” is from his introductory quote from Homer on the opening page of his collection “Moly” written in 1971 (The…
Meeting Beetle: In my video on this blog called “Embracing Gaia Two” I mention a day at Schumacher College in Devon, UK. when I went for a long walk alone on the Dartington Estate. It lies on the edge of Dartmoor and the river Dart flows through it. For the first time in my life…
My dear friend Beth Philips reminded people on Facebook to-day that it was Whitman’s birthday so I posted the following: Here are some (other) things to do on the day: 1. If you are feeling down or depressed read Whitman’s “Song of Myself” the first poem in “Leaves of Grass”. 2. Read a poem…
Bella Fitzpatrick writes in Ireland’s Gay Community News (GCN) of the 16th. March about the way Bisexuality is ignored or consumed under the blanket term Gay and about how many Gays are disappointed to find the characters in movies like “Call Me by Your Name” are actually Bisexual rather than Gay. I tend to agree…
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…
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…
The Hug of Gaia 