The launch of Revival no 7 was a great success, and a very enjoyable evening was had by all. Kevin Higgins who was on hand to do the launch, said a few words, and then treated all and sundry to an excellent reading of his work, which I thoroughly enjoyed.

As is the norm for Revival launches, poets represented in the publication who are present on the night are asked to read their poem. I read Lament which appears in Revival 7. View the launch slide show.

Afterwards, there was the weekly open mic which proved very lively and entertaining as lots of really good work was presented. A group of poets from the Listowel Writers Group were present and some of them read also. I took the opportunity to read Tricolour for the first time. I found it difficult as I didn’t have the poem properly committed to memory and ended up trying to read it from the page - always a problem for me. The result was I made a bit of a mess of it and the poem didn’t flow like it should. I also felt uncomfortable while reading it and upon reflection I realized that this was because I hadn’t properly contextualized it. This I did the next day (10 April), by adding an appropriate excerpt from The Proclamation of The Irish Republic to the beginning. At last Sunday’s monthly meeting of the Three-Legged Stool Poets in Ennis, I read the updated version and am pleased to confirm that the poem is indeed finished. I have now amended the poem which I published in a previous posting.