The North Clare-based poet, artist and novelist, Frank Golden, is this week’s guest poet at the WhiteHousePoets evening - Wednesday 2nd April.

Dublin-born poet, novelist and artist Frank Golden has been living in Co. Clare for the bones of twenty years. Salmon Poetry published his The Interior Act in 1999, and other work includes the novel, The Two Women of Aganatz, On Route to Leameneh and In Partial Settlement. More recently he has had solo exhibitions of his paintings and has worked on film projects. The recent launch of his new collection, In Daily Accord, comprised a three-voice reading of the greater part of the poems against a backdrop of specially-composed piano music and slide projections of his works.

I had the pleasure of attending the recent launch of In Daily Accord at The Burren College of Art, which proved very enjoyable indeed consisting as it did of a Performance for Three Voices with music composed by Andrew Collins especially for the occasion. The three voices in question were those of Frank Golden himself, Valerie Whelan and John Doorty.

Unfortunately, I won’t be able to attend Wednesday’s reading, much as I’d like, due to other commitments.

I must say Margaret Galvin’s reading at the White House last Wednesday evening was very impressive. Of all the guest poets I’ve had the pleasure of hearing at the White House since my first visit last September, Margaret Galvin’s was by far the best performance. Her articulation was clear and expressive, and she talked about the poems in a warm and easy manner that won over the audience very quickly. The poems themselves were very accessible, well crafted and grounded, and at times very moving. All in all a very enjoyable evening.

As for the open mic session that preceded Margaret, I was the first to be called to the mic and did 3 poems - Leftovers, And So to Rest, and The Garden - all for the first time in public. Due to not having memorized them properly I had to read them rather than do them from memory as is my wont. This I felt detracted from their effectiveness, especially in the case of Leftovers. I must commit it properly to memory and do it again in the near future. The middle poem was probably the most effective on the night as it is more accessible and more easily digested on one hearing than either of the other two.

Claire Hughes also read two pieces which are “works in progress” in her own words, though the second and more effective of the two did not give the me the feeling of being incomplete in any way. Among other readers were Dónal O Síodhacháin who belted out a couple of republican ballads (which are not to my taste at the best of times) in honour of the season that was in it; Teri Murray, editor of Revival; and a couple more stalwarts whose names escape me.

Tonight at the White House in Limerick Margaret Galvin is the guest poet, after which there will be the weekly open mic session. If you’re in the vicinity drop in. I’ll be “reading” a couple of my poems as will Claire Hughes of the Clare Three-Legged Stool Poets. The event starts at 9pm.

I’ve made the change from Fedora 8 (which was very disappointing for the reasons I’ve expounded in the previous post) to Ubuntu, specifically Ubuntu 7.10 “Gutsy Gibbon“. I must say that the installation was painless and very quick - the whole thing only took 30 minutes - though the upgrades took somewhat longer. I’m delighted to report that everything is working as it should including the scanner, sound, and Internet. I’ve even managed to get Komodo Edit 4.3 up and running without too much aggravation (this proved impossible under F8) though it crashed initially. I’ve decided that a memory upgrade from 512Mb to 2GB is in order, and that should make the system super fast and efficient.

I’m disappointed in Fedora 8. It has really not done the job that the Fedora Core 4 install did all of 3 years ago. Specifically the Fedora 8 installer (Anaconda) did not pick up on the following:

1. My CD-RW drive (which was automatically recognized by FC4)
2. My DVD drive (which was automatically recognized by FC4)
3. My Floppy drive (which was automatically recognized by FC4)
4. My zip drive (which was automatically recognized by FC4)
5. I still can’t play my music CDs which I could under FC4
6. In fact I can’t even listen to Internet Radio which I could under FC4
7. I can’t get my AGFA SnapScan 1212U to work - it was automatically picked up and configured by FC4!

To access my CD-RW and DVD drives I’ve had to manually edit the /etc/fstab file. This is “no big deal” (as our United-statesian cousins would say) but I didn’t have to do this when I installed FC4 3 and half years ago, so why should I have to now, especially as time is really precious to me and I expect any good Linux install to do the basics for me.
I still can’t listen to my music CDs or Internet Radio. The end result is I’m seriously pissed off with Fedora 8 - in fact I think Fedora 8 is a load of SHITE for all the reasons above - and I’m definitely switching to Ubuntu.

Stand with Tibet - Support the Dalai Lama.

For what it’s worth (I remain skeptical of the efficacy of online petitions, but I feel so strongly for Tibet that I signed this one anyway) here’s the link:
http://www.avaaz.org/en/tibet_end_the_violence/

What the Chinese have done to Tibet and its culture and people since their illegal invasion all of 50 years ago is outrageous, but has been studiously ignored by the rest of the World for selfish economic reasons. Tibet has even been removed from atlases as a country and merged with China.

Due to lack of time I didn’t get the chance to report on the Limerick launch of the Voices of Clare book and CD which took place at the White House on March 12 last. A slide show of the proceedings can be accessed here thanks to Dominic Taylor of the Whitehousepoets.

The following members of the Clare Three Legged Stool Poets, whose work Voices of Clare is, read: Brian Mooney, Rob Hopkins, Murdoch Lothian, Claire Hughes, Arthur Watson and myself. Sean Kerin introduced each reader with a ‘tune’ on the Bodhrán. The event was MCed by Tony Brown.
For the record, I read/performed Bomb, “That horrible blot…“, Morning Fog, and “As deer move…“, all for the first time in public.
Poets that read for the open mic session included Dominic Taylor, Donal O Siodhachain, Teri Murray, Donal O’Flynn, Pat Reidy, and Tom Moloney.

Revival No. 7 will be launched on Wednesday 9th April next in the White House pub in Limerick. I’m happy to say that one of the poems I submitted for it has been accepted. I will be at the launch on the night, barring unforeseen circumstances.

I’m off to Kerry today for a much-needed break with my partner. I’m leaving the laptop behind (I really need a break from computers) so won’t be posting here for the next 6 days at least.

Tonight sees the Limerick launch of Voices of Clare, the new anthology of the Three Legged Stool Poets at the White House Poetry Revival at 9pm. I’ll be going along with the group and will read something though I have yet to decide what.

If you’re in the vicinity, drop in!