I was delighted to be asked to take part in the Creative Community Sessions this May by writer and editor, Jennifer McMahon. I’ll be talking about my experience of coming to terms with the scale of novel writing compared to writing shorter fiction. It’s lovely to have the opportunity to share whatever small insights I’ve picked up over the years.
Most importantly, the sessions are free to attend on line – all you need to do is sign up at Eventbrite here. There are limited places so sign up straight away.
And what’s even better, there are three other writers sharing their knowledge and experience also on the day: debut novelist, Patrick Holloway, writer and journalist, Gary Finnegan, and writer and researcher, Aisling Walsh.
All the information you need is at the Creative Community Sessions website. Plus, there’s a really informative archive of sessions held during 2024 and earlier in 2025.
two signs pointing in opposite directions: ‘success’ and ‘failure’
Every year around this time I compile a list of poems and stories I published in the previous 12 months. I suppose it’s a kind of taking stock, looking back at some minor successes to steel the will for the year ahead. I don’t think it’s healthy to judge one’s writing purely by the binary notions of publication / rejection (success / failure), but I suppose it’s a human failing to be that way inclined. All in all 2024 was a pretty good year in that I published a lot of new poetry written subsequent to the publication of my last collection Hare’s Breath(Salmon Poetry) in November 2023. Also, I published two new stories and an extract from my novel Riverrun during the year. I hope to write and publish more short stories in 2025. It’s important to note also that I spent a lot of time and energy writing words that were not published and are likely never to be. But I believe nothing is wasted. It’s the practice that matters.
My poem How to Pursue a Just War was published as part of the Poem Alone 24 hour anthology in January.
I was the featured reader at The Listeners in Rathfarnham in February. The Listeners is a monthly reading curated by poets Daragh Bradish and Ron Carey.
My novel extract The Liffey Speaks was published in the Storms Journal, Issue 4 in November.
I also have poems forthcoming in January in the Stony Thurday Book and Ink Sweat & Tears and a story with Barren Magazine due in early 2025.
Personal highlights of the year for me included reading at Fingal Poetry Festival in September in the wonderful Library at Ardgillan Castle in Skerries. The room was packed and the audience were so engaged. It was a real pleasure for me and a kind of homecoming too as I hail from Rush which is just up the coast. Huge thanks to Enda Coyle-Greene for inviting me to read.
I also had the pleasure of launching the new poetry collection, Where All Ladders Start (Alba Publishing) by Maeve O’Sullivan in November. It was a wonderful evening filled with great poetry, music and friends.
In music I was pleased to see a return to form for Vampire Weekend with their new album Only God Was Above US. I finally got to see them live at 3Arena in November which was a bonus. There were some great gigs in 2024, but the two I’d pick as best were Gruff Rhys in the Sugar Club in February and Art Brut at Yes in Manchester in October. (I’ve wanted to see this band for so long and Eddie Argos did not disappoint!). The low point musically has to have been Elvis Costello in Vicar Street in September. What looked like an enticing prosect of Elvis and Steve Nieve in a lo-fi stripped back set up turned out to be a disaster with Elvis’s voice constantly failing him with no band or backing singers to mask the fact. Awful.
In theatre, Stephen Rea in Krapp’s Last Tape at the Project Arts Centre was hugely enjoyable. The Agreement at the Gate in October was a surprise hit with loads of laughs I wasn’t expecting.
I read some great novels during the year including Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell, The Good Apprentice and The Sea, The Sea by Iris Murdoch, Ilona Wants a Phone by Alison Langley, Lightbourne by Hesse Phillips, Mouthing by Orla Mackey and Slow Horses by Mick Herron.
In poetry I enjoyed Louise Gluck Poems 1962-2020, John Burnside Selected, Landscape of the Body by Lani O’Hanlon, A Unison of Breaths by Lynda Tavakoli, The Colour of Time by Úna Ní Cheallaigh and of course Maeve O’Sullivan’s Where All Ladders Start.
I thought S.J. Bradley’s stories Maps of Imaginary Towns (Fly on the Wall Press) was excellent. In non-fiction I was engrossed in Mark O’Connell’s A Thread of Violence (which sent me back to re-read Banville’s The Book of Evidence). As birthday presents I got two excellent and cherished books from two of my brothers. The first, The Village of Longing by George O’Brien, is still for me one of the best memoirs I’ve ever read, and the second Patrick Kavanagh’s Self-Portrait, a beautiful slip of a book based on the RTÉ documentary first published in 1964 by Dolmen Press.
I’ve been following Toby Litt’s substack page all year. He always has something interesting to say about the compulsion to write, the process of writing and also some really detailed thoughts on the technical aspects. I spent a lot of time working on a novel project this year that I realise is going nowhere at the moment, so I’ve parked it. This year the aim is to read more closely and write only what engages me fully whether that be poem or story or novel. Let’s see where that takes me.
Thanks to everyone who engaged with my work during the year – readers, editors and fellow writers. Best wishes for a happy, peaceful and productive 2025 to all of you!
The Fingal Poetry Festival 2024 takes place from 13th to 15th September 2024 in the beautiful seaside town of Skerries in North County Dublin. I’m delighted to be reading from my latest poetry collection Hare’s Breath (Salmon Poetry, 2023) at an event in Ardgillan Castle Library at lunchtime on Sunday 15th September. The reading follows directly after the Poetry Walk through Ardgillan Park, led by poet Damien Donnelly at 11am, which will round off this year’s festival.
Ardgillan Castle
I’m particularly grateful to Festival Curator, Enda Coyle-Green, for inviting me to read as I grew up just down the road in Rush and a number of the poems featured in Hare’s Breath draw on memories and impressions of growing up in that part of the world. I haven’t lived there in over thirty years so it will be a kind of homecoming for me and for the poems. I hope that you can join me for the celebration. Entry to the event is free but you can book your tickets in advance here.
Hare’s Breath cover image artwork by Rosaleen Fleming
2023 was an important year for me, primarily because I published my second poetry collection Hare’s Breath (Salmon Poetry). It’s been six years since my first collection After The Fall was published and I’m very proud of the poems that make up this new collection. I was delighted to launch the collection to a full house at Books Upstairs (a very important independent bookshop) in November and also very happy to have John Murphy introduce the book to the world. John has been a huge part of my writing life as first reader and mentor for almost a decade.
That aside, the year has mainly been about working on the new novel. (I am still actively seeking a publisher for Riverrun which was a winner of the the Novel Fair at the Irish Writers Centre 2022). The new novel which currently has a working title of A Fork in the Road, has been taking up most of my time and will continue to do so in 2024. During the year I received support from Listowel Writers Week by way of a week long stay at the Cill Rialaig writers retreat in Ballinskelligs, Co. Kerry. I also was granted an Agility Award bursary from the Arts Council and was accepted for the National Mentoring Programme which is run by the Irish Writers Centre. My mentor is novelist and short story writer Sean O’Reilly and it’s been very interesting working with him as I write the novel. I have a further two sessions with Sean planned for early in 2024 and my aim is to complete the novel by the end of the year.
Here’s a brief list of how 2023 went for me from a writing perspective:
I was awarded a place on the National Mentoring Programme with the Irish Writers Centre and will be mentored by novelist and short story writer Sean O’Reilly as I work on my new novel work in progress in 2023/24.
I received an Agility Award in 2023 from the Arts Council of Ireland as I work on my novel work in progress.
I was disappointed not to publish any new short stories in 2023, but I’m happy to say that my story Call Me Cathy will be published at Fictive Dream in January 2024.
Next year my main priorities will be to finish the new novel, write and publish some more short stories and do as many poetry readings as possible, bringing Hare’s Breath to as many people as possible around the country.
Some the best short story collections I read this year included How to Gut a Fish by Sheila Armstrong, Evelyn Conlon’s Moving About the Place, Sean O’Reilly’s Levitation and Ann Beattie’s Park City: New and Selected stories.
Among the best novels I’ve read during the year I have to include The Singularities by John Banville (it has something of the old Banville in terms of character and concerns), Fludd by the late Hilary Mantel, Nothing Special by Nicole Flattery, Though the Bodies Fall by Noel O’Regan, A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan and Jabberwock by Dara Kavanagh (David Butler).
My ‘to be read’ pile grows bigger every week, but I’m looking forward to Booker winner Prophet Song by Paul Lynch and the current Winter Papers among many others in early 2024.
I hope 2023 was good to you and, whatever you’re reading or writing in 2024, I wish you only the very best!
My second poetry collection Hare’s Breath will be launched at Books Upstairs on Sunday 26th November 2023 at 2.30pm. I’m delighted to say that John Murphy, who is an extraordinary poet and writer, will introduce and launch the book for me. John, along with fellow Hibernian poets, Amanda Bell and Jane Robinson were good enough to write some very kind words for the back cover also.
My first collection After The Fall was published almost exactly six years ago, and I hope this collection builds on the themes and styles that emerged in that first book. I’ve had time to write plenty of poems and choose what I hope will be the best selection of my work during that period. Certain themes recur, of course; the passing of time, family, memory etc., but I hope also that poems reflect the world we live in too, its anxieties and concerns about the future. I think it’s a collection that looks back and forwards at the same time.
If you’re around Dublin on the 26th I would love to see you at the launch. If not, maybe you get a copy directly from Salmon Poetry or from your local bookshop.
The Francis Ledwidge Poetry Award is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year. The closing date for entries is 5th November 2023 so get your poems polished as soon as possible.
27 April 2023: Poetry Day Ireland Event
in Tallaght Library ‘Message in a Bottle’
Platform One Writers Event for Poetry Day Ireland 2023, organised by
Eileen Casey:
Unacknowledged Legislators of the World
Tallaght Library: Poetry Day Ireland Platform One
Writers
Written by Eileen Casey
The Unacknowledged Legislators of the World aims to focus on the
tradition of poets such as William Blake/Shelley, (including more modern
poets).
These poets sent out distress cries, highlighting physical, political
and spiritual abuse of power. Poets who used their poems as a container
for distress cries (S.O.S.) which in turn became significant ‘messages in a
bottle’ washing up on shores they had the vision to imagine.
Platform One writers (Eileen Casey, Doreen Duffy, Brian Kirk, Michael
Whelan, Susan Condon, Vivienne Kearns, Orla Grant-Donoghue, Brigid Flynn, Joan
Power) will read their own original poems inspired by these much-respected
S.O.S. poets.
The event will take place on the main floor of Tallaght Library where
the audience will have an opportunity to voice their views on the power of
poetry to influence policy makers in a world beset by social and environmental
issues. Poems will be displayed throughout the library for the duration of
Poetry Day, 2023.
Every year around this time I compile a roundup of what I’ve done from a writing point of view during the old year. This year started out being all about the novel but ended up being grounded in poetry. This is also the first year in a long time when I haven’t published a single short story. I have written a few recently so hopefully that will change soon.
I’m still on the look out for a publisher for my Novel Fair 2022 winning novel Riverrun, and I intend to continue to work on that in 2023. But, as I say, the year has been all about poetry. My workshop group, The Hibernians, began to meet again in person in The Teacher’s Club in September and it’s been great to be able to engage face to face with friends and fellow poets again.
So, here’s a quick round up of how 2022 looked from a publication point of view.
My sonnet sequence Nightbrooding 3, 4 & 5 were featured in the World Poetry Tree anthology in January 2022.
My poem Sun was published in Crannóg Issue 56, Spring 2022.
My sonnet Belturbet Under Frost was featured in the anthology Romance Options: Love Poems for Today, edited by Leeanne Quinn and Joseph Woods, published by Dedalus Press.
My poems Everything, Shade and The Facts of Life were published in Live Encounters Poetry Nov/Dec 2022.
My poem Workshop was published in The Stony Thursday Book, No 18 Winter Issue, edited by Annemarie Ní Churreáin in December 2022 (see cover image above).
In 2023 I hope to have news on my next poetry collection and also I’ll be chasing down a publisher for my novel Riverrun. I’ve started work on a new novel set in London in the 1980s, but it’s early days still on that. I want to write more short stories also next year with a view to publishing a collection of the best of them in the near future.
I read a lot of fiction and poetry this year too. The highlights in terms of fiction were Herzog by Saul Bellow, Lucia Berlin’s A Manual for Cleaning Women, Pale Fire by Nabokov, A Provincial Death by Eoghan Smith and The Deadwood Encore by Kathleen Murray. Kevin Power’s essay collection The Written World was very entertaining and informative, as was his Stinging Fly guest lecture delivered at the final Bray Literary Festival in September.
Poetry collections I read and admired included The Wrong Heroes by Eamon McGuinness, Depositions by Anton Floyd, The Last Spring of the World by Maureen Boyle and Phantom Gang by Ciarán O’Rourke.
I look forward to an exciting year of reading and writing and attending readings and launches in the real world, hopefully.
In the meantime I leave you with my poem The Last Days of Pompeii which was featured in Poetry Ireland Review, Issue 137, in the summer. Of all the poems I published this year it’s the one that I’m happiest with, in terms of ambition, range and tone. I hope you enjoy it!
Best wishes for a happy Christmas and a peaceful and fruitful new year!
This year the Bray Literary Festival runs from Thursday 29th September to Sunday 2nd October 2022. We have a huge list of great writers with over 18 events running over the weekend, including Booker Prize nominated Claire Keegan, Donal Ryan, Nuala O’Connor, Kevin Power and many more. You can download the very exciting programme here.
The poetry and flash competitions were extremely competitive this year and the shortlists have now been published. The winners will be announced at the special BLF Culture Night Event in Bray Town Hall on Friday 23rd September, which also features singer-song writers Catherine Ann Cullen and Imogen Gunner, and poets Supriya Kaur Dhaliwal and Emily Cooper.
Personally, I’m looking forward to hosting three events over the weekend. On Thursday 29th September, ‘Unlocking the Senses’ with poets Mary O’Donnell, Mark Granier and Ciarán O’Rourke. On Friday 30th September, ‘Northern Voices’ with poets Maureen Boyle, Stephanie Conn and Glen Wilson. Then on Saturday 1st October I’ll be hosting an event celebrating 40 years of UK publisher Dedalus Books where I’ll be talking to publisher Eric Lane alongside recent Irish Dedalus authors Eoghan Smith and Dara Kavanagh.
There are workshops available also with excellent tutors: Gerard Beirne, Rosamund Taylor, Colin Dardis, Maeve O’Sullivan, Éilís Ní Dhuibhne and Geraldine O’Kane.
This is, I believe, our best programme to date and I’m really looking forward to it. However, it will also be our last BLF. Tanya Farrelly, founder and Festival Director, explains the reasons for this decision in a recent piece for the Irish Times.
I hope to see you there this year for what will surely be a great celebration of all things literary!
I was honoured to be asked to launch Anton Floyd’s new poetry
collection ‘Depositions’ on World Refugee Day 20th June 2022. Anton
is a fine poet and good friend, and his new collection is an important and
impressive achievement, concerned as it is with the traumatic experience of
exile and displacement.
The
core of the collection consists of 120 tercets borrowing something from
the haiku/senryu format, a selection of which has been translated into 20
languages, many by people who have a direct experience of displacement. This
short form section seeks to articulate the experiences of asylum seekers at
each stage of the experience, the trauma, both in physical as well
as psychological terms. There are longer poems at the beginning and
end of the collection that meditate on war and the aftermaths of conflict. The
final section consists of a group of poems about the current tragic
situation in Ukraine.
Two
songs also feature in the collection, Love in a Time of War and
Peace Will Come, the latter striking
a hopeful note at the end of the collection. The music for both songs was composed
by Bulgarian maestro, Alex Zografov.
Anton’s
wife Carole Anne and his son Aodhán, (both artists) designed Anton’s first
collection Falling into Place (Revival Press) and have now,
between them, designed the cover for Depositions. Carole
Anne made the painting and Aodhán the layout of the jacket.
The
Ukraine crisis has tragically given the collection an added
relevance. The founder of The Pharos Arts Foundation in Nicosia, Garo Keheyan,
(https://www.pharosartsfoundation.org) has agreed to a Cyprus launch
in October 2022 in collaboration with the Irish ambassador there. There’ll be a
launch in Limerick and one in Cork also. The launch in Dublin is supported by
UNHCR – Ireland. The agency will place Depositions on its list
of recommended books and all proceeds from sales will support the work of UNHCR
– Ireland.
Brian Kirk is a poet, short story writer, playwright and novelist from Dublin, Ireland. His work has appeared in the Sunday Tribune, Crannog, The Stony Thursday Book, Revival, Boyne Berries, Wordlegs and various anthologies.
Brian's first poetry collection, After The Fall, is published by Salmon Poetry.
