For the second year in a row, the female members of Fermanagh Writers joined other women writers in Northern Ireland on 8th March to celebrate International Women’s Day.
Category: Literature
Free Your Voice! Free Your Writing!
Valerie Whitworth writes:
Together One Voice are starting the New Year with a challenge to free your natural voice and increase your singing skills!
This term we will be focusing on releasing the voice, vocal development, singing skills, confidence building with some small group work on pitch, and harmony work. Many people come to my classes with stories of how they were told not to sing by a parent or teacher, or not allowed to join the choir.
The truth is – if you can speak you can sing.
The Seventh Day
Between the years, with this year still unknown
There was, as when the Earth was made
A Seventh Day – a day to rest
The Brick – a Prequel
In the summer of 2001 I decided to build a low red brick wall around the back garden of my house in Enniskillen. Being a money-canny Ulsterman I looked for the cheapest cheapest bargain bricks I could find.
Those are all the seconds, the yard-man at Acheson and Glovers brickworks informed me, Their colours vary too much so they don’t match our best bricks.
They are all rejects I pointed out, and haggled a deal. Continue reading “The Brick – a Prequel”
Old Arthur
I was four years old when I went to spend Halloween on the island with my Great Aunt Catherine. Continue reading “Old Arthur”
New Beginnings?
I have seen it all before. Wars and rumours of… but let me not be too cynical. As one who has lived through the 1960s and seen the fall of the Soviet Union and the Iron Curtain, the Trump/Brexit/Refugees thing seems quite mild by comparison.
2016 reminds me of the 1960’s, when all that had been certain seemed under attack from all directions. At first the sights and sounds were distant: Kennedy – the first Catholic President in the White House, Civil Rights in America, Joan Baez and Bob Dylan, the Vietnam War. Continue reading “New Beginnings?”
Annie Proulx in Leitrim
The inaugural Iron Mountain Literature Festival, based in Carrick-on-Shannon, was held on Friday evening October 7th and Saturday 8th, 2016, replacing the John McGahern Seminar which had run for eight years (2007 – 2014). The programme was loosely themed around ideas such as the language of landscape, place and memory in writings. An archaeologist, geographer and architect were part of the talks and discussions. Continue reading “Annie Proulx in Leitrim”
Suiting Up
I had thought that the confirmation slap on the cheek was the only remaining ritual to mark the end of childhood. I was wrong. I have recently had the experience of being part of a new coming of age ritual which young men of about 17 years go through. It even has a name – Suiting Up – and it is, as you might guess, the buying of the first formal suit, usually to coincide with a school debs.
The Red Gazelle
Standing in a sunny glade
Easy content for the day
I caught a movement by the fringe
When entered there
A beautiful red gazelle.
I watched her ballet stride
Cautious not to move
But still she saw me
And did not run away,
A steady gazing eye
Looked back at me
My First Anthology
You should write a book!
How often is that said to people? Countless times, I suppose. In my case it has been said to me sincerely, by dear friends who have read and heard my poems and have been pressing me to put together a collection.
