Biography

My first language is French but because of a long love affair with Ireland, I prefer writing in English. My first collection, SANDGAMES (Salmon publishing Ireland ) is now sold out I believe. The second one, EARTHBOUND is also to be published by Salmon in 2010.
Winning the Listowel's writers week (with my collection) and being short listed for the Tribune/Hennessy awards certainly galvanized me into writing and I have since, been published extensively in Ireland and France. Some of my short stories in both French and English, have been shortlisted by La Fureur du Noir and Fish crime writing. I have done readings in Ireland and France. I say reading because performance isn't something I feel very confident with. Recently in association with Brendan Ring (one of the top Irish pipers and harpers) we have been experimenting weaving poems with Irish music - uilleann pipes, bodhran and clairseach (early Irish harp). The audio clip "love in Corca Dhuibhne" is an example of this.
I have two novels on which I should be working but my cats make it very difficult as they find nothing more comfortable to sleep on than my keyboard.

Samples

BECAUSE HE WAS MY ONLY SON I TOLD HIM


- I gave you the blood of the heroes of Ulster
redder than the heather on the Mount of Sorrows
and I gave you the warring spirit of the Gallowglasses
and their flaxen hair bleached by northern tides

and at night when he slept
I whispered in his ear

- see the yarrow and the meadowsweet
they’re yours to make a fragrant bed
see the long horned cattle, white as milk
they’re yours for the finding of a wife
see the harp of willow and silver strings
it is yours for the casting of spells
see the harness and the foaming steed
see the knave see the mail
see the spear the skieve and the bow
see the skene the axe and the claymor
they’re yours for all your victories
they’re yours for all my sorrows

because he was my only son I didn’t tell him
- I gave you Suibhne’s eyes that see
only darkness in the crystal of the Swillly’s waters
but are blind to the quicksilver leap of the salmon
and I gave you Suibhne’s crazed mind
more twisted than the blackthorn on the Hill of the Hag
sadder than a mother mourning the death of her only child
and I gave you Suibhne’s mouth that speaks only foolishness
and is forever keening with hungry wolves

and at night when he sleeps
I whisper in his ear
son of Ulster
son of Suibhne
son of mine
see the yarrow in your flaxen hair
see the hounds see the crow
see the furrow on my brow
they’re yours for all your victories
they’re yours for all my sorrows


LOVE IN CORCA DHUIBHNE

That day, I woke up to an anise sky
and your body was curled
against mine like bracken fonds
or newborn leaves in spring,
soft and young
in the crook of my belly.
Through the sash window
morning surged forward
with its slate-blue sky
scratched by seagulls
with its strident scattering
of houses yellows pinks and greens
somersaulting down to the harbour.


Slay Head
the road... O the road...
sometimes a stream
more times
just wishful thinking
but always the dancer
the acrobat
dizzily leaning
towards the Ocean
as if wanting to slide
to tumble
down down down.....down
down to rocks below down to
where the waves foamed the souls of Silkies
in the distance the Skellig's canines
sharpened by time and the feet of monks
snarled at an obsidian sky
and my heart did back flips
Ventry
the memory of the sand
a strand grained with ossicles of armies
and wails of keening women
Dunbeg
a South-Westernly gale
salted our kiss
Kilmalkedar
a fretwork of stone walls
and fuchsias hemming in
green saturated fields
Dun an Oir
you said
'Trust me
I have an innate sense
of direction
when it comes to the West.'
and we got lost
for a lifetime
between a brooding earth
and a stone sky
Glenn na-n-Gealt
we looked in springs
for the effervescence of watercress
to cure our madness
but only found in glaucous ponds
a froth of clouds shifting on purple hills
and so the madness remains.



WE WOULD BE

We would be spirits forever unravelling
like the sands of night under the wing of a Tiger Moth
like an August afternoon unfurls in curls of distorted light
bleached white as bones of cuttlefish.

We would be a frost in May biting black the budding hazel
and the lark’s last sigh on the pale oyster of a kestrel’s underbelly
and we would be the smoke lingering from the landfill
to the thicket on a seagull’s back and the opium particles
priming purple asymmetric lips for a bitter kiss.

We would be the rejoicing of the failed prophet on finding
on his tongue the subtle almond of cyanide
peach kernel echoes in the green milk of an ultimate absinthe.
We would be spirits had you only waited a while.

All poems are copyright of the originating author. Permission must be obtained before using or performing others' poems.

All poems are copyright of the originating author. Permission must be obtained before using or performing others' poems.