DLR Poetry Now 2009

I loved every minute of this year’s DLR Poetry Now festival; the poets were terrific, the audiences were large and enthusiastic and frank, and our celebration of Seamus Heaney’s 70th Birthday was a joy to witness (I would say that, but lots of people who were there, including all our participating poets, have told me [...]

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Made in America: Seamus Heaney at 70

First Published: “Heaney at 70″, an Irish Times Special Report to celebrate the 70th Birthday of Seamus Heaney
April 13, 2009
 
WHEN FIRST he spoke to America, Seamus Heaney did not soften the edge of his words. In fact, in his first major interview with an American newspaper, Heaney suggested that it was a certain softness in [...]

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An Accidental Archive: On Interviewing Poets

First Published: Poetry Ireland Newsletter, March 2009

This is how I make my living, or a large part of it: I sit and talk with poets. Sometimes, I go to their houses to talk with them; sometimes, I spend an hour with them in a cafe, or a restaurant, or a hotel bar; sometimes, I sit [...]

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Obama and the Arts: Hoping for a New Dawn

First Published: The Irish Times, January 22, 2009
AS PRESIDENTIAL portraits go, it’s a change – no surprise there. But the portrait of the US’s brand-new president, unveiled last weekend at the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery in Washington, represents a departure from form radical enough to raise the eyebrow of even the most slogan-weary watcher of [...]

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Irish, But Not As New York Knows It: Irish Theatre in NY, 2008

First published: The Irish Times, December 17, 2008
YOU’RE IN A MIDTOWN Manhattan theatre. It’s the opening night of an Irish musical comedy about espionage and intrigue during World War II. Around you in the audience are some people who’ve seen the show before – in Ireland or in Edinburgh – and some who haven’t. [...]

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The Art of Influence

First Published in The Gloss Magazine, Ireland, November 2008
 
Scavenged from the cheap seats at last month’s New York fashion week, a grab bag of the influences we’re all meant to be sporting this season: Sci-Fi, Fetish, Deco, the designs of Alexander Girard, The Women (the 1939 original, not the new embarrassment), the late Yves Saint [...]

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The Wedding Planner

First Published in The Gloss Magazine, March 2008
 
“Now, the lace scalloping on this gown usually comes in vintage ivory, but on this particular gown that you have on right now, it’s in a vintage mint green,” says Kirsten, my attendant in the bridal atelier. “I think that this goes really well with your complexion, and [...]

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The Young@Heart Chorus

First Published: The Irish Times, September 28, 2007
IT looks like every community centre in the world. On the corner of two busy roads out of Florence, a suburb of a suburb of Springfield, Massachusetts, it sits with its windows and doors open to the neighbourhood – and most of the neighbourhood speeding past it. It [...]

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The Joy of the Round-Table Film Interview: Evening

First Published: The Irish Times, September 25, 2007
I’M NEVER messing with one of my own books again,” announces Michael Cunningham with a theatrical flourish at the press junket for Evening, the film that bears his second major credit as a screenwriter. The first was for the adaptation of his own novel, A Home at the [...]

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On Mockumentary

Early in January, when promo clips for the Irish TV show Dan & Becs (RTÉ) began to find their way onto the net, initial reponses ran the gamut from confusion to revulsion. “Please, please, please tell me this is a piss-take,” went one online comment. “This is serious?” asked someone else. “Is this show reality [...]

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