Some years ago – it must have been the mid-eighties – Paula Meehan and I were invited to read in Donegal (Ramelton, I think). Our host brought us to the top of a beautiful stone building where there was a roaring fire, and into a back room where we were invited to drink a fine, smokey Scotch called Sheep Dip to warm us up before the reading. I’m not sure if Paula took up the offer, but I certainly did.
But the most remarkable thing about that evening was that some people travelled up to 40 miles, as I recall, through wind and rain, to be at the reading. Among them was the poet Francis Harvey.
I won’t have to travel 40 miles, certainly, and hopefully it won’t be through wind and rain, but I hope to repay the compliment next Tuesday evening when Mr Harvey launches his Collected Poems in the Damer Hall, St. Stephen’s Green West, Dublin 2, at 19:00.
He will be reading with Gerard Smyth, who will launch his sixth collection, The Mirror Tent. Back in 1986, when I reviewed poetry for the late and lamented Sunday Press, I reviewed Gerard’s Painting the Pink Roses Black, and I see that an excerpt from that review is quoted on the Dedalus site, which is nice.
Gerard, like Francis, is one of those poets who quietly get on with producing fine work. It should be a lovely evening.
Francis Harvey at Dedalus
Incidentally, a third Dedalus book is out this month: Mary O’Donoghue’s Among These Winters. . I haven’t seen anything about a launch, though, which may have something to do with the fact that Ms O’Donoghue resides in the US.
