Slimming for the Beach

Note: some of the links in this post will bring you to amazon.co.uk

Just under a year ago, I had the plea­sure of being inter­viewed by Mar­ion Kelly for her Par­lour Review on what was then known as FM 103.2 Anna Livia, but is now known as Dublin City FM, on the 103.2 FM band. (It’s Dublin only, I think).

Well, last night, to my sur­prise and plea­sure, Mar­ion came to inter­view me again, this time also record­ing a read­ing from The Water Star.
She spoke about match­ing my read­ing with Tim­o­thy O’Grady, read­ing, I think, from I Could Read The Sky.

There are a few wheels within wheels here. Just last week, I finally got around to buy­ing the dvd of I Could Read the Sky, star­ring nov­el­ist and poet Der­mot Healy, and while I’ve only man­aged to see about 20 min­utes of it so far, both Healy and the film are amazing.

Also, I think I was intro­duced to Tim­o­thy by Matthew Sweeney in the Bar­bi­can in Lon­don many moons ago. As it hap­pens, Matthew’s recently pub­lished poetry col­lec­tion Black Moon has been short­listed for this year’s T S ELIOT PRIZE FOR POETRY, and he has just taken up the posi­tion of Writer in Res­i­dence in Cork, which I think is in asso­ci­a­tion with the Mun­ster Lit­er­a­ture Cen­tre.

And here’s the final wheel: The Mun­ster Lit­er­a­ture Cen­tre has just pub­lished Best of Irish Poetry 2008, edited by Bríd Ní Mhórain and Thomas McCarthy, which to my sur­prise and plea­sure, includes a poem by yours truly, The Warm Stone. As it’s freely avail­able on the web as part of my last col­lec­tion under a Cre­ative Com­mons licence, I’m sure the edi­tors won’t mind if I post it here by way of an ad for Best of Irish Poetry 2008.

THE WARM STONE

Beneath the star­lit sky
after the heat of the day,
we are talk­ing qui­etly
of beliefs
which mat­ter to us.

You’re seated on the porch,
wrapped in a shawl
against the chill.
I’m slouched
in a wicker chair.

For a pre­cious inter­val
we have found the ease
of hard-won simplicity.

As when, in a heat haze,
a but­ter­fly, like a hand
con­duct­ing a silent ada­gio,
comes to land on a stone,
then is still as the stone.
–Philip Casey



This work is licenced under a
Cre­ative Com­mons Licence.
Included in Dia­logue in Fad­ing Light, avail­able for free down­load from Irish Lit­er­ary Revival.

But wheels within wheels aside, back to Marion’s Par­lour Review.

103.2 Dublin City FM is now on Bebo
WWW.BEBO.COM/DUBLINCITYFM
and Par­lour Review goes out at 1300 (1pm) on Tues­days. Always worth a lis­ten and I’m prac­ti­cally sure that if you tune in to
103.2 Dublin City FM you can hear it on the web.