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    Turbulence: Corrib Voices
    Turbulence: Corrib Voices
    Turbulence: Corrib Voices
    Ebook169 pages1 hour

    Turbulence: Corrib Voices

    By Various Artists and Mike McCormack

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    About this ebook

    An anthology of work from writers and poets taking part in the MA in Writing at the National University of Ireland, Galway, this book was originally published in 2003. It features an introduction by Irish Writer Mike McCormack, Winner of the Goldsmith Prize 2016 for "Solar Bones", who was Writer-In-Residence in NUIG at that time. It fe

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTara Press
    Release dateDec 28, 2016
    ISBN9780954562076
    Turbulence: Corrib Voices

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      Book preview

      Turbulence - Various Artists

      COPYRIGHT INFO

      First published by Siar Press 2003

      Siar Press

      Co. Galway, Ireland

      10th anniversary 2nd edition published 2013 and electronic edition published in 2016 by

      Tara Press, Dublin, New York

      www.TaraPress.net

      editor@TaraPress.net

      Copyright © of this collection Helena Mulkerns, 2003

      Copyright © of the individual pieces is with the individual authors

      This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher ’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover, print or electronic, other than that in which it is published, and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

      ISBN 978-0-9545620-7-6

      Design and cover by www.Cyberscribe.ie

      DEDICATED TO THE MEMORY OF

      Jim Mulkerns

      1927-2003

      THANK YOU

      Kevin Barry, Ramon Bonet, Dermot Bolger, Catherine Byrne, Susanne Carbin, Julia Carlson, Erin Carstens, Angela Carter, Ciaran Carty, Stephen Cary, Lucrezia Conklin, Roger Derham, Anne Ennis, Aoife Faherty, Noreen Fahy, Adrian Frazier, Mike Tobin, Trudy Hayes, Aidan Hynes, Derval Kennedy, Melissa Knight, Kathryn Laing, Scott Malcolm, Colum McCann, Mike McCormack, Mark McDermott, John Montague, Doug Mulkerns, Helen Mulkerns, Val Mulkerns, Deirdre Nolan, Ewa Neumann, Gordon Snell, Jennifer Smith, Eddie Stack, Robert Symth, Elizabeth Tilley, Jonathan Williams, Elizabeth Whyte, The Arts Council of Ireland, special thanks to all contributors.

      TABLE OF CONTENTS

      .

      Table of Contents

      TURBULENCE

      COPYRIGHT INFO

      DEDICATED TO THE MEMORY OF

      THANK YOU

      TABLE OF CONTENTS

      INTRODUCTION

      GETTING LOST IN CADIZ

      THERE ARE NO SEAGULLS IN TOTNES TODAY

      THE MEN IN MY LIFE

      EQUUS

      PIANOMAN

      TRIPTYCH

      THE SNAKE PIT

      TONGUE TIED

      CAT AND MOUSE

      MY MOTHER’S DIARY

      NIGHTSWIMMING

      IN MEMORIAM

      UNDRESSING FRANCESCA

      CLOUD NINE

      ROCKY DeVALERA

      INTRODUCTION TO WOODS

      SLEEPLESS

      HALIFAX, NOVA SCOTIA

      A WASH OF PALE SKY

      THE STORY OF A DROWNING

      COWBOY POETRY FROM MY BUSH

      TO THE GLORIOUS DEAD

      TARPAULIN

      AH SWEET DANCER!

      ABOUT THE AUTHORS

      PHOTOGRAPHS

      INTRODUCTION

      Mike McCormack

      Anthologies of new writing are some of the more delicate, lovingly nurtured blooms on the cultural landscape. They prove that out there, valiant believers give of their time and a type hectoring patience to bring voices out of lonely rooms. Like pirate radio stations which giddy the ether from time to time with their contrary voices and rhythms, they function as a kind of samizdat within the open consensus of this province. Tuning into them makes you complicit in a healthy underground. It marks you out as curious, unsatisfied with the current wisdom, anxious to hear voices in utero, avid to catch imaginations on the wing.

      The importance of such anthologies to writers, established and beginner, is beyond measure. They provide a type of proving ground where new work can be exposed to an audience who know full well that this same work has not received its final polish. Thus there is a type of critical latitude between the writer and his audience – they enter into a tentative partnership with each other. One is anxious for feedback, while the other hankers after new voices and ideas. Both hope for new perspectives.

      Turbulence is a classy addition to this tradition. It brings poetry, fiction and prose reflections by seasoned and first time writers, together within the curve of the biggest waterway in the province. It is a welcome addition to the cultural landscape of the west. It carefully showcases the work within a vigilant editorial matrix, which ensures that it is a book any writer would be proud to have their work included in. Some writers are publishing their first work in this anthology – it is a heady start, a major step up from small magazines or newspaper competitions. There are few thrills to equal seeing your first published poem or short story and a publication this cool and considered can be marked up as something of a flying start.

      In keeping with its brave origins the anthology delivers a variety of voices. Too often in the minds of readers and writers, anthologists and editors, these traditions have been artificially segregated as if they had nothing to say to each other or, worse, learn from each other.

      Turbulence cuts through these snobberies, refusing to recognise the ghetto mentality that tends to thwart dialogue. And while no one wants poetic prose or prosaic poetry – those etiolated hybrids – it is surely the case that in matters of theme and sensibility some type of fruitful intercourse can be hoped for. The alternate positioning of the pieces in this collection is the kind of forced intimacy which may lead to a fruitful cross fertilisation.

      As you might expect, there is a diversity of concern and topography. Themes of love and loss sit cheek by jowl with tales of feminine retribution and obsession. Middle-aged men cosy up to cool chicks. The West of Ireland broadens out into the wider spaces of the Canadian wilderness. This is of a piece with the wide demographic covered in the anthology.

      The mood is twitchy, imaginatively engaged but far flung. There is no binding theme, no running concern, no attempt to marshal individual voices into an artificially binding theme. This is as it should be. Anthologies of this type thrive on dissonance and jostling antipathies. Ideas bounce off each other, they gain light and shade from their neighbours, hopefully they will revisit each other in the future at some time known only to themselves.

      It comes with a fitting title — the rise and fall of its differing genres mirroring the contending moods of the Corrib river. Colours and rhythms displace each other in a warp and weft known only to itself. It is a book to be dipped into and savoured in quiet moments, a book for passing around in coffee houses and gatherings, and it will stand as a valuable record of these writers at a particular stage of their development. Read and enjoy.

      GETTING LOST IN CADIZ

      Misja Weesjes

      It is said that when the sun sets in Cádiz, it falls off the edge of the world. How it manages to climb back up again each morning no one knows, but the fall is always a magnificent sight. That is, if you happen to be within sight of the sea.

      You could be sitting outside the little fisherman’s bar on the Playa de la Caleta, for example, with a cold beer on the table beside you, and little fishing boats bobbing in the sea in front of the fort of San Sebastián, behind which the orange sun falls. Better still, you could take a stroll along the miles of beaches that run along the southern edge of the city. Here every evening, the locals go on their daily paseo, immaculately groomed, with beautifully dressed children and pedigreed dogs.

      Stray more than a few paces from the city’s edge, however, and you lose sight of both sea and sun, and are immediately swallowed up into the warren of narrow, cobbled, one-way streets that is the old part of Cádiz. As you walk along these little streets, dodging twenty year-old cars and innumerable scooters adorned with handsome young Spaniards, your eye will constantly be drawn to the old and dilapidated, yet still somehow beautiful buildings that make up the ancient port. Elaborately carved doorways support massive oak doors, behind which, more often than not, are little hidden courtyards embellished with Andalusian tile work and earthenware pots, overflowing with flowers and greenery.

      If you happen to look up, you will see a thin strip of blue sky, on either side of which drape down these buildings, hiding ornately rusted balconies behind weathered wooden blinds. The song of caged birds floats down and adds a sort of timelessness to your impressions as you walk.

      BWchurch300.jpg

      Cádiz is not a town that moves with the times. Its inhabitants do – slowly, years behind everyone else – but the town itself does not shake off its past.

      When, unexpectedly (for you think you know where you are going), you come upon one of the many scattered plazas – little and not so little, but never big – the slight sense of claustrophobia experienced in the streets fades, but you will still not be able to get your bearing from the sun. The plazas are not big enough for it ever to be visible among the tall, tall palm trees and oaks which adorn them.

      You sit down at a little table and order a nice cold caña, which inevitably comes with a little plate of olives, take out your map, and get your bearings. Then, when you’ve drunk your fill and found on the map both where you are and where you want to go, you confidently set off.

      Five minutes later you are lost again.

      Getting lost in Cádiz, however, is a rather pleasant experience. The town, surrounded almost entirely by water, has expanded only outside the old city walls along the narrow strip of land that joins it to the mainland, and you can, in theory, walk from one end to the other in fifteen minutes. Unless you unknowingly come within yards of the sea and your bearings, that is, and take a wrong turn, which takes you back into the heart of the town.

      You don’t mind too much though, for you will inevitably find the little church which was impossible to find on your last walk, and which provides some stunning examples of Catholic ornamentation at its baroque best. Or you might happen upon the Plaza de las Flores, which stubbornly resists being called by its newer name, Plaza de la Topete, and that is still covered with flower stalls.

      Then, unexpectedly, you will find yourself on the promenade – albeit the one on a different side of the town than you thought you were heading for – and you will know that if you walk along the beach, in just a few minutes you will again be within sight of the playa you meant to

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