Leonard Holman

Leonard Holman is a poet and short story writer.

A Limerick man, who hails originally from Garryowen in the City, his poems and short stories have been published in the Limerick Leader newspaper, The Stoney Thursday Book,  the British Poetry Review, Revival, Anthology for a River, I Live in Michael Hartnett (Revival Press) and Street Line Critics

I have been published in revival,anthology for a river,the stony Thursday book I live in Michael hartnett book,street line critics ,and self published a book of short stories called the dark horse stories.

Under the title The Dark Horse Stories, Leonard's collection of short stories includes Paddy the reluctant Limerick Vampire, The Waiting Game, The Rose Murders, and many more.

ISBN  978-1-907107-04-7

Available on Amazon and in local (Limerick) book shops

 POEM

(1)

SHINE BRIGHTLY BURN FAST

Going to the cinema in my youth
I was mesmerised dazzled frightened
From this make believe world
Some stars shone out more then the others
And one flew out from the screen
From  rebel to story she played the part
Of the young hurt beautiful woman
Her Russian looks said it all
In rebel hurt tragedy witch sadly followed you
In to your private life
Made some bad decisions with some of your later films
But when you got the right script you shone
Now a new generation can see you again on d.v.d
And like me will fall in love with you
Actresses have come and gone but for me
None can touch you Natalie wood

POEM

(2)

FLASH

My today was yesterday
Yours is now
Grab hold with both hands
For soon it will be long gone

POEM

(3)

THE HOP HILL

We sit on the rocks. By the side of the road
Looking down on killalee  pennywell and garryowen
Young very little money and then easily pleased
Talk about the next weekend and where we go
Tent camped inside the field
Sylvia's mother blasting out from the transistor radio
Look down again put my hand into my jeans pocket
See have I enough for a bag of chips,yes
Walk back down the hill, still
Listening to Sylvia's mother saying she is catching the
Nine o clock train
Holding hands not thinking of the future, or what will
Come our way

Desmond O'Grady (R.I.P.)

DR. DESMOND O'GRADY

(1935 - 2014)

IT IS WITH THE DEEPEST REGRET WE NOTE THE PASSING

OF OUR ESTEEMED FRIEND,

THE POET, DR. DESMOND O'GRADY. 

FUNERAL ARRANGEMENTS

Published: Thursday 28th August 2014

Desmond's Funeral Service was held on Saturday, September 6th 2014, at St. John the Baptist Church, Kinsale at 12 noon. Funeral afterwards to St. Catherine's Cemetery, Rincurran, Kinsale, followed by food and drink at The Spaniard Inn.

The full announcement as published:

O'Grady (Kinsale) on August 25th 2014, at Bishopstown Residential Care. Desmond O'Grady, Rincurran Cottage. Sadlly missed by his loving family, relatives and friends.

THE DEATH OF A POET:  DESMOND O'GRADY 1935-2014

Desmond's son Leonardo said 'On this day August 25th 2014 on the eve of his birthday Desmond O'Grady died, born a Limerick man, Jesuit educated, defiant infinitely restless he pushed and tore at parochial Ireland while embracing the extraordinary spirit of its lyrical history.

Dubbed' the great outsider 'due to the recognition he received overseas, Desmond produced 19 collections of poems and translations, and rubbed shoulders with some of the greatest names in the Irish and European arts scene, including Samuel Beckett, Pablo Picasso, Federico Fellini, Ezra Pound, and Jean Paul Sartre.

He was also awarded a decorate by Harvard University in Boston and later was a  professor there, President Higgins said Desmond was ' deeply committed as a poet which he said 'had rightly received international attention'

Desmond's daughter Deirdre said he had lived 'a Bohemian lifestyle and has friends 'through charm and intellect' .Desmond has three children and six grandchildren, he returned to Ireland and had been living in Kinsale until his health began to fail.

Desmond's Funeral Service will be held on Saturday, September 6th 2014, at St. John the Baptist Church, Kinsale at 12 noon. Funeral afterwards to St. Catherine's Cemetery, Rincurran, Kinsale, followed by food and drink at The Spaniard Inn. Enquiries to Gabriel and O'Donovan's Funeral Home Tel 023 8841587.

(Date Published: Thursday 28th August 2014)

BIOGRAPHY

Desmond James Bernard O'Grady was born in Limerick on August 27, 1935.

He died on 25 August 2014, two days short of his 79th birthday.

Desmond O'Grady left Ireland during the 1950's to teach and write in Paris, Rome and America. While a Teaching Fellow at Harvard University, he took his M.A. and Ph. D. in Celtic Languages, Literature and Comparative Studies. He taught at the American University in Cairo and The University of Alexandria, Egypt.

While teaching in Rome, he was a founder member of the European Community of Writers, European editor of The Transatlantic Review, and organised the Spoleto International Poetry Festival

He also played the Irish poet part in Federico Fellini's 1960 film, La Dolce Vita (Italian: “The Sweet Life”). His name appears in the IMDB film's full cast and crew listing as 'Steiner's Guest'.

He was the 2004 recipient of the Patrick and Katherine Kavanagh Fellowship.

For many years now his home had been in Kinsale, Co. Cork, Ireland.

Desmond O'Grady reading in Limerick City Library

(photo:BJ Slattery)

POEM

(1)

SELF-EXILE

(1956)

These small men, belted and buttoned up astern,

 Bend to their sailing business deliberately as priests'

...

The cliff line of the island lies like a bent finger

Low along the far end of the muffled evening

/... (Selected lines: 1-2, 5-6 of 10) (!&)

 POEM

(2)

THE POET SENDS A POEM TO HIS LOVE

 A pleasure, my poem, for you to be

seeing my lady's curled hair;

would I were you and you were me,

then I myself would travel there.

/... (First stanza of six) 

POEM

(3)

HYEROGLYPHICS

As babies we discover you when we're

given paper and pencil to play with.

Tight fist scribbles emotion. Eyes behold

expression on paper. Our own. Applause

/... (First stanza of three)

What they said:-

Desmond O'Grady is one of the senior figures in Irish Literary life, exemplary in the way he has committed himself over the decades to the vocation of poetry and has lifed selflessly for the art.

- Seamus Heaney (1939-2013) Poet,

1995 Nobel Prize for Literature)

Desmond O'Grady has never used a typewriter. Neither has he used a computer. He has written his poetry, prose and essays during his life - all by hand." .../... "I am proud to be Desmond's friend and hope this book introduces him to many more new friends 

 - Barney Sheehan, poet.

   Editor of Desmond O'Grady's My Limerick Town

I dedicate this book to my school friend Barney Sheehan for editing 'My Limerick Town'. Educationalist Nora McNamara (1914-2007). She arranged publication of my first collection of poems 'Chords and Orchestrations' in Limerick in 1956. Limerick Artist, Jack Donovan, the painter I have known longest in the Arts and also our friend Richard Harris, the actor.

- Desmond O'Grady, Kinsale 2009 (My Limerick Town)

With his portrait on the cover, painted by Limerick artist Jack Donovan, whom he had 'known longest in the Arts', Desmond O'Grady signed copies of his My Limerick Town at its launch on August 28, 2009. Signing my hardback copy with the words, '... for artist Brian Slattery...' he had remembered our shared acquaintance, and memories, of the former Principal of Limerick School of Art, to whom he dedicated, among others, his book. But foremost in the short list of dedications was his school friend, Bernard 'Barney' Sheehan who edited, and published, the O'Grady book and who has done more than most to keep the memory, and work, of poet Dr. Desmond O'Grady foremost in the public mind.

- Brian J. Slattery

Desmond O'Grady - The White House Bar cultural connection

“In the 1950’s I told Kitty Bredin I was looking for a public house where people met to talk about their cultural interests and Limerick’s cultural interest, in particular. Kitty introduced me to Eamonn Gleeson who owned The White House. My suggestion was that we should invite any Limerick person who was writing poems to read to us over our drinks and that we also should invite any poet in Ireland or visitors from abroad to read their country’s poetry to us. That would bring their world to ours.” (*)

 

Kitty Bredin, as part of the Poetry Circle group, met weekly in a member's house to read and discuss traditional and established poets. In 1954, O'Grady was referred to Bredin, whom he met and they discussed writing and reading poetry. From this meeting he was introduced to the Poetry Circle group. Encouraged by these reading opportunities, the group became keen to reach a wider audience and began looking for a 'congenial' venue. O'Grady suggested the White House bar on O'Connell Street, the 'umbilical centre of the city'. Bredin introduced O'Grady to Eamon Gleeson, the White House owner at the time, who was also its only barman. Gleeson, who had an interest in arts and history, was amenable to the idea. And so, outside of the Poetry Circle, it was in the White House pub, beginning in the winter of 1954, and into the spring of 1955, that O'Grady first read his poems to 'a curious' public. Many of these poems would later comprise the twenty-one (21) contained in his first book of poems Chords and Orchestrations.

See also:-

Brian Blaney  John Liddy  Christy O'Donnell Bernard 'Barney' Sheehan

Brian Blaney

   

A regular reader at the White House Poetry Revival sessions, he is a former member of  Limerick Writers' Group (LWG) in the early 1990's. A regular reader of his work at Open-Mic venues and poetry readings including Limerick, Galway and during Listowel Writer's Week, his work has been published in Revival, Microphone On, Two Rivers Meet and local press media.

Brian Blaney is the pseudonym of Brian J. Slattery (in memory of his mother's maiden name).

Brian J. Slattery is the administrator / owner /  webmaster of the independent website 'www.whitehousepoets.com'.

POEM

(1)

PERGOLA

In fondest memory of Dr. Desmond O'Grady

(1935 -2014)

I slip beneath your sheets of syllables,

Succumb my senses

Blind my own ambition

But, should I fear delusion,

Eldest daughter of Zeus, whose feet

Stepped not on Earth’s firm soil

But trod the air above mens’ heads

And led them into pitfalls?

How can I tell, beneath your

Canopy of leaves, of storms ahead,

Unsuited, to my attire?

In the hail-storm blizzard

Of your words should I

Hold to your lines, unknowing,

Snow-blinded perhaps by the

Whites around their wisdom?

And when I reach Alexandria

What then, dear Desmond?

Will it stir my imagination as it did yours?

Will it be my destined end?

The city of my imagination?

Or will I be forever a khawaga*

In a foreign land?

Time and again I see your finger rise

And I hear your soft reply,

“If you’re lost in Alexandria,

Read Cavafy”

-          © Brian Blaney

NOTES:

*Pergola:  A covered walkway

* khawaga: Word listed in Desmond O’Grady’s ‘My Alexandria – Poems and Prose’ (Glossary of Arabic words).

Arabic pejorative word. Used to describe gullible (Western) tourists.

*Constantine Cavafy, poet (1863 – 1933)

Culture is an onion

of a thousand mendacious coats

each with a meaningful name

each finer than the last

full of expectant promise

leading to a core

where sits, alone,

a poet,

crying.

 - Brian Blaney

 Poems in Profile (2011) 

JULY 2014

Brian featured, with John Liddyin the first of the Mid Summer Lunch Time Poetry readings in the Captain's Room at the Hunt Museum on July 10th.

The readings are due to continue with a different pairing of poets on consecutive Thursdays until July 31st.

The Limerick Leader was first to feature Brian's 'Tis Here The Heart of Limerick Beats', a poem inspired by the Mayoral ceremony surrounding the erection of a new, updated, headstone at the grave of Michael Hogan - Bard of Thomond. Those who attended included the local historian, Kevin Hannan and no fewer than three former Limerick City Mayor's ( J. Kemmy, T. Russell, J. O'Sullivan) while the ceremony itself was performed by the incumbant Mayor, Richard Sadlier. Given The Bard's historically ascerbic relationship with City Hall, the majority attendance of civic officialdom was ironic among the small gathering, which included the only Thomondgate natives present, Brian Slattery (a.k.a. poet Brian Blaney) and his paternal uncle, Mike Slattery. The earlier modest gravestone, which the new one replaced, did not have a sculpted face of Hogan. It is for this reason Blaney chose to begin his poem with the words:-

Oh, what time is this that sees this, once mortal coil

Entombed and now reslabbed anew beneath this soil

My chiselled features cut in stone so fine

So friend or foe can kiss, or jab, my eyes as they incline...

Drawing on his wide work experience (industrial worker, artist/designer, firefighter, writer), Blaney's poetry explores issues with a keen eye for social injustice. Although not afraid to tackle international issues (e.g. 'Benign Neglect', 'Solzhenitzen's Sword'), as a native of Limerick (Thomondgate), his love and concern for his native City is evidenced by poems such as 'By the River' (a homage to the river Shannon) or 'Statute Instrument...' (a 2007 social comment laying bare the socio-political backdrop to the long-promised regeneration of disadvantaged areas). 'Chasm of Darkness' covers the almost forgotten reasons for peace in Northern Ireland while 'The Wise Men Have Gone To The Hills Again' highlights an acute awareness of religious power struggles and suffering within society at large.

A special reading (by Mike Finn) of 'Manhattan Skyline' (Poems in Profile), was performed at a commemoration ceremoney in the Augustinian Church, Limerick, to mark the tragedy of the twin towers on September 11, 2001.

From June, 2012 to January 2013, he assisted MC Barney Sheehan promote the weekly sessions. This included a redesign of the poster format and the write-up of weekly posters for visiting guest poets. The posters were then emailed directly to the printer for collection. One such innovative poster design was that to celebrate July 4th, 2012, American Independence Day. This saw a full-colour poster which, naturally, featured a bald eagle. The guest on that occassion was Mike Gallagher. The last poster featured Sheila Fitzpatrick-O'Donnell as guest when she launched her collections 'A Bouquet of Trilogies' on February 6th, 2013. 

Brian Blaney is currently working on a second collection for release in early 2014. His website can be found at: www.brianblaney.com

 POEM

(2)

HEANEY

(1939-2013)

-A Tribute-

He's gone

Amidst a contemplation

He slipped away

The pondrous brow, unhinged,

No more will rise

Awake this day

The eyelids ne're will lift

Those eyes in wonder

To expose

A lyric, suant

The lips no more to sing

Composed

No more measured tones

From heart to mind

With breath divulged

The lexicon, left open

Within the crevice of its revelations

The squat pen rests indulged

 - Brian Blaney (c) 2013

 POEM

3) 

DAISIES

Across drenched fields of dew

Like Spring's iced melting snow

In morning mist they glisten

Cheeky whites on show

One Summer's day in wilting

Amidst the blades of green

They'll silently submit to fate

To nature's cyclic scene

They'll drop their petalled blades

Like swords down at their feet

And bow their heads in silence

Proud blossoms in defeat

Last memories are of children

Daisy chained in barefoot plays

Their laughter rippling like a brook

In freckled fun-filled days

 - Brian Blaney (c)

POEM

(4) 

MAGDALENE

Like a child in the wilderness

I had no place to hide

After that summer's day in June

When the thunder came

I was a bad example they said

A disgrace to my parents

My family, my younger sisters

To the community of womanhood

How could I be allowed

With each parturient day

Waddle my swelling belly

Among them, unexplained

How could they allow the innocent,

Wondrous eyes of children

Share the marvel of a nativity

In their midst?

I cried, and asked, why couldn't I,

In the Mother of God's image

Just once - once, share her story

Of a virgin birth?

But the thunder became louder

And I had no place to hide

In the narrowing spaces of

Religious rightousness

And so I was taken

From my sisterhood to another,

The Mary magdalene's,

Sisters of mercy to those who had fallen

On the open, thunderous plains

They cut my hair, the lovely

Locks my baby sister combed,

Put ribbons in, and said, "When I grow up..."

She wanted hair like mine

They took my name, and gave me another,

To hide you, they said, from the June thunder

That rocks and rolls, for it will

No longer know your name

But with the thunder

They hid me too from

The scented Autumn breeze

Of my mother's voice - calling my name

They took my hands

That everyday held my father

"Princess hugs" he called them

And put a scrubbing brush in their palms

And from my voice they stole

The names of family and friends

And, from my ears, the music of

Their laughter in the fields

But most of all, they stole

The fruit of my womb, planted

By my first, and only love

In a shared embrace

On a June summer's day

Before the thunder came

And all was silenced.

 - Brian Blaney (c) 2013

What they said:-

'... the themes of his poems reflect his varied and wide-ranging interest in the world around him. This, he celebrates with vivid, and sometimes, startling, imagery.'

- Teri Murray, (Poet, Editor of Revival)

'When his muse summons, Brian responds faithfully through 'streams... of... universal truths'. It is refreshing then to imagine that if Brian were 'the only functioning player' on the lyre, such truths, such 'encrusted diamonds' would suffice, liberated with a lance of his pen from everyday spin. We must always be grateful.'

- Tom Moloney, (Poet)

'Chasm of Darkness' expresses sentiments pretty much that I do... remembering the people who have been murdered... in my long poem about Northern Ireland ('Pity for the Wicked' short-listed for the Ewart biggs Memorial Prize, 2007).

- Brian Lynch (Poet, Member of Aosdana)

'Probably the nearest thing we have got at present to the Bard of Thomond, Michael Hogan.'

- Eugene Phelan (Editor, Limerick Leader)

See also:-

Desmond O'Grady  Teri Murray  Tom Moloney  Brian Lynch  Bernard 'Barney' Sheehan

Mike Gallagher

Sheila Fitzpatrick O'Donnell  John Liddy

Knute Skinner

Knute Skinner has been a regular reader at the White House Poetry Revival sessions.  

     Born in St. Louis, Missouri, he has taught at the University of Iowa and at Western Washington University, where he was a Professor of English. Now retired from teaching, he lives in Killaspuglonane, County Clare, Ireland  with his spouse, Edna Faye Kiel. 

His collected edition, Fifty Years, Poems 1957-2007  (Salmon Poetry,2007), a collection of fifty years of published work, saw its beginnings in 1957 with serial publication and continued through thirteen books. His collection The Other Shoe won the 2004-2005 Pavement Saw Press chapbook award. A memoir, Help Me to a Getaway, (Salmon Poetry, 2010) was released in March of that year. In 2011, a limited  edition of his poems, translated to Italian by Roberto Nassi, was published by Damocle Edizioni, Chioggia, Italy. 

 His latest collection, Concerned  Attentions, was launched in September 2013.

POEM

(1)

IMAGINE GRASS

 

The planet that we plant upon

rolls through its orbit of the sun,

bending our grass upon the breeze.

While far away the galaxies

in a decelerating pace

reach for the outer edge of space.

 

Imagine in that final sky

(“Give me deceleration; I

will give you mass and curvature.”)

at journey’s end a far-flung star

of an unnumbered magnitude

Mount Palomar has never viewed.

 

In that expanded universe

the furthest star will be the first,

poised at the end of everywhere,

on the edge of nothing, like a prayer, 

to turn from nothing and retrace,

pulsating through the curve of space.

 

So many billion light years since

the particle horizon densed,

conceive the universe defined

within the orbit of the mind,

and somewhere in the measured mass

of everything, imagine grass.

POEM

(2)

ON THE INFINITE

But as I sit

And look, within my thoughts I conjure up

Unending space the other side of it . . . .

- Giacomo Leopardi (1798-1837), "The Infinite"

Your lonely hill was dear to you, as was

The hedge which masked your view of the horizon.

I read your words here in my home in Clare
And look out on a hill that is dear to me,
A gradual rise of meadow, rich with grass,
Divided part way up by an old stone wall,
Half fallen here and there, beset with briars.
A solitary boulder, left behind
When the field was cleared for grazing, interrupts,
Whitely, the green that rises toward the sky;
And at the top green shrubs show in their shapes
The tireless action of the Atlantic wind.
And as I sit, viewing this scene, I know
That I occupy the other side of your hill
And the other side of time, such as it is.

POEM

(3)

VARIATIONS ON A LINE OF VERSE BY JO SLADE

(For Edna)

 

Waiting is the possibility of something.

I’m waiting for the sun to set,

and I’m waiting for the sun to rise.

Both things are possible.

I’m waiting for better weather.

That too.

 

Waiting is the possibility of something.

But is anyone waiting for a banker 

to say, “I’m sorry”?

Is anyone waiting for the government

to embrace the poor?

 

Waiting is the possibility of something.

I’ll wait with you at the bus stop.

I’ll wait with you for the paint to dry.

I’ll wait with you at the checkout counter.

 

If you were not here, Love,

I’d wait for you always.

What they said:-

He has poems that, for sheer beauty, take your head off.

- John Gardner on A Close Sky over Killaspuglonane

If you want to know how real poetry reads,

buy this book, read it, and keept it.

- Leonard Blackstone (on Selected Poems)

In a time when many poets cannot resist the grand gesture, Skinner's art is the achievement of presence in the places we go to: in field, kitchen, bar, dictionary, anecdote, joke, love bower.

- James Liddy (on Learning to Spell "Zucchim")

This is a stunning collection, full of mystery, cross-purposes, weird and tragic characters, and should be read from start to finish.

- Aidan Murphy (on The Bears & Other Poems)

It's worth whatever stretches might be required to put it into your personal library.

- Joseph Green (on Stretches)

Sheila Fitzpatrick O'Donnell

Sheila Fitzpatrick O'Donnell is a regular reader at the White House Poetry Revival sessions.

JULY 2014

I met Sheila at the Hunt Museum during the lunchtime poetry readings. She told me about her latest project involving her friend and fellow poet, Dr. Bridget Wallace. The project is called 'Reading at Random' and involves touring with a chair ... yes ... a chair (only Sheila etc. ...). The intention is to promote creativity by offering the seat to anybody who wished to 'read at random'. So far, they've visited Sligo, Tulla and Sixmilebridge and they hope to get enough funding to for a poetry bus (more seats) to take on a Poetry Tour of Ireland. She says they are on facebook. Check it out. (BB)

Encouraged by her mother Polly, also a poet, who introduced her to the White House Poetry Revival sessions, Sheila has been writing poetry for since about 2005. To date, Sheila has been published in Revival, The Stony Thursday Book, and Boyne Berries. With contributions to anthologies Poetic Humour (Cube Printing, , Anthology for a River and, (by invitation), SEXTET (an anthology comprising six poets) in 2010, Sheila has also read at venues such as Cork’s ΌBhéal and Galway’s ‘Over the Edge’, where she has been a guest poet. A native of Limerick City, Sheila now lives in Shanagolden, Co. Limerick.

A florist by trade, Sheila’s first collection, fittingly entitled A Bouquet of Trilogies (Revival Press), was launched at the White House Bar on February 6, 2013.

"Poetry is the key that 

                      opens the door to my soul"

                                - Sheila Fitzpatrick O'Donnell

POEM 

(1)

POETIC DREAM

-For Polly- 

With a firm handshake

a smile

and the wink of an eye

you welcomed me

to the realm of poetry

/... (first stanza of three)

POEM

(2)

THE KEY

I asked for a sign.

A fresh yellow rose.

Just One.

I wondered if you heard me.

/... (Opening lines)

POEM

(3)

THE LIMERICK GIRLS PIPE BAND

Cloaked in emerald green

the silver flossy haired mascot

leading majorettes and pipe band

through the streets of Limerick

/... (First stanza of six)(!/!*)

See also:

Bridget Wallace Louis Mulcahy Joe Healy Evelyn Casey 

John Pinschmidt