Two literary magazines have just been launched - one of them the ninth issue of a well-established periodical, the other the virgin edition of a new enterprise.
Force 10 began its life in Sligo at about the same time as its current editor, Oregon-reared Molly McCloskey, arrived there, too. They're both still in the same location, and both are prospering in creative terms - Molly with her first and well-regarded book of stories, Solomon's Seal, and with a novel in progress; and Force 10 with a handsome, large-format, 132-page issue that's crammed with interesting things.
These include poetry from Seamus Heaney, Dermot Healy, Paul Durcan, Medbh McGuckian, Fred Johnston and Ted McNulty, fiction from Ciaran Folan, Eamonn Sweeney, Pat McCabe and Antonia Logue, and some splendid (and splendidly reproduced) photographs from a variety of photographers, both local and national.
The current issue was launched in The Winding Stair, Ormonde Quay, Dublin, last week, and many of the contributors were there, as well as a considerable number of well-wishers, who know a good thing when they see it.
I don't want to be too hard on the first issue of the Kilkenny-based Stroan, but it's impossible not to make one comment. In his introduction, editor Pat Murphy describes the magazine as "a labour of love" and perhaps, like Lennon and McCartney, he believes that love is all you need, but I'm afraid that's not so.
Principally, you need someone competent to proof-read your magazine and ensure that it's not littered either with grammatical and syntactical solecisms or with spelling and punctuation errors - apostrophes misused, commas and semicolons omitted and (to take the worst howler) reference to a writer called "Virginia Wolfe".
Such sloppiness is a pity because there are interesting contributions to this first issue of a magazine that wishes to provide a forum for new and emerging writers.
Different strokes for different folks - and for different newspapers, too. While the tabloids have been drivelling on about the engagement of David Beckham and Posh Spice, the upmarket broadsheets have been drooling over Ted Hughes's preoccupation with Sylvia Plath, as manifested in his latest volume, Birthday Letters.
No link there, you might think - the ongoing romance of a footballer and a pop singer can hardly be compared to the doomed marriage of two poets three-and-a-half decades ago - except that the approach of both the tabloids and the broadsheets to their separate stories has been marked by the same kind of hysteria.
Indeed, in their increasing rush to embrace tabloid values, the broadsheets tend to get even more hysterical than the tabloids. They did so with their ludicrously over-the-top coverage of the Hugh Grant-Divine Brown story (a watershed case in the tabloidisation of broadsheets), and they've done it again here.
Actually, I find their treatment of this particular story rather strange. Why all the fuss about a collection of poems concerning a woman who took her life thirty-five years ago? I can dimly understand the frenzied overkill of the people at the London Times - they, after all, paid a lot of money for the advance serial rights and were thus going to hype the "story" for all it was worth - but what about the simultaneous and almost equal hysteria from the Daily Telegraph, the London Independent, Guardian and other heavies? Had poetry and its creators suddenly become all the rage without me noticing?
The reason became clear when I read last week's edition of the Times Literary Supplement. After pointing out that several of these "hitherto unknown" poems "are so unknown that they were published in Hughes's New Selected Poems 1957-1994," regular columnist J.C. referred to the Independent on Sunday's editorial and its gushing headline ("Now We Know He Loved Sylvia") and sardonically observed: "Welcome to Dianamania, Part 2."
And yes, it all fits - the charismatic but deeply insecure and unhappy woman (Sylvia/Diana), the blighted marriage, and the surviving man left to stoically mourn the past and recall what might have been (Ted/Charles). All that's missing have been a few heartfelt words from Tony Blair to capture the public mood that the broadsheets have been so assiduously trying to drum up.
As for the volume of poems itself, despite the best efforts of Andrew Motion ("there is nothing like it in literature") and others ("the greatest book by our greatest living writer"), time will make its own assessment when all the brouhaha has died down. (See Seamus Heaney's review this page - Lit. Ed.)
Although there are literary competitions galore over the next couple of months, I have space to mention just a couple of them this week.
The biggest prize money comes from the Peterloo Poets 14th Open Poetry Competition, which is offering a whopping £4,000 first prize and is being judged by Carol Ann Duffy, Jo Shapcott, Simon Rae and Harry Chambers. You can enter up to ten poems (£4 fee to accompany each poem), the closing date is March 2nd, and if you want to know the full details, write to 2 Kelly Gardens, Calstock, Cornwall, PL 18 9SA.
Matthew Sweeney is the adjudicator of the Kick Start Poetry Competition, which offers a first prize of £200 and four runners-up prizes. The closing date is February 28th, winners will be invited to read their work at the Salisbury Festival, and you can find out more from High Walls, The Street, West Winterslow, Salisbury SP5 1RY.
Finally, an intriguing offer from Enzo Farinella, who is asking for applications from Irish poets who wish to join him on a visit to his native Sicily this summer. You can write to him at 56 Greenfield Park, Knocklyon, Dublin 24, but don't buy your sun tan lotion until you've heard back from him.