An unusual meeting of minds last weekend proved that life goes on at the artists' retreat in Annamakerrig after the departure of the Loughlins who presided over it for nearly two decades. RTE brought together a synod of writers, philosophers and scientists to describe the world in the year 2020 - and filmed them doing so.
The crew, which included Bernard Loughlin back from the Pyrenees, novelist Anne Enright, academic Declan Kiberd, psychologist Maureen Gaffney, journalist John Waters, scientist David McConnell, Kevin Warwick, professor of cybernetics at the University of Reading and Susan McKenna Lawlor, professor of space physics at Maynooth, kicked off the proceedings by viewing a programme made in 1979 which looked at how we would be living in the year 2000 - it was a bit off the mark.
The two-day debate, like the 1979 programme, was facilitated by Andy O'Mahony and, we hear, remained "fairly civilised". The debate will be screened in the autumn
`Poetry is a great thing if it can keep so many people inside on such a beautiful evening," pointed out John Banville who was doing the honours at the launch of John Boland's collection, Brow Head, in Waterstones on Dublin's Dawson Street on Tuesday night. Banville went on to describe how he first met Boland some 30 years ago when he was a mere casual sub-editor who had just completed a novel and Boland was in the lofty position of staff features writer.
"Ah, you're the writer," remarked Boland, from behind a cloud of smoke, and earned the friendship of the young Banville for ever after. The poet read a number of poems from his first collection, described by Banville as "sardonic and wide-eyed with a great deal of wisdom". Boland himself was a little more modest, and started his reading by quoting Wallace Stevens: "The public reading of poetry is particularly ghastly".
After the recent death of the 19th Lord Dunsany, whose father was the mentor of soldier and poet Francis Ledwidge, a previously unpublished poem has come to light. The present Lord Dunsany was sorting through his grandfather's papers when he discovered the following poem, which has a peculiar resonance in the present climate.
Called Prayer in Serbia, it was written after Ledwidge was on active service in Serbia in 1915. On his return he typed or re-wrote many poems, some written on poor quality tissue paper, others consigned to memory.
Prayer In Serbia
Up in the hilly distances
The gaudy-barn cock winds his horn,
And early wings are fluttering
About the rose-bush of the morn.
And every facet of the frost
Is glistening in the opening light.
God grant I see the rose-bush torn
In the dim garden of the night.
Who says lightning doesn't strike twice? Among the publishing events to look forward to in the months ahead are a number of books by daughters of famous mothers. Said to be part autobiography, part daughter's revenge, Girl is by Molly Jong-Fast, daughter of Fear of Flying's Erica Jong. Also on the horizon is a tome from Chastity Bono, daughter of Sonny and Cher.
Most interesting, perhaps, will be the novel from Flamingo in October by Iseult Teran, daughter of Lisa St Aubin de Teran. Dolce Vita is about a 16-year-old sexual fantasist. Given the peregrinations of her mother, most famous for her novel, Slow Train to Milan, Iseult, born in Venezuela, was raised in South America and Europe but now lives in London.
Scarcely a day goes by without a prize ceremony these days. As well as the usual shenanigans of the drinking variety, the opening ceremony of Listowel Writer's Week on June 2nd will be the occasion at which the winner of the Kerry Ingredients Book of the Year Award will be announced. The purse for the best work of fiction by an Irish author has been increased from £4,000 to a very healthy £5,000 and the judges are Bruce Arnold and Colm Toibin.
Shortlisted novels are Mike McCormack's Crowe's Requiem; Catherine Dunne's A Name for Himself; J M O'Neill's Bennett & Company; Peter Cunningham's Consequences of the Heart, and Gretta Mulrooney's Araby.