Archive
Meditation on the voiding of Ray Manzarek.
You have gone nowhere.
You have gone to where you cannot go.
A no place with no fire and no ice.
No darkness and no light.
No exit. No entrance.
The eternal sentence.
Though sentence it is not.
No prison where freedom cannot be.
For there is no judgement and no justice
after we have died,
no forgiveness, no redemption,
no punishment, no guilt.
Thank you for teaching me this
when I was a stupid,
angry, hurting kid
naive enough to think
that dying was glorious and artful.
Thank you for teaching me
that we must dance while we have limbs,
talk while we have words
sing while we have tongues
to sing with.
Thank you for teaching that the desire which animates our bodies
and the dreams which animate our minds
are our true commandments,
our physical prophecies.
Thank you for teaching me
that it’s the walls and doors
in this imprisoned life we
must break through
if we really want to be free.
Shared from Google Keep
Meditation on the voiding of Ray Manzarek.
You have gone nowhere.
You have gone to where you cannot go.
A no place with no fire and no ice.
No darkness and no light.
No exit. No entrance.
The eternal sentence.
Though sentence it is not.
No prison where freedom cannot be.
For there is no judgement and no justice
after we have died,
no forgiveness, no redemption,
no punishment, no guilt.
Thank you for teaching me this
when I was a stupid,
angry, hurting kid
naive enough to think
that dying was glorious and artful.
Thank you for teaching me
that we must dance while we have limbs,
talk while we have words
sing while we have tongues
to sing with.
Thank you for teaching that the desire which animates our bodies
and the dreams which animate our minds
are our true commandments,
our living prophecies.
Thank you for teaching me
that it’s the walls and doors
in this imprisoned life we
must break through
if we really want to be free.
My life as a literary mutant
As usual I’ll be changing spots and shades and all-over-guises a lot in the next few days.
Believe it or not this is a less than usually busy week.
Here’s what I’m at:
Fri 17th May 6.30 pm
Galway Launch of First Book of Frags
Sat 21st of May 11am The Lab, Dublin 1
Leading the Dublin Young Authors performance and poetry workshop, supported by Dublin Writers Festival and Poetry Ireland.
Mon 20th May
3pm at The Helix. Attending as guest and nominee at the Dublin City University Civic Engagement Awards. I’ve been nominated in recognition of my groundbreaking creative literacy community teaching work.
Tue 21st May
Traveling to Dundalk to give a poetry workshop to the TYs of Bush Post Primary School. I’m writer in residence at Louth County Library supported by Children’s Books Ireland
Wed 22nd May
Performing and Mcing at Brownbread Mixtape/Dublin Young Authors Imagination and Transformation show – part of the Dublin Writers Festival
Thursday 23rd of May
Traveling to Rathnew in Co Wicklow to continue populating the earth with magical, bounteous hybrids, along with the amazing 6th class boys of St Ernan’s primary. I’m writer in residence there, supported by Trocaire and
Sat 25th May
Reading at the Stinging Fly 15th birthday celebrations, again as part of the Dublin Writers Festival
Inbetween I’ll be editing this and this, and working on my new book of poems, PLAYING THE BONES, due out with Salmon Poetry in October.
The Magical Development Farm of Rathnew
I started today as writer in residence at St Ernans Primary school in Rathnew Co Wicklow. The residency is supported by Poetry Ireland and Concern and is meant to cover the theme of Development. Today we invented the Magical Development Farm, upon which we are developing new creatures, plants and animals designed to feed an infinite population on a Beautiful Earth.
Poster showcasing my Creative Literacy Work
This was designed by Paul Hegarty who heads the graphics team at Mater Dei. It’s part of my nomination for the Dublin City University civic engagement awards.
The God Question: A creative writing exercise with Transition Years
Below you will find photos of poems resulting from ‘The God Question’ an exercise I tried out on Transition Years from Bush Post Primary School in the Coolea Peninsula.
The workshop took place in Louth County Library in Dundalk, where I am currently writer in residence, funded by Children’s Books Ireland.
The exercise went like this:
Ask each student to write out the question or questions they would ask God if given a private audience.
Ask each student to read out their question. Elicit possible answers from the class.
Now get each student to pass their question to the leftwards student who, standing in for God, must provide a detailed answer of at least one third of an A4 page.
Use the material generated to suggest individualised writing exercises for each student.
The floating orangeman of Grafton Street
A colourful and welcome new arrival into Dublin’s inventive and varied mendicant and charlatan community.
The Creation of Coolea
A poem by a Transition Year student in todays workshop in Louth County Library in Dundalk, where I am writer in residence supported by Children’s Books Ireland.
Nomination for civic engagement award for my community teaching work
I’m grateful and honoured that the English Department in Mater Dei have nominated me for the Dublin City University civic engagement award.
I was employed as Poetry Consultant by Mater Dei Institute of Education, with funding generously provided from the college’s educational trust fund, from January to September 2012.
As Poetry Consultant I had a number of tasks. The first of these was to actively research the pedagogic practice of creative literacy in partnership with local schools, youth and community groups. Put simply, creative literacy is the employment of non-traditional teaching methods incorporating pedagogic elements drawn from across the creative arts ( e.g drama, poetry and storytelling, but also art and illustration) to positively impact on literacy, with literacy broadly defined as an overall capacity for communication and self expression. Creative literacy is a whole class methodology, aiming to include and encourage all clients regardless of starting motivation and ability. It was my aim, in line with the aims of the Mater Dei Educational Trust, to show that Creative Literacy could boost literacy levels among disadvantaged client groups in particular.
Secondly, I aimed to offer the results and lessons of this research, and my wider creative teaching experience, to the Mater Dei community through class visits, lectures and workshops, a pilot teacher training course in ‘teaching creativity’, and a creative writing consultancy service for staff and students.
I entered into professional working partnerships with the Home School Liaison Service for the North Inner City, with Iosaf Mhuire Primary School for girls, with St Gabriel’s mixed Primary School, with Mount Carmel Secondary School, with St Joseph’s Secondary School for Girls, with the JCSP Library Service, with Sphere 17 Youth Club in Darndale, with Coolock Library and with Aosog, a community based Child and Family Project based in the North West Inner City of Dublin.
I worked with twelve individual professional partners within these organisations. These were
Tara Coleman Sphere 17 Youth Worker
Stephen Blayds Sphere 17 Youth Activity leader
Deirdre Fitzgerald English Teacher. Mount Carmel Secondary School
Mairead Duggan JCSP Librarian, Mount Carmel Secondary School
Margaret Curley Coolock Library Librarian and Voluntary Literacy Tutor
Sinead Leonard Mainstream Primary Teacher, St Gabriel’s
Fionnula Mcgarrity Deputy Principal and Literacy Support, St Gabriel’s Mixed Primary
Niall Smyth Home School Liason
Aidan O Connor English Teacher, St Joseph’s Secondary School for Girls
Joanne Fagan, Principal , Iosaf Mhuire Primary School for girls
Gregor Kerr Home School Liason, Iosaf Mhuire
The response of all partners in the project was overwhelmingly positive:
12 out of 12 partners believed that my Creative Literacy projects had a positive effect on self-expression.
8 out of 11 believed it improved reading ability
10 out of 11 believed it improved writing ability
10 out of 11 believed it improved self-confidence
10 out of 11 believed it improved group/class rapport
In addition
11 out of 11 believed Creative Literacy should be part of mainstream teaching
11 out of 11 believed creative literacy should be part of teacher training
11 out of 11 would be interested in taking up training in creative literacy teaching
During the course of the poetry consultant outreach programme the following numbers benefitted:
612 primary school age students.
550 for once off ‘story-making workshops’ in various primary schools
50 in two separate five month long creative literacy projects in St Gabriel’s and Iosaf Mhuire
12 in a two week programme for supported children in the Sphere 17 Youth Club
132 Secondary school students
20 in a five month long creative literacy project in St Joseph’s
100 in once off ‘storymaking workshops’ in Mount Carmel
12 in a day-long creative literacy project with supported Teenagers in Coolock Library
10 adult members of a parents and family group in Aosog
50 primary and secondary school students filled out a feedback and survey form
40 out of 50 believed that Creative Literacy classes helped improve their reading and writing
45 out of 50 said that the classes had helped them to use their imagination
46 out of 50 said that the classes helped them to express themselves
48 out of 50 said that they would like to do Creative Literacy classes again in the future
Since the project finished in summer 2012 I have used my experience and expertise in designing the successful Teaching Creativity course for educators at Mater Dei and in giving teacher train workshops at various centers.
I’m delighted to be nominated for this civic engagement award. I have had a lot of recognition for my writing, but this is the first for my community teaching practice.
I believe that creativity is a general human capacity, and that exploring creativity under the guidance of a skilled facilitator can benefit participants both educationally and in terms of their overall self-esteem and well being.
I can design a creativity programme for any interested group and can be contacted to discuss this at dlordan@hotmail.com
Bees and Authorities
Solinus
on the authority
of Camden
incontrovertibly declares
that there are no bees in Ireland.
Keating impugns both Camden and Solinus
stating
“Such is the quantity of bees,
that they are found not only in hives,
but even in the trunks of trees,
and in holes in the ground.”
Modomnoc the beekeeper,
who was with St David in Wales,
was followed
to Ireland by
an adoring swarm of bees.
Writing in the 8th century
Bede the so-called Venerable opines
Hibernia … et salubritate ac serenitate aerum
… Diues lactis ac mellis insula …
Or, for you and I,
Ireland has a fine climate,
and is a land rich in milk and honey.
In 1920 Benedictine Brother Adam
hybridized the Buckfast Bee.
According to The Economist in 1996
Brother Adam was “unsurpassed as a breeder of bees.
He talked to them, he stroked them.
He brought to the hives a calmness that,
according to those who saw him at work,
the sensitive bees responded to.”
The Buckfast Bee – Brother Adam’s supreme
though far from only
achievement
as a breeder-
is super-productive
extremely fecund
resistant to disease
and disinclined to swarm.
However, it cannot perform miracles.
Good St Bega could. She fled Ireland
for Northumbria, away from an enforced
marriage to a Norwegian Prince.
There she founded the still-extant
Cumbrian coastal village of
St Bees, pop 1,717
according to the 2001 census.
Sometime after
but not too long after
850AD
St Bega,
in order to win the land
on which to build her priory
from goading Lord Egremont,
made it snow three inches deep
on Midsummers day.
Yes, she made it snow three inches deep
on Midsummers day
dispossessing Lord Egremont
and
presumably,
seriously upsetting the bees
as a consequence.
