Acclaimed Limerick poet John Liddy recently paid a visit to his native city where he previewed some of his new work, which is shortly to be published. This his fifth book is titled 'Cast'a'net'. A very successful reading of the new work was given at the White House pub before an appreciative audience.
John who has been living in Madrid for the past 17 years is still very much grounded in Limerick and Limerick people. "I've been home every year for the past 17 without fail," he said. Asked why he comes every year? "I love it, the city and the people are still a great source of inspiration to me," he explained.
John also brought news of his brother Liam who has written his first novel called Limerick Junction and who is actively seeking a publisher. Johns other brother Mark
is a well-known tourist guide in the city and his vast knowledge of local history has enhanced the experience of visiting the city for many tourists.
Below is one of John's new poems called O Winged Bird, a tribute to his friend and fellow poet the late Michael Hartnett.
O WINGED BIRD
for Angela
Our fathers knew each other in the music of hurling,
As we did in poems and songs, and though the years
Fill our lives with empty meeting places, I treasure
Your line 'Bóthar an fhile gan chloch mhíle air'.
There was no poetry in my milestones then, you said,
The people of Clonard and Ballymurphy would sort it out.
But I wrote my Southern Comfort in hindsight, to begin
The search for Starkie's gypsy ballads in post Lorca Spain.
Going home to Heaney's fish-smelling balcony I found
A swallow dropped in from under the crucifying sun,
A wren handkerchiefed outside, wrapped in a blanket
From a convent bed in Santa Teresa's Encarnación.
Over dinner you let slip a jar of beetroot and for years
The stubborn stain on the tiles spoke to me of hedge birds
Claiming the ditch in spring, Templeglantine memory
Of children chasing a pig around the hillside garden.
Much of what you trawled from your travels sparkled
Afresh on the page. The day your grandmother died
During the Moroccan Madrid fling, O Bruadair's tortured
Tribe, the death of a Gaeltacht in Moonagay, love and exile
In the Pale, and all that móin a' bheatha seeping through
The veins of a dangerous little bundle, a sickly child,
Who was the worth of two poets in two languages,
Who heard 'wings of parchment shake and bells weep'.
