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Poetry Tuesday

Poetry, as I mentioned last week, is so filled with distilled meaning that it can be read only at a fraction of the pace of prose. Thus, Seamus Heaney’s Opened Ground, which I bought a month and a half ago, is an ongoing presence in my reading life.

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National Gallery of Ireland Podcast (AAC)

This week I talk about Francis Denby’s The Opening Of The Sixth Seal. It is a huge, gloomy picture of the apocalypse that used to entrance me as a child. I discuss the sublime, Romanticism, the campaign for emacipation of slaves and quote the Bible all in less than 5 minutes.

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Join the Cultural Revolution?

I alluded, in a comment on my post below on Langston Hughes, to the minor political row which was prompted by John Kerry quoting him a few times in his speeches. Hughes was a commie for a while, you see, so John Kerry must be one too (though to follow this logic any further, one would have to conclude that Kerry is also a dead black poet).

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Bags Free Theatre Tickets

I may not be trying to buy my way into your affections with fivers in brown envelopes, unlike some people, but I can still offer goodies to readers. The Mental is a play in the Axis Theatre in the new Arts Centre in Ballymun. My sister, Róisín McGarr, (who you may have seen in last Saturday's Irish Examiner) is the producer.

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Poetry Tuesday

Poetry is harder work than prose. Certainly its harder to write, but it takes more out of the reader too, being distilled and concentrated with meaning in a way that most prose is not. For example, I'm currently working my way through Shakespeare's Sonnets at a rate of only five or six per evening.

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The Next Bebo

Gareth Stack, author of the wildly popular Why Do We Bebo? article which has skewed tuppenceworth's statistics ever since it was published (top 5 search results- bebo, BEBO, Bebo + ie and Bebo skins) has posted a follow up on his own blog Hummingbird Mentality called The Next Bebo.

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Croagh Patrick and the Formorians

I spent some time over the weekend asking questions about the relationship between Balor of the Evil Eye and Croagh Patrick. Anyone who's been to Westport will realise that this is a mountain with powerful magical connotations. The fact that the Church had to claim it for their No.

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Pac-Man: A Sad End

Pac-Man: A Sad End Originally uploaded by Editor_Tupp. All our heros must fail us in the end. This can also be seen as part of Kind-i-Like's collection of things that look like people.

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