A literary roundup
No-nonsense Mahon
Poet Derek Mahon isn't one for the limelight, but now he's the star of a biographical documentary which has its Dublin premiere tomorrow at the Irish Film Institute. Derek Mahon: The Poetry Nonsense, produced and directed by Roger Greene, screens at 1pm.
The film follows Mahon as he retraces his steps as an only child growing up in Belfast, through secondary schooling in the Belfast Academical Institution – Inst – to his student days in Trinity College, Dublin, and his formative years as a poet. Contributors include Seamus Heaney, Michael Longley, Frank Ormsby, Gerald Dawe, Terence Brown, Eve Patten, Hugh Haughton, Patricia Craig and Peter Fallon. Mahon talks about his life, his work, his past and his present – as well as reading a selection of his poems.
It was filmed over a three-month period in 2008/09 on location in Belfast, Portrush, London and Kinsale. Dublin features in scenes in the Long Room in Trinity library; the National Gallery, where Mahon explains the poetic inspiration he derives from the Dutch Masters, and the Gate Theatre, for which he adapted several classical stage plays such as Cyrano de Bergeracand Phèdre.
Mahon and Greene will take part in a Q+A after the screening. The film’s executive producer is Donald Taylor Black.Tickets from the box office, tel: 01-6793477, or at ifi.ie.
Truth after peace
After the violence ends, the secrets and the lies unravel. This is territory magnificently explored in fiction in David Park's The Truth Commissionerabout post-peace process Northern Ireland, this week longlisted for the International Impac Dublin Literary Award. Now comes a non-fiction title on the same terrain by journalist Ed Moloney, former Northern Ireland editor of The Irish Timesand author of A Secret History of the IRA, who currently lives in New York. The book Voices From the Grave, due out in February, will drag the truth about the war in Northern Ireland farther into the light than ever before, says publisher Faber & Faber. In the book, in a piece of historical evidence-gathering initiated by Boston College, two former paramilitary leaders, one republican, one loyalist, speak about their role in some of the worst violence of the Troubles. "Reconciliation between political figures who until very recently wished each other dead or in jail has not been accompanied by very much truth-telling about the past . . . This is a book that will make it impossible for certain forms of historical denial to continue in public life," according to Faber.
Poetry Now judges
The judges for the €5,000 Irish TimesPoetry Now Award 2010 are poets John F Deane and Alan Gillis, and academic and critic Maria Johnston. The award is part of the DLR Poetry Now – International Poetry Festival, which takes place from March 25th to 28th next year. It is presented annually to the author of the best single volume of poems published by an Irish poet in the previous year. The shortlist of five titles will be announced in February. The deadline is December 1st, 2009.
Observe McGuinness
As Frank McGuinness's iconic Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the Sommecontinues its nationwide tour, the playwright, whose career now spans almost 30 years, will be talking about his work at an Irish PEN event on Thursday in the United Arts Club, 3 Upper Fitzwilliam Street, Dublin 2, at 8pm. To book, tel. 087-9660770 or e-mail irishpen@ireland.com.
