As part of the ongoing celebrations of RTE Radio's 75 years on air, Radio One is holding a poetry competition on the theme of radio. There will be £2,000 in prizes, with £1,000 for the first prize. Listeners are invited to write a poem, not longer than 30 lines, which explores in some way their personal experience of the medium over the years. The judges will be Seamus Hosey of RTE, and poets Brendan Kennelly and Nuala Ni Dhomhnaill. Get your entries in before June 22nd to Poetry On Radio Competition, RTE Radio Centre, Dublin 4. The winners will be announced in the first week of September and the winning poems will be broadcast.
THE Forward Prizes for poetry are now in their 10th year and the closing date for this year's entries is May 4th. The prizes are in three categories: best collection, best first collection, and best single poem. The winner of the best collection award last year was Michael Donaghy for Conjure. Publishers in Britain and Ireland, as well as literary editors of newspapers and journals, are invited to submit work for consideration. Chairing this year's panel of judges is Christina Patterson, director of the Poetry Society, and regular reviewer and interviewer with the Observer, the Independent, and the Sunday Times. The other judges are Rachel Campbell Johnston, who has what must be the most thankless job in journalism - poetry critic for the Times; poets Michael Donaghy and Peter Porter; and "lad about town", critic AA Gill, who lists pornography salesman, sugar-cane cutter, nanny, barman, model and theatrical scene shifter on his CV. More information from truda@colmangettypr.co.uk
IT's taken some time, but British publishers have finally woken up and smelt the lemonade. Exact figures are difficult to come by, but it is estimated that the Irish market comprises up to 10 per cent of all books sold in Britain and Ireland. Given our much smaller population, that's a lot of books. Anyway, British publishers are now aware that it's not only adults who read books in this country but children too. That could be partly due to the fact that the past decade or so has seen more books published here by Irish writers, with Irish settings, which has to be a kick for any young Irish reader. Sadbh remembers that her only childhood experience of Ireland in print was Patricia Lynch, which left her longing for something more contemporary to identify with. Mind you, the alternative at the time usually involved lashings of ginger beer, a drink which always mystified, since it wasn't served in any shops we frequented. Now Red Fox Ireland, the new list from Random House Children's Books, is due in early May. Red Fox has long published children's books in Britain. It is now introducing a list which includes Irish fiction and which will be widely distributed both here and across the water. Among the titles launching the list are The Stretford Enders by Trevor Colgan; Missing Link and its sequel, Only Human, by Kate Thompson; and Ghost Bird by Mary Arrigan. So now British children will be reading about contemporary Ireland - and, along the way, will probably wonder what red lemonade is.
THE spring issue of Studies has appeared and Sadbh wonders if Charlie McCreevy will be perusing a copy. The theme of this quarter's publication is "Ireland in an age of prosperity". There are a number of essays examining the country's recent change of fortunes - which have not affected everyone positively, as we all know, no matter what the Government would like us to think. The essays cover a number of topics, including: Tony Fahey's `Religion and Prosperity'; Rory O'Donnell's `The Role of Social Partnership'; Sue Scott's `Environmental Hazards of Prosperity'; and Frank Barry and John O'Dowd's joint essay on `The Age of Tribunals'. This issue of Studies provides a snapshot of how we are now. Also included is an interview by Eamon Maher, a lecturer at Tallaght Institute of Technology, with novelist John McGahern, who is on form, as ever. "I thought that romantic notion of the writer having to go abroad was foolishness, even when I was young . . . I remember saying once that I thought a person could write badly in Ireland as well as anywhere else - you didn't have to go abroad to write badly!"
THE novelist Doris Lessing this week won the two-yearly British £30,000 David Cohen prize in recognition of a lifetime's work. Pervious winners have been William Trevor, Muriel Spark and Harold Pinter. Lessing, although the author of almost 30 books, is still perhaps best known for the novels The Grass is Singing and The Golden Notebook. In her acceptance speech, she noted that we may now be in the "silver age" of the novel, adding: "but we do not know which of our silver products will be judged as gold by our successors, nor does it matter".
Sadbh