My loyal and so far very unofficial readers will know that I am doing this ‘On My Radar’ – thing once in a while, not necessarily related to The Dock but  neat and art-y nevertheless. So here goes:

This year’s festival offers an incredible mix of film for professional filmmakers as well as genuine film lovers. On offer this year are 70 short Irish films, 15 independent features, an Irish language programme, a children’s programme and free workshops from some of the country’s best writers, directors and actors…

There is entertainment in the evenings, Sinead Monaghan will keep the young audience busy with her free puppet workshops and face painting and last but not least the event is crowned with The Underground Cinema Awards Ceremony held in Fitzpatrick’s Castle Hotel in Killiney on 17th September.

UCFF Weekend will embrace 5 major venues in Dun Laoghaire: The IMC Cinema, The Royal Marine Hotel, The Kingston Hotel, The Dun Laoghaire Club and Privé Nightclub, the official Festival Club.

Check out for more Details:

Guys, guys, guys,

I just had a peep at the new What's On Guide for September - November, it's going to be exciting times! it certainly brightened my Monday morning, so all of you can start getting eager and await the arrival of our little brochure in your letter boxes this week...

A couple of  very new things for music - and film lovers, a handful of fine shows/ gigs throughout the shorter days of the autumn ahead, Culture Night in town, a rare opportunity (which is still a puzzle  as none of you cracked the question with the Sony Walkman on Facebook yet), something for the connoisseurs of selected poetry, another guided tour through the galleries ... and the list goes on ... and oh yeah, The Last Wednesday is hosting De Dannan, lets better book a bit earlier this time as to not be the crowd on the wrong side of the door again...

Last but not least, Me, the new Dock Blogger, once you have that web link in print I count on you folks to log on, to comment, to keep in touch, very much looking forward to that!

Your Dock Blogger

Wow, what a Reading!

But first things first: the preshow talk with Alice Lyons, unravelling Muldoon’s poem The Coyote. Alice did her great job as usual, even though initially it seemed rather weird with the Pulitzer Price winner in the room, but Muldoon is so modest and humble and so refreshingly humorous and down to earth that I certainly lost that initial “weird-ness-feeling” pretty soon! Lovely poem by the way, you might want to look it up; I felt like all the different layers of my life washing over me while we talked about the poem, some sort of depth that is not easy to put into words...

The actual reading took place in one of the galleries, sharing the place with Napier’s polar bear as it happened, and more and more people trickled in to be part of an impressive audience - certainly at 2pm on a Saturday, as Muldoon noticed, while we could have been in the cinema also. But then again, “Cowboys vs. Aliens” turned out a rather dreadful movie as he assured us, so maybe he saved us the tenner for that!

I can’t begin to go into his work and poems here, I’ll be typing through the night and the next day… but sitting up front  I did notice how emotional he felt reading a handful of poems about a hurricane in the past, about his wife, about his daughter - the Footling and the circumstances of her birth. What a lovely glimpse to see a big man like him feeling so softly towards his family and his home…

Hurricane Irene is supposed to be hitting New Jersey by this evening, just as I am typing this, may Muldoon’s family be safe and well, along with everybody else!

Paul Muldoon made us laugh, and listen, and think, he made us take time out and feel between the lines, between the words… an afternoon very well spent.

Thank you Paul, very much so!

Your Dock Blogger

The first my friend told me about Paul Muldoon was that he has a glorious head of hair, that he makes quite an impression in any room he’s put into, and that he is outstanding and great craic to watch and listen to.

Michael H. Miller from The New York Observer put it that way: Paul Muldoon is one of the great readers alive today. His voice alters with every change in tone and he'll often pace around a room, his whole body responding to his intricate rhythms.

So much for saying it all in one short sentence, all the other important and official stuff about Muldoon you can google or read in the Dock’s What’s-on-Guide and I assure you it makes for splendid reading!

Before the summer I took one of the morning classes in the Dock, “Understanding Contemporary Poetry”, we unravelled a couple of Muldoon’s poems, and after an initial resistance something just clicked and fell into place for me. (and by the way, this is the right moment to say, lets hope that Alice Lyons will run more of her poetry classes! A great teacher, she makes it easy to be inspired and to look at poetry in a whole new manner. So yeah Alice, if you ever read this, please go on, I am sure some other crowd will agree!)

Anyway, we unpacked his poem “The Loaf”, which I initially just did not like, and it is amazing what you can discover when you look at a poem as a group of people!

I give you a couple of hints before the poem; certainly found them useful myself!

The Irish built the canals for the Raritan and Delaware Rivers in New Jersey, it was basically a terrible job on very little pay, lots of them died due to hard labour and hunger or starvation. If I remember it right Muldoon’s apartment overlooked one of those canals to evoke that particular detail of Irish history in him.

Those italic lines that end on an –ick are built like a sea shanty; probably deliberate as to refer to the Irish navies and their history; a shanty has always been a kind of song that workers/ slaves sang/ sing during their back-breaking work.

LICK in the very last line might refer to lick = hard work, as you find it in a dictionary, which was a new one for me too.

That’s the clues, now the poem; let me know what you make of it!

The Loaf

When I put my finger to the hole they've cut for a dimmer switch in a wall of plaster stiffened with horsehair it seems I've scratched a two-hundred-year-old itch

with a pink and a pink and a pinkie-pick.

When I put my ear to the hole I'm suddenly aware of spades and shovels turning up the gain all the way from Raritan to the Delaware

with a clink and a clink and a clinkie-click.

When I put my nose to the hole I smell the floodplain of the canal after a hurricane and the spots of green grass where thousands of Irish have lain

with a stink and a stink and a stinkie-stick.

When I put my eye to the hole I see one holding horse dung to the rain in the hope, indeed, indeed, of washing out a few whole ears of grain

with a wink and a wink and a winkie-wick.

And when I do at last succeed in putting my mouth to the horsehair-fringed niche I can taste the small loaf of bread he baked from that whole seed

with a link and a link and a linkie-lick.

From Moy Sand and Gravel by Paul Muldoon published by Farrar, Straus, Giroux 2002

Now you finally get to see him read it, I hope some of you get inspired to check him out and come along to his Poetry Reading in the galleries this Saturday 27th August at 2pm.

Ah, the new press release is just in, just in time for my blog, (thank you Claire from The Dock)!

So at 12.30 on the morning of the reading, Poet and Curator for The Dock, above mentioned Alice Lyons will lead a ‘preshow talk’ that will offer an introduction to the work of Paul Muldoon in a friendly and informal atmosphere. Those attending the reading are highly encouraged to take part. That to me seems like a well-rounded event at this stage!

I’ll be certainly going to see and hear for myself, so I might see you there!

http://youtu.be/AIe5l2jWTF8

Tickets are 10Euro, including the Preshow talk and are available at the box office in The Dock on 071 96 508 28, so business as usual…

Looking forward to Saturday,

Your Dock Blogger