The Spanish-Italian Border

When you first mentioned the villa on the Spanish-Italian border
to which we might abscond, and there live out our lives
in a utopian idyll of sun and passata,

I instantly saw in the far, far distance,
among sheep festooned with golden bells,
a whitewashed house, a vine covered trellis,
a sun-dappled patio, a lemon tree grove.

Whispering natives, with a strange patois,
their kindly gifts of dried goat, wine,
and we conversing over their heads, (I in Spanish, you in Italian),
with many accompanying gesticulations.

And somebody knitting, perhaps, in a corner,
the bony needles clacking and clicking,
as you spit on the floor and I pound the table
and one of us smashes a glass to the wall.

Friend, we are both in the heat of our lives –
let us kiss, then turn ourselves back to back,
I’ll face the Atlantic, you the Adriatic
let us each stride out for our separate countries

yet know that our hearts are sunk in wool,
bound by a skein that will never unwind
to be always connected, through our mutual love
of a fairly exclusive, unheard-of language,

that we’ll always meet up, in far flung places,
as yet unmapped, as yet unfound.

Readings

The Shuffle, Poetry Cafe, London.
Mesoterica, Hammersmith
London Irish Centre, Camden Town.
Poetry Ireland, Dublin.
Brendan Kennelly Festival, Kerry.
Poetry Parlour, London.
John Hewitt Spring Festival, Antrim.
Strokestown Poetry Festival, Roscommon.

Publications (Pamphlets)

Ask For It By Name, Unfold Press

Poems by Simon Barraclough, Olivia Cole, Isobel Dixon, Luke Heeley, Liane Strauss and Roisin Tierney. Design by Lynn Stewart. "A well-stocked anthology of fresh produce from six prize-winning poets. Behind the bottles and the butter you'll find Mussolini cheating on the tennis court and meet the shark from Jaws in a Yorkshire millpond; glimpse the love of woman for orang-utan and make it across the Spanish-Italian border; spy on the hobbies of cowboys and drink deep of the Molotov cocktail of love..." £5/€7,00

Unfold


Poems by Simon Barraclough, Helen Clare, Andrew Dilger, Isobel Dixon and Roisin Tierney. Design by Lynne Stuart. £5




Gobby Deegan’s Riposte, Donut Press


Poems by Edward Barker, Susan Grindley, Valerie Josephs, Barbara Marsh, Graham Mummery, Daljit Nagra, John Stammers, Roisin Tierney, Sinead Wilson.

Prizes

Gothic - joint 2nd prize in the Brendan Kennelly Poetry Competition 2007
Invierno - commended in the Ware Poets Open Poetry Competition 2007
Trajectory - runner up in Strokestown Poetry Competition 2006
Untitled – longlisted for Bridport Prize 2005
Becoming – 2nd Prize at the Oxfam Literature Festival 2004
Feet - Winner of supplementary prize in the Bridport Prize 2002
Crush -A Special Commendation and runners up prize in the 7th How do I love thee? Open Poetry Competition Jan 2002.
Half Mile Down - shortlisted for the 2001 TLS Poetry Competition