Eamon Carr

Wednesday 28th October last Wednesday Series DUBLIN Reading and Open Mic 7.30pm in Cassidy’s Bar, Westmoreland St Cassidy's Bar, Westmoreland St, Dublin 2, Our regular reading and open mic with Steve Conway, Ross Hattaway, Eamon Lynskey, Noel O Briain, Oran Ryan among others! And we are delighted to ... (more)have poet, musician, journalist, broadcaster adn author of The Origami Crow, Journey into japan, World Cup Summer 2002, Eamon Carr as our guest reader for this event. Inthe late 1960s, Eamon co-founded Tara Telephone, a poetry group that both performed ad published extensively. Later he co-founded Horslips, the influential folk-rock band in which he is conceptualist, lyricist and drummer. He is also a journalist, writer and commentator on the arts, music and sport. He was born in Co Meath and now lives in Dublin.

The Anthology is drawn from works of people who have featured at the Ranelagh Arts Festival and contains written work from Bill Barich, Eamon Carr, Evelyn Conlon, Tom Conaty, Anthony Cronin, Tony Gilmore, Pauline Hall, Ross Hattaway, Anne Haverty, Francis Hyland, Maeve Kelly, Eamonn Lynskey, Aidan Matthews, ... (more)Cláir Ní Aonghusa, Eiléan Ní Chuilleanán, Noel Ó Briain, Honor Ó Brolcháin, Louise O’Callaghan, Raven, Nollaig Rowan, James Ryan, Oran Ryan, David Scott, Luke Sheehan, Ronan Sheehan, Macdara Woods. The Anthology also contains artwork from Bohoe, Raghu Babu, Imelda Healy, Kate Horgan, Ann Murphy, Daragh Owens, Martin Parr, Brigid Tiernan.

Seven Towers Themed Reading to celebrate Bloomsday

As a sports columnist for a Dublin daily, Eamon Carr watched the unfolding drama of the 2002 World Cup finals firsthand in Japan. Against the intense public spectacle of media attention following the controversial departure of Ireland captain Roy Keane, Carr followed his own private journey - a lifelong ... (more)quest to visit the shrines and places of the famed poet Matsuo Basho, recognized master of haiku. In a volume of spare, elegant prose poetry and his own haiku chronicling impressions and revelations of that journey, Carr explores the deep interrelationships found within the contrasts of ancient and modern, nation and individual, crowd and solitude, loss and victory in a work that is at once a poetry collection, a travel journal and a sports commentary – with a little music as well. This is Eamon Carr's first collection of poetry and the profundity and depth of the work is a just reward for the long wait. This is an exciting book because of the beauty of the work itself, and its significance as another
important milestone in the work of a great artist and a man who truly has the soul of a poet. The book is part poetry collection, part travel log and part Eamon's commentary and insight into the Roy Keane/Mick McCarthy 'debacle'. And some of our current heroes (Robbie Keane, Damien Duff and Shay Given) are in there as well!!

The book has already been receiving a lot of publicity - Herald, Independent, Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday, Sunday Tribune, Newstalk, Mooney (RTE Radio 1). There are some further TV and radio appearances as well as magazine and newspaper features and all this before most reviews are in !! John Waters has said about the book that "I can't praise it enough". He has also said he want to start a campaign to put the book at the top of the best seller list!!

Eamon Carr is a significant figure in the Irish artistic and cultural scene for many years. In the late 1960s he co-founded Tara Telephone, the music and poetry group of the Dublin beat scene. Tara Telephone published everyone from Marc Bolan to Allan Ginsberg, Brian Patten, Seamus Heaney, Pearse Hutchinson, Eilean Ni Chuilleanain, Brendan Kennelly, Adrian Mitchell, Pete Brown in their magazines and broadsheets. And among those who read with Tara Telephone, in addition to Eamon and Peter Fallon were Philip Lynott and Roger McGough. Following on from Tara Telephone, in the 1970's Eamon co-founded Horslips, the hugely influential band which is credited with creating the musical genre known as Celtic Rock, and in which he is also a drummer, conceptualist and lyricist. Eamon has also promoted musicians and artists, and works as a journalist, writer and commentator on culture, politics, arts, music and sport as well as an award winning broadcaster. He was born in Co. Meath and lives in Dublin.
"I can't praise it enough. I would like to start a campaign to put this on the top of the best seller list - where Eamon Carr belongs" John Waters
"It's great" Stuart Clarke, Hot Press
"witty and very readable tome." Eugene Masterson, The Sunday World

Steve Conway:
Dublin based Steve Conway is currently a DJ on Phantom 105.2FM and a former stalwart of that epic journey on that Good Ship that housed Radio Caroline. The Seven Towers Agency has signed to representing Steve for his wonderful memoir of his time on Radio Caroline. Steve's memoir gives us a behind the scene, fly on the wall look at the piece of cultural and broadcasting history that is Radio Caroline on its stormy journey through the 1980s until it ran aground at the end of that decade.

Catherine Ann Cullen was born in Drogheda, Co Louth. She is a regular contributor to RTE Radio 1’s Sunday Miscellany and A Living Word as well as producing current affairs, arts and features. She lives with her partner Harry and daughter Stella in Kimmage, Dublin. Her first collection, A Bone in My Throat, is published by Doghouse.

Ross Hattaway's first collection of poetry is a collection of 'High Country' poetry, reflecting the dichotomy of the New Zealand High Country where starkness and beauty, economy and expression, machismo and inner sensitivity exist in a symbiotic yet sometimes uneasy relationship. Moving and humorous, these arresting poems reflect the origins and upbringing of the poet and the psychic landscape of New Zealand. Beneath the spare, crystalline phrasing and economic use of language, Ross' poems hold a wealth of meaning and poignancy and reflect the experience of many men who are forced to trade their inner sensitivity for survival in a world of macho values. The poems come out of Ross' own personal experience growing up in New Zealand where, for instance, he bought his country music albums in secret in brown paper bags, lest his contemporaries realise what he was purchasing!

Ross Hattaway was born in New Zealand and has lived in Ireland since 1990. He has published poetry in periodicals and collections, including Writings (Wellington), Life Beyond the Louvres (Northern Territory Anthology), Poetry Australia. His readings include the Poetry Ireland Introduction Series, Anna Livia FM and Between the Lines (Belfast). The Gentle Art of Rotting is his first collection. In 2008 Ross was a guest at the Poetry Spring Festival in Lithuania, becoming the first Irish poet to guest at that festival. Part of The Gentle Art of Rotting was translated into Lithuanian and published as part of the festival celebration.

"An exciting new collection of poetry" Sunday Independent

Eamon Lynskey has had poems published in many magazines. He was nominated for the Sunday Tribune/Hennessy Literary Award for New Irish Poetry in 2006 and one of his poems will feature on the 2009 OXFAM calendar. His first collection Dispatches and Recollections was published in 1998 and he is currently working onhis second. As well as writing in English, Eamonn has also translated works of Italian poets Montale and Valeri and written in Italian – he holds, (among other qualifications!) a Diploma in Italian Lauguage and Culture from the Italian Institute, Dublin.

Dónal Moloney was born in 1976 and comes from Waterford. He has been writing seriously for ten years, during which time he has written a novel, several novellas and many short stories and poems. He is currently completing a collection of three novellas. He works as a freelance translator and lives in Dublin. He is a regular featured reader at both Chapters and Verse Reading Series and The Last Wednesday Reading and Open Mic Series. Donal is represented by The Seven Towers Agency.

Noel Ó Briain was born in Kerry, grew up in Dublin and now lives in Camolin, Wexford. He is a playwright and poet and a former head of drama at RTE. He has worked for many years in theatre, radio and television as an actor, producer/director, designer and script editor. into English as The Hostage and staged at The Royal Theatre Stratford by Joan Littlewood. He has produced and directed many plays in the Damer Hall under the auspices of Gael Linn. Among others these included Gunna Cam agus Slabhra Óir by Seán Ó Tuama and Aggiornamento by Chriostóir Ó Floinn. He also designed the sets for these and many other productions. He has directed Ulick O'Connor's Noh Plays at The Project. As a Radio Producer his drama productions have been selected as RTE's entries for the Prix Italia. He has won a National Jacob's Award for his production and adaptation of Seán Ó Tuama's Judas Iscariot agus a Bhean. He has worked as Producer, Director, Series Producer and Script Editor in numerous television one-offs, series and serial drama, often combining several of these skills in one production. These have included The Riordans, Bracken (which launched the career of Gabriel Byrne) Glenroe and Ros na Rún among many others. He also produced and directed the controversial series The Spike until it was withdrawn by RTE itself after complaints from the League of Decency and State interference. He has participated in a documentary in the Scannal series on RTE which deals with well known Irish scandals – including The Spike! (to be transmitted in Autumn 2008). He has won the Celtic Film Festival Drama Award for his production of Tom Murphy's screenplay, Brigit. His poetry and short stories have been published in a number of literary magazines including The Kilkenny Magazine and Poetry Ireland. They have also been broadcast on radio in the short story slot and on Sunday Miscellany. Noel has completed Land of She a hilarious adapted for theatre translation of Brian Merriman's Cuirt on Mhean Oiche written for five parts. He has also completed a short verse play inspired by Synge's Deirdre of The Sorrows, entitled Áinle and Árdán Are Already Dead.

Writer, actor, artist and activist Gerard Mannix Flynn said of Scattering Day, that "We are lucky today to have such a collection of work at our disposal. The poems are prayers, meditations for the every moment. I always think that when you pick up a poem to read it you're accepting help in your struggle in life. Make sure that when you reach out that one of Noel Ó Briain's poems is within reach"

Oran Ryan is Dublin novelist, playwright, poet and screenwriter. In 2008 he won an Arts Council Bursary award for his current project New Order from Zero.
Oran's first published novel, The Death of Finn concerns the sudden and untimely death of Joe Finn, a brilliant and eccentric young monk, and traces the impact of his death on the people around him, in particular his one-time best friend Frank, himself an ex-monk. The Death of Finn is a love story and a story of friendship. This beautifully written novel traces the relationship between Frank Ryan and Joe Finn, and the effect that this relationship, Finn's life and death has on Frank and on other people in their lives. It explores love and its absence as well as the power of institutions over individual relationships. Finn manages to be a truly Irish book while simultaneously evoking an internationally recognisable sense of place. It is also evocative of the past while being truly modern. Resplendent with beautiful one-liners and carefully drawn characters, it is sure to become and to remain one of the classics of Irish literature as Oran Ryan will become and remain on of its voices. Underlying the main text of The Death of Finn is a sub-text concerning a book, Giovanni Seipi at Home that the main character of the novel, Joe Finn, has himself written. In a unique venture, Seven Towers Ltd has produced a miniature version of extracts from this book to accompany the publication of The Death of Finn, Extracts from "Giovanni Seipi at Home". This miniature book is in the form of an academic biography and is written in the voice of Joe Finn.
"Oran is a new and powerful voice in Irish literature". Seamus Cashman
Seamus also praised The Death of Finn for "the fine detail of the writing, and the clarity and simplicity of expression and phraseology" and described it as "a serious and entertaining and perceptive novel of relationships and ideas and a book which will hold readers enthralled and awakened as they journey through it".
"Ryan brings a self-assured tone to this his debut novel" Sunday Tribune
"The Death of Finn succeeds well as a study of the search for faith and the inner workings of monasticism as seen from the Irish Catholic viewpoint, while also addressing the question of honesty with self and with others" Book View Ireland, Irish Emigrant (www.emigrant.ie).
Ten Short Novels by Arthur Kruger is Oran Ryan's second novel. This novel circumvents the natural order of novel writing as it is written in a cubistic format and the series of short novels contained within the novel are written by the hero of the novel himself, rather than the real-life author. Each chapter takes a different life, giving ten different perspectives on Arthur Kruger, some as lived by Kruger after he kills himself and inexplicably finds himself alive after being hit by a train. Exploring themes like life, love and the after-life, Kruger, as the author, challenges the reader to question their understanding of existence. Ten Short Novels can be read as a possible journey into a mind in the grip of a breakdown or the fictional autobiography of a man who kills himself and inexplicably finds himself still alive. Whichever way the reader experiences it, living life will never be the same again after reading Ten Short Novels by Arthur Kruger.
Writer and actor Frank Kelly, who launched the novel, described it as a stimulating, enjoyable and challenging novel "that made me chuckle with its wry Beckett-like humour."

Barbara Smith holds a BA Hons. Literature just completed, 2007; and will continue with Queen's University Belfast, with a MA in Creative Writing. Her debut collection of poetry, Kairos, is just published by Doghouse Books. She has poetry and essays published widely and lives in Dundalk, with her partner and six children. Other publications include Poetic Stage (1998).Barbara blogs at http://intendednot2b.blogspot.com/

Doog Wood:
Doog Wood is a Dublin based poet from North Carolina. His poetry has been widely published in journals and anthologies. His first full collection will be published by The Seven Towers Agency in 2009.