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Clonakilty Red Pudding AKA Dave Lordan Wins 2005 Kavanagh Award national |
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 Wednesday November 23, 2005 23:09 by Indymedia Ireland Editorial Group - Indymedia Ireland
 In Honour Of The Occasion Here's One Of His That Was Lying Around In The Archives
By Dave Lordan (From collection titled 'Clonakilty Red Pudding'. The collection is dedicated to ‘Tom Barry’s Missing Statue’) All strikes are wrong, particularly the ones that go on. Some of the more recent poetry from the collection "The Boy in the Ring" which won the prize for Dave is available here as is a poem on the subject of Shannon Airport. The Kavanagh Award has been awarded yearly since 1971 and previous winners have included Pat Boran, Celia de Freine, Paul Durcan, Sinead Morrissey, Peter Sirr and Joseph Woods. Lilliput Press published an anthology of the recipients of the award since 1971 in 2004 titled Dancing With Kitty Stobling. Most Indymedia readers will know Dave Lordan as an unabashed socialist activist and this is often reflected head on in his writing. Here for example is Dave's Tribute To Joe Strummer and also his response to the events in Genoa in 2001. |
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Comments (22 of 22)
Jump To Comment: 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1What makes you the arbiter of what is poetry and what isn't? Or is anything written by anyone whose views you dislike not 'literture'? Strange that you consider yourself a better judge than the experienced and respected poets who judge the Kavanagh award.
Yes, it's lovely to see anti-war poetry winning awards. This stuff is anti-war. But it isn't poetry.
Congratulations, Dave - apologies for being late posting this. I heard you read once and enjoyed it. It's good to see someone get a prize who writes actual poetry rather than the precious, dry academic exercises that often seem to be passing for it these days.
I have many quibbles with the Shannon poem. I was mentally arguing with the 'I' speaker as I was reading it, and regretting that the arguments for direct action were made by a naive16-year-old acid head with an unhealthy thirst for martyrdom and a lack of appreciation for other forms of protest. But poetry that makes you mentally argue with it is a refreshing change in Ireland. Well done - it's well deserved.
...bring back the pun!
A Culchie with some Welly
A Crustie Punk and Smelly
A Shelly with a Belly
I'll see you on the Telly!
Congratulations Davy.
Lefties always go on about how we are excluded from mainstream culture because of our views. Now someone gets a prize and we deride him. Don''t be wankers all your lives.
Well done on the award Dave.
Re: the photo - I remember that classic karoke night indeed in a local pub outside the campsite in Niddrie in Edinburgh - the night before the main march through Edinburgh. Don't forget your rendition of "I am an anarchist".....though the anarchists here will probably clamber on your back if they hear that!
The guy who took the photo flew off to Sudan a week ago to head up a water/sanitation project there.
Well done again. Keep the poetry flowing. And that goes to the rest of us as well!
Political differences aside -
Congrats on the award Dave, I enjoy reading some of your poetry.
All the best mate for future work. D
Well done Dave,
And in the interests of 'compare and contrast' I thought I'd paste in one of my favourite poems by the inimicable William Carlos Williams (one my students have particular difficulty in finding anything even resembling a poem). The author has died and the poetry now belongs to the readers - with a nod of his head, Mr Conroy bows in the direction of Roland Barthes http://faculty.smu.edu/dfoster/theory/Barthes.htm - I hope that's the right link.
Mark.
William Carlos Williams
'The Red Wheelbarrow'
so much depends
upon
a red wheel
barrow
glazed with rain
water
beside the white
chickens.
I'm so sorry to upset the person who jumped to the red pudding's defense. I just thought it was shite! I put 2+2 together and realised that I'd seen the man before selling an even less well written journal. Now burgle my bank of youth if you will but it falls on stony grey soil to me...but as its November and I'm heading into town so I think I'll trip up Grafton Street along the ledge of a deep ravine. Compare and contrast etc.....
Its a literary device.......the building of a strawman to knock down -in this case the direct actionist position...something that the SWP did/does continually and is now here enshrined here in verse.
I read it as you read it no the author's position but his attempt to stereotype a position he understood himself to be competing with etc etc
Hard to be gracious to an activism that contiues to serve as the first line of policing for the Irish state.
my what a wonderfully brief span of attention the last contributor has
if you actually read the poem you would realise that the passage you ripped out is spoken by a character in a dialogue
and is not connected to the person who wrote the piece thinks of anything.
Just looking for something to gripe over.
Why not just be gracious?
This don't rhyme...
"People who are ready to take direct action
People who are prepared
to be beaten up by the cops
to be arrested
to go to jail
to be hung drawn and slandered in the Phoenix and the Indo
to make all kinds of sacrifices
we don't have to make excuses for our actions
to people who aren't prepared to make any sacrifices atall
we don't have to answer to your imaginary masses
we'll do just what we feel like doing ok
we'll tear down the fence
we'll break police lines
we'll block up the runway
and you are not going to stop us
no matter
what you say............"
...but the paralysis of analysis
rhymes..
And that is what this bard seems to have a bad case of......not without irony
...."and you are not going to stop us, no matter, what you say"....
...if memory serves us well. The "saying"/joint press conference of Dave's SWP crew did a lot to undermine the occupation of the runway March '03.
A successful occupation on the back of Mary Kelly, Catholic Worker actions and the consequent evacuation of 3 U.S. airlines transporting cannon fodder could have done the trick. The Yanks would have concluded with such condensed disruption that security at Shannon is a joke and left. I guess we'll never know...but to milk poetry from such mediocrity of action & foot stamping has a whiff of criminality.
Meanwhile the Shannon direct actionists, their legacy & contribution to dissident memory and the inability of the State thus far to convict the Catholic Workers remains the only pain in the hole sustained by the Irish state on this issue.
and throw out my clash records
since liking joe strummer is 'the swp line'
All his political poetry is just the SWP line. No original thoughts as far as I can see anyway.
First the poem and now this! Would youse ever call the competition after someone else.
cool to see poetry making the headlines.
Indymedia standing out again
Love the photo. I recall it was taken in the midst of a Karaoke session in Niddirie, Edinburgh, during the recent g8 protests, somewhere between my renditions of Bohemian Rhapsody and Like a Prayer.
Thanks to the well wishers.
is a clever boy no doubt but has just proved to me at least that dave makes it look easier than it actually is to write a poem.
and as for blaming the mess the irish left is in tourettes style on the swp for the past 5 years - sheesh - it's so 2001.
That's what I call an abdication of responsibility dressed up as clever boy anarchism.
"The left is a failure but It's nothing to do with me"
all the swp have got that any group who want to change things haven't got is 3 phonelines and 4/5 clapped out computers
I often get into bad moods and rant off a list of things that annoy me. However I wouldn't usually try to dress up venting my spleen as poetry, especially not a semi SWP wish list of complaints. How about...
Politicians corrupt; except honest George Galloway
Bush bombs bad; suicide bombs understandable
Working class good; pity so few of them are in the party
Working class good; except the ones who go on anti-drugs marches
Working class good; except the Lumpens (ie the ones we don't like)
Working class good; but why do they like Nike, Gap and Starbucks?
Irish Times; terrible but we'ed all love to write for it
Socialist Worker; terrible but at least it lets us write for it
Can't think of any more because my moods improved
Is this what passes for poetry these days?
Many talents indeed when it comes to the lingo. Vividly remember Dave being areested for use of 'bad' language outside Dept of Foreign affairs in 2001.
If this is for real, well done and congrats to Dave Lordan!! A man of many talents, obviously.